OpenReview-Score-Watcher: The Scoreboard Hidden in a Paper Page
A Chrome extension that reads OpenReview review notes, averages the ratings, and keeps the result in a floating window that follows the reader.
- OpenReview-Score-Watcher turns peer review into an always visible instrument, not a background task you check in another tab.
- Its real trick is not scraping text, but reading OpenReview's structured review graph and turning it into a live average.
- The floating panel is the product, because persistence and drag-and-drop matter more here than broad analytics.
- Compared with batch tools, it wins on immediacy and focus, even though it deliberately stays narrow.
A scoreboard inside the paper page
Most OpenReview tools ask you to leave the paper and visit a dashboard, spreadsheet, or export. This extension does the opposite. It leaves the paper in place and drops the score state on top of it, so the review number stays in your line of sight while you read, compare, or refresh.
That choice matters because it changes the unit of work. The repo is not trying to give you a broader analysis suite. It is trying to keep one paper's review state visible long enough that you stop hunting for it.
OpenReview is not a document. It is a graph.
The technical move is small but smart. The extension pulls the paper's forumId from the OpenReview URL, follows the review notes attached to that forum, and reads the structured rating field instead of trying to infer scores from page text. That gives it clean input for an arithmetic mean, plus a last-updated timestamp when new notes arrive.
The UI is the product
The floating window is not decoration. It is the interface contract. It stays visible while you move around the page, it can be dragged out of the way, it can be removed, and its tracked state lives in chrome.storage so the layout and watchlist survive beyond a single tab session.
That is why the repo feels bigger than its footprint. A few DOM hooks, a little storage, and a lightweight fetch path are enough to make the browser feel like a live monitoring surface. The design solves a specific problem: review anxiety is not about data volume, it is about constant context switching.
本插件自动追踪 OpenReview 上任意论文的分数变化，并以全局浮窗实时展示评分、均分与更新时刻。
Why this exists in the first place
The repo reads like a tool built for a very specific academic workflow, then shared because it happens to be useful to others in the same situation. It uses the Chrome extension install path that skips marketplace friction, which makes sense for a narrow utility that matters most during a concentrated review cycle.
That narrowness is a feature. It does not need to become a platform, because the whole point is to remove one repetitive ritual: rechecking whether a paper's score changed yet again.
What it beats, and what it does not
The comparison is not about ambition. It is about where the information lands. Batch tools can cover whole venues, Google Sheets can organize assignments, and Zotero integrations can archive notes, but this extension wins when the user is already on the paper and wants the score visible now.
| Feature | OpenReview-Score-Watcher | OpenReviewTracker | OpenReview AC Workflow Automation | OpenReview Fetcher for Zotero |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary user | Reader tracking one paper | Researcher analyzing a venue | Area Chair managing assignments | Zotero user archiving reviews |
| Delivery format | Floating browser overlay | Python analysis scripts | Google Sheets workflow | Zotero notes and attachments |
| Live vs batch | Live | Batch | Batch | Batch |
| Scope | Single paper in the active tab | Venue wide | Assigned papers | Library items |
| Setup friction | Low, load unpacked | Medium, Python environment | Medium, credentials and sheets | Medium, plugin setup |
| Best use case | Keep one score visible while reading | Study aggregate trends | Coordinate review workflow | Store reviews with references |
That table tells the real story. This repo is not the most powerful OpenReview tool in the set. It is the most immediate one, and in a narrow workflow, immediacy is often the only feature that matters.
A narrow tool with a precise job
The best small tools do not try to solve the whole category. They show up exactly where the pain is sharpest and remove one repeated action with almost no ceremony. OpenReview-Score-Watcher does that by turning a paper page into a live scoreboard, then getting out of the way.