No, it reveals that the reviewers were aware of prior art. The WWW was not academically a breakthru. It was repurposing ideas of hypertext (invented in 1945 by Bush and implemented shortly before and demonstrated as part of the Mother of all Demos by Engelbart in 1968).

Bernes-Lee made one (of two, gopher was contemporary and developed independently of the web) successful technical implementation that came at the right to take off commercially.

The would be a poster or tool demo at respectable conferences or a paper at a workshop.