Use of "this reviewer" in a review I sent a article for reviewing before publication.
In the review I received, I had the following comment:

From very similar studies this reviewer knows well that [...]

This is the first sentence of a bullet list, with each item being largely independent of each other.
There was no mention of a reviewer earlier in the review.
I have two questions:

It seems to me that &quot;this reviewer&quot; refers to... the reviewer her/himself.  Am I correct?  Of note, the reviewer may not be a native speaker.
Is it widely used?  Especially compared to using &quot;I&quot; (just like other reviewers do)?
It refers to the reviewer writing the review. It's not that widely used (and personally I don't like it), but I have seen it in reviews, and as a native speaker I don't find it that unusual. It allows the reviewer to respond in the academic third person (a bit like saying &quot;the authors&quot; in a paper) - a grammatical construct to allow them to write with an academic tone.
Personally I just say &quot;I think&quot;!