---

name: recsys-topic-selection description: Use when deciding whether a project is a strong ACM RecSys fit, routing among RecSys, SIGIR, KDD, WSDM, TheWebConf, UAI, CHI, and general ML venues, identifying whether the core contribution is genuinely about recommendation, and choosing the right RecSys track before writing begins.

RecSys Topic Selection

Use this before writing. RecSys is a single-domain venue: it is strongest when the central claim is about recommendation — ranking objectives, user/item modeling, offline/online evaluation, feedback loops, exposure and fairness, or deployed recommender behavior. Being merely applicable to recommendation is not enough; the contribution has to speak to a recommender audience.

Fit test

• Prefer RecSys when the main claim is a recommendation result: a ranking objective, a user/session model, an evaluation protocol, an off-policy/counterfactual method, a fairness/diversity/exposure result, or a deployed-system insight.
• Route to SIGIR when the core is ad-hoc retrieval, search ranking, or IR evaluation not tied to recommendation.
• Route to KDD when the contribution is a general data-mining or large-scale algorithm and recommendation is just one application.
• Route to WSDM / TheWebConf (WWW) when the emphasis is web-scale search-and-mining or web systems broadly.
• Route to UAI or an ML venue when the contribution is a general learning/probabilistic advance rather than recommender-specific evidence.
• Route to CHI / CSCW when user or community outcomes dominate over the recommendation algorithm.

Fit signal table

Signal in the project	RecSys reading
A ranking/user-modeling idea evaluated with tuned baselines and a leakage-aware split	Core fit — the house genre
Off-policy or counterfactual evaluation of recommendations	Core fit — a RecSys distinctive
A deployed system with production constraints and A/B evidence	Core fit — route to the Industry track
A reproduction/refutation of prior recommender results	Core fit — route to the Reproducibility track
A general retrieval or mining method, recommendation as one demo	Better at SIGIR / KDD / WSDM
A general ML method with a recommender benchmark tacked on	Better at an ML venue

Which RecSys track

• Main long paper: a rounded recommendation contribution with offline (and ideally online) evidence.
• Main short / Past-Present-Future: one focused finding, or a reflective/forward-looking position.
• Reproducibility: repeating, refuting, or re-scoping prior results; a dataset or framework.
• Industry: a deployed system with production constraints and live evidence.
• Resource / Dataset: a community dataset or software resource with build methodology.

Vignette: where an exposure-correction method goes

A project delivers an off-policy ranker with an exposure-corrected estimator and a simulator bridge. RecSys reading: strong fit — a recommendation-specific evaluation advance is exactly what the venue rewards, Main long paper. Strip the recommendation framing and keep only a generic off-policy estimator, and it drifts toward an ML venue; turn it into a reproduction of three published rankers, and the Reproducibility track becomes the right home.

Sharpening moves before committing

• Name the recommendation primitive: the ranking objective, the user/item model, the evaluation protocol, or the deployment claim. If none exists, the RecSys framing does not.
• Confirm the evidence can meet the venue's evaluation bar (tuned baselines, leakage-aware split, reported variance) — decoration-only benchmarks are a quiet fit failure here.
• Topic emphasis and the track lineup drift between cycles (2026 dropped LBR, added R&P Notes); scan the current CFP before final routing.

Output format

[Fit] strong RecSys / possible RecSys / better elsewhere
[Best venue] RecSys / SIGIR / KDD / WSDM / TheWebConf / UAI / CHI / ML venue / other
[RecSys track] main-long / main-short / past-present-future / reproducibility / industry / resource
[Contribution sentence] <one sentence>
[Top rejection risk] <novelty / evaluation validity / scope / fit>
[Next action] <experiment, framing, or venue switch>