Being responsible for the quality of the submission means that when other kernel developers say, "hey this part sucks, please fix it," you are obligated to fix it or defend your position, if you want the patch to be accepted into the kernel.

That last part is worth highlighting: you always have the option to not follow-up and abandon your proposed change, in which case it won't make it into the kernel. (Unless someone else picks it up and volunteers to get it into shape for that is acceptable for merging into the kernel, but that is vanishingly rare, unless the change is trivial.)

You aren't expected to hang around and maintain your patch once merged, that's what subsystem maintainers are for. But you would be making their lives a lot easier and earn a lot of respect if you did.