The Double Bind: Revisiting Preprinting and Peer Review Two Years After the Removal of the ACL Anonymity Period

摘要

ACL removed the anonymity period for conference submissions in February 2024, allowing unrestricted preprinting during review.To examine how preprints and author recognition affect outcomes across institutional hierarchies, we track preprinting trends for 47k publications, survey 75 NLP researchers, interview 14 community members, and analyze 1.9k peer reviews. We observe that more elite institutions post preprints more frequently (52% vs. 36% by 2025). Most participants agree that preprinting gives these institutions an advantage in peer review, and indeed, reviewer knowledge of authors inflates scores at elite institutions (d = 0.43, p < 0.001) but not elsewhere, also lowering review quality. Nonetheless, the anonymity period was found largely ineffective; instead, underrepresented researchers emphasize struggles with visibility, review quality, and external structural barriers. To counteract these inequities, we make recommendations for review quality improvement and increasing investment in diversity initiatives that center the perspectives of affected communities.