  Context: Pre-publication peer review of scientific articles is considered a
key element of the research process in software engineering, yet it is often
perceived as not to work fully well.
  Objective: We aim at understanding the perceptions of and attitudes towards
peer review of authors and reviewers at one of software engineering's most
prestigious venues, the International Conference on Software Engineering
(ICSE).
  Method: We invited 932 ICSE 2014/15/16 authors and reviewers to participate
in a survey with 10 closed and 9 open questions.
  Results: We present a multitude of results, such as: Respondents perceive
only one third of all reviews to be good, yet one third as useless or
misleading; they propose double-blind or zero-blind reviewing regimes for
improvement; they would like to see showable proofs of (good) reviewing work be
introduced; attitude change trends are weak.
  Conclusion: The perception of the current state of software engineering peer
review is fairly negative. Also, we found hardly any trend that suggests
reviewing will improve by itself over time; the community will have to make
explicit efforts. Fortunately, our (mostly senior) respondents appear more open
for trying different peer reviewing regimes than we had expected.
