{"id":"1d146185-98cc-4f79-a2f2-c9bb813f401d","arxiv_id":"2411.14760","paper_version":1,"verdict":"UNVERDICTED","confidence":"HIGH","novelty_score":0.0,"correctness_risk":"low","formal_verification":"none","parameter_count":0,"one_line_summary":"A workshop proposal describing scope, topics, schedule, and call for papers for the 1st Human-Centered Recommender Systems Workshop at WWW'25.","lead":"This paper is the proposal for a WWW'25 workshop on Human-Centered Recommender Systems, describing scope, topics, and a call for papers. It is an event announcement, not a research result, so read it if you want to know what the workshop covers or who organizes it.","discovery_kind":"unclear","skeptic_critique":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","headline":"No significant objection identified: the paper is a workshop proposal with no scientific claims to verify, and its practical viability depends on community response, which is unverifiable from the text.","rationale":"The reader's verdict of UNVERDICTED with high confidence is appropriate. This is not a research preprint: it contains no empirical results, mathematical claims, or testable hypotheses. The strongest claim is that the workshop is needed and will advance research, which is an organizational aspiration rather than a scientific assertion. The most load-bearing practical assumption is community responsiveness — sufficient submissions, confirmed speakers, and a functioning program — and this is already acknowledged in the text as provisional. I agree with the reader that this assumption is unverifiable from the manuscript itself. The metadata inconsistency (2018 copyright/ACM reference format for a 2025 conference) is a minor quality issue, but it does not threaten the central organizational claim. No additional concern rises to the level of changing the verdict.","tokens_in":6256,"tokens_out":1807,"duration_ms":33447,"concrete_test":"Verify the workshop's actual outcome after WWW'25 by retrieving the program from https://human-centeredrec.github.io/ and checking whether the planned two keynotes, panel discussion, and 8–10 accepted papers occurred as scheduled. If the event ran largely as proposed, the organizational claim is supported; if it was cancelled or substantially altered, the proposal's viability assumption fails. This is a post-hoc check, not a critique of any scientific argument.","verdict_should_be":"UNCHANGED","load_bearing_attack":"No significant objection identified. The manuscript is a workshop proposal, not a research preprint; its central assertion is organizational — that a Human-Centered Recommender Systems workshop is needed and will facilitate discussion and advance the field. There are no equations, experiments, datasets, or derivations whose correctness could be checked. The practical assumption that enough high-quality submissions and confirmed keynote speakers will materialize is inherent to any workshop proposal and is unverifiable from the text; the authors themselves flag provisional elements in the footnote to Section 4 and note that some planned PC members have 'not yet contacted' individuals. This is not a technical weakness in an argument. The only concrete internal inconsistency is metadata: the ACM Reference Format and copyright line say '2018' while the conference is WWW'25 (April 28–May 2, 2025), and 'Apri' is misspelled; this is sloppy but does not bear on the workshop's rationale or viability.","agreement_with_reader":"agree"},"referee_report":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","summary":"This manuscript is a workshop proposal for the 1st Workshop on Human-Centered Recommender Systems, to be held at WWW'25. It introduces the concept of HCRS, differentiates it from trustworthy and responsible recommender systems, lists topics of interest (robustness, privacy, transparency, fairness, diversity, ethics, accountability, HCI design, evaluation), gives a rationale and objectives, presents a half-day program schedule, names an intended program committee, and includes a call for papers with deadlines. No technical results, data, or derivations are presented; the paper is an organizational announcement.","tokens_in":6387,"tokens_out":1921,"duration_ms":19866,"significance":"The paper's significance is organizational rather than scientific. If the workshop convenes as planned, it may facilitate discussion and community building around human-centered recommender systems, which is a timely topic. The proposal is clearly written and includes useful concrete elements: a structured program, a list of specific research topics, and transparency about provisional aspects such as not-yet-contacted program committee members. There is no experimental or theoretical claim that can be verified, so the significance rests on the community value of the event itself.","major_comments":[],"minor_comments":[{"comment":"The copyright line and the ACM Reference Format state '© 2018' and '.2018' while the conference is WWW'25 (April 28–May 2, 2025); these should be corrected to 2025.","section":"Header and ACM Reference Format"},{"comment":"The date 'Apri 28–May 02, 2025' contains a typo; it should be 'April 28–May 2, 2025'.","section":"Header and Table 1"},{"comment":"In the list of prospective program committee members, 'Cornel University' should be spelled 'Cornell University'.","section":"Section 4, Workshop Program Format"},{"comment":"The footnote already notes that the schedule is provisional, but the list of individuals 'whom we have not yet contacted' could be labeled more explicitly as 'planned, not yet confirmed' to avoid any impression of commitment.","section":"Section 4, Workshop Program Format"}],"recommendation":"minor_revision","confidential_remarks":"This is a workshop proposal rather than a research preprint, so the standard criteria of soundness and empirical validation do not apply. The manuscript is adequate for its purpose once the minor metadata and typographical errors are fixed. I would not raise the scope issue: as an arXiv preprint in cs.IR, a workshop announcement is within the expected range of content."