As one who reviews 20+ papers per year, we don't have time to verify each reference.

We verify: is the stuff correct, and is it worthy of publication (in the given venue) given that it is correct.

There is still some trust in the authors to not submit made-up-stuff, albeit it is diminishing.

paulmist 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm surprised the conference doesn't provide tooling to validate all references automatically.

	▲	Sharlin 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		How would you do that? Even in cases where there's a standard format, a DOI on every reference, and some giant online library of publication metadata, including everything that only exists in dead tree format, that just lets you check whether the cited work exists, not whether it's actually a relevant thing to cite in the context.

its_ethan 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Sorry, but if someone makes a claim and cites a reference, how do you verify "is the stuff correct" without checking that reference?

	▲	emil-lp 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Those are typically things you are familiar with or can easily check. Fake references are more common in the introduction where you list relevant material to strengthen your results. They often don't change the validity of the claim, but the potential impact or value.