},"author_rebuttal":null,"desk_editor":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","letter":"Colleague —\n\nThis is not a research paper; it's a workshop proposal for WWW'25. The reader's UNVERDICTED verdict is right, and there is nothing to verify. No equations, no data, no derivations. The definition of HCRS comes straight from Konstan and Terveen (2021), and the topic list is standard coverage of robustness, privacy, fairness, transparency, etc. So as a scientific contribution, it's a zero.\n\nBut as an organizational document, it's honestly put together. The organizers give a rationale, a program schedule, a call for papers, and a realistic sense of what the workshop will contain. They even flag provisional elements: the footnote about acceptance schedule, the list of PC members 'not yet contacted,' the pending keynotes. That's more transparent than most workshop proposals.\n\nSoft spots are minor and not technical. The metadata has clear sloppiness: copyright and ACM Reference Format say 2018, the conference is WWW'25, and 'Apri' is misspelled. That should be fixed, but it doesn't bear on the workshop's viability. The central assumption — that enough quality submissions will arrive and the two keynotes will confirm — is unverifiable from the text, but that's true of every workshop proposal, and the authors don't pretend otherwise.\n\nWho is this for? Someone looking at what workshops are happening at WWW'25, or a researcher deciding whether to submit. It serves that purpose fine. It is not a paper that deserves a scientific referee, because there is no scientific claim. If it crossed my desk as a journal submission, I'd desk-reject without referee. As a workshop announcement in the proceedings, it's acceptable.\n\nRecommendation: don't treat it as a research contribution. If the venue requires a review for the workshop proposal itself, the review is trivial — check the dates and the coherence of the program. Not worth citing, not worth a reading group.","headline":"A straightforward workshop proposal with no scientific claims; harmless, honest, and not something a referee needs to spend time on.","tokens_in":6887,"tokens_out":1745,"would_cite":false,"duration_ms":16980,"reading_group":"no","serious_thinker":"yes","would_accept_peer_review":false},"rs_alignment":null,"lean_confirmation":null,"pith_extraction":{"msc":[],"pacs":[],"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","headline":"This workshop proposal makes the case that recommender systems should be designed and evaluated around human needs, values, and capabilities, and it lays out a half-day program to consolidate that research community.","keywords":["human-centered recommender systems","trustworthy recommender systems","responsible recommender systems","user-centric design","evaluation and auditing","fairness and bias","privacy","large language models for recommendation"],"falsifier":"Check the workshop's final program: if it lists far fewer than the planned 8-10 papers or drops the panel, the paper's premise that the community is ready for a dedicated human-centered recommender systems venue would be contradicted.","tokens_in":6080,"feed_emoji":"🎯","tokens_out":8318,"duration_ms":76642,"temperature":0.7,"pith_summary":"Recommender systems shape much of what people see and buy online, yet they are often optimized for engagement or accuracy rather than for the people using them. This paper argues that the field needs a distinct research agenda, Human-Centered Recommender Systems (HCRS), in which human needs, values, and capabilities drive design and evaluation. The paper distinguishes HCRS from trustworthy and responsible recommender systems, and it proposes a half-day workshop with keynotes, paper sessions, and a panel to gather the community. If the workshop succeeds, it would give researchers a shared forum for work on privacy, fairness, transparency, diversity, and new evaluation metrics that capture user satisfaction and trust. The contribution is organizational and conceptual rather than a technical result.","feed_headline":"New workshop puts human needs at the center of recommender research","feed_subtitle":"A half-day web-conference workshop will gather keynotes and papers on privacy, fairness, transparency, and user well-being","key_machinery":"The carrying object is the concept of HCRS itself, defined as recommender systems that put human needs, values, and capabilities at the core of their design and operation. The definitional contrast with Trustworthy Recommender Systems and Responsible Recommender Systems does the work of marking out a distinct territory for the field. The proposed workshop program, with two keynote talks, two paper sessions, a panel discussion, and 8-10 accepted papers, is the mechanism for turning that conceptual territory into an ongoing research community.","core_discovery":"The paper's central claim is that human-centered recommender systems are a distinct and active research direction that deserves its own dedicated venue. HCRS means building recommenders that prioritize human needs, values, and capabilities at the core of their design and operation, and it actively involves users through methods such as participatory design and user studies. The paper contrasts this with Trustworthy Recommender Systems, which emphasize reliability and transparency, and Responsible Recommender Systems, which emphasize ethical alignment and social responsibility. The proposed half-day workshop is the vehicle for consolidating this community and advancing an agenda centered on user well-being, satisfaction, and empowerment.","pith_inferences":["A consequence the authors do not spell out is that a recurring HCRS workshop could consolidate a shared evaluation suite or benchmark for human-centered properties, since the call for papers emphasizes new metrics and auditing methods.","If this framing catches hold, HCRS may partially merge with trustworthy and responsible recommender research in practice; the workshop's discussions would be a natural place to test whether these three labels describe different activities or one agenda.","A testable extension would be to compare the evaluation metrics used in papers presented at this workshop against those used at general recommender-system venues, looking for differences in how often user-reported well-being, control, or trust appears."],"forward_implications":["Evaluation of recommender systems would broaden from accuracy to include user satisfaction, trust, autonomy, and well-being.","Privacy, fairness, transparency, diversity, and accountability would be treated as required design considerations rather than optional extras.","Participatory design and user studies would become standard methods in recommender-system research instead of edge cases.","Over the long term, the agenda is expected to push recommender systems into broader domains and align them with societal well-being, as the paper's rationale states."],"supporting_citations":[{"why":"Supplies the foundational definition and history of human-centered recommender systems that the workshop takes as its starting point.","marker":"[5]"},{"why":"Defines Trustworthy Recommender Systems, the neighboring agenda that the paper contrasts with HCRS to carve out its distinct scope.","marker":"[3]"},{"why":"Defines Responsible Recommender Systems, the other neighboring agenda that HCRS is distinguished from.","marker":"[4]"},{"why":"Grounds the human-centered framing in a broader call for reliable, safe, and trustworthy human-centered AI.","marker":"[8]"},{"why":"Provides a recent concrete HCRS example, ChatGPT-generated human-centered explanations, that demonstrates the research direction is active.","marker":"[9]"},{"why":"Supports the user-involvement methodology of user-centered and participatory design that the paper says HCRS requires.","marker":"[7]"},{"why":"Supplies a survey of trustworthy recommender research that helps motivate the workshop's relevance through recent advances.","marker":"[10]"}],"fun_headline_variants":["Human-centered recommender systems get their own workshop","Workshop to put people before algorithms in recommenders","New venue for recommenders that prioritize human needs","HCRS: a fresh focus on human values in recommender design","1st workshop aims to make recommenders more human-centric"],"cache_read_input_tokens":3200,"weakest_assumption_plain":"The load-bearing premise is that enough researchers will submit papers and attend so that the planned 8-10 accepted papers, two keynotes, and panel discussion can actually take place; without that community response, the workshop cannot deliver its stated objectives.","fun_headline_variants_meta":{"raw":{"variants":["Human-centered recommender systems get their own workshop","Workshop to put people before algorithms in recommenders","New venue for recommenders that prioritize human needs","HCRS: a fresh focus on human values in recommender design","1st workshop aims to make recommenders more human-centric"]},"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","effort":"low","cost_usd":0.000155,"raw_usage":{"total_tokens":1164,"prompt_tokens":844,"completion_tokens":320,"prompt_tokens_details":{"cached_tokens":384},"prompt_cache_hit_tokens":384,"prompt_cache_miss_tokens":460,"completion_tokens_details":{"reasoning_tokens":241}},"tokens_in":460,"tokens_out":320,"duration_ms":3427,"temperature":1.0,"reasoning_tokens":241,"cache_read_input_tokens":384,"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"created_at":"2026-08-12T14:54:02.638238+00:00","model_set":{"reader":"deepseek-v4-flash"},"falsifier":"Check the workshop's final program: if it lists far fewer than the planned 8-10 papers or drops the panel, the paper's premise that the community is ready for a dedicated human-centered recommender systems venue would be contradicted.","supporting_citations":[{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Supplies the foundational definition and history of human-centered recommender systems that the workshop takes as its starting point."},{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Defines Trustworthy Recommender Systems, the neighboring agenda that the paper contrasts with HCRS to carve out its distinct scope."},{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Defines Responsible Recommender Systems, the other neighboring agenda that HCRS is distinguished from."},{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Grounds the human-centered framing in a broader call for reliable, safe, and trustworthy human-centered AI."},{"cited_title":"O’Reilly Media, Inc","cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Supports the user-involvement methodology of user-centered and participatory design that the paper says HCRS requires."},{"cited_title":null,"cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Supplies a survey of trustworthy recommender research that helps motivate the workshop's relevance through recent advances."}],"review_version":1}