Use this to audit novelty and disciplinary reach. FAccT reviewers come from different fields, and each expects to see the nearest work in their lane engaged. A fairness-metrics reviewer wants the ML fairness literature; a legal reviewer wants the relevant law and governance work; an STS/critical reviewer wants the theory you are (often implicitly) drawing on. The fastest way to lose a mixed panel is a bibliography that is deep in one field and blank in the others. Reopen the current CFP for anonymity, dual-submission, and prior-publication rules before advising.
| Lane | Typical venues / bodies | What FAccT reviewers check |
|---|---|---|
| Algorithmic fairness & ML | FAccT, NeurIPS/ICML/ICLR, JMLR | Whether the nearest fairness measure/method is compared or distinguished |
| HCI & human factors | CHI, CSCW | Whether prior work on how people use/contest the system is credited |
| Law, policy & governance | Law reviews, policy journals, regulation | Whether the relevant legal doctrine or regulatory instrument is engaged correctly |
| STS & critical theory | STS venues, critical data/algorithm studies | Whether the theoretical lineage of your critique is named, not just gestured at |
| Documentation & accountability infra | Prior FAccT (datasheets, model cards, audits) | Whether existing documentation/audit frameworks are built on rather than reinvented |
| Domain literature (health, credit, hiring...) | The applied field | Whether you understand the real decision context you study |
A bibliography that reaches across at least the lanes your claim touches signals command of the interdisciplinary field; one confined to a single lane invites the "unaware of the neighbor discipline" critique that a mixed panel is unusually well-positioned to make.
Suppose the paper proposes a contestability mechanism for automated benefit decisions. Its neighbors span lanes: an ML paper on algorithmic recourse (technique, no institutional grounding), an HCI study of how claimants experience appeals (experience, no mechanism), and legal scholarship on due-process rights in automated administration (the right, no system). The novelty sentence names all three contrasts — a mechanism where recourse gave only a technique, grounded in the appeal experience HCI documented, realizing the due-process right the law names — which is exactly the cross-lane synthesis FAccT rewards.
[Concurrent arXiv work] cite neutrally, state the difference, avoid unverifiable priority claims;
keep the citation mutually anonymous
[Your workshop/CRAFT version] usually non-archival and citable, but confirm against the current CFP
and phrase so anonymity survives
[Prior short/position version] declare the overlap and state what the full paper adds beyond it
[Archival status unclear] declare the overlap in the submission form rather than guessing
[Eligibility] clear / needs declaration / risky
[Lanes covered] <ML-fairness / HCI / law-policy / STS-critical / documentation / domain>
[Nearest 3 works] <work -> one-line cross-lane delta>
[Construct attribution] <borrowed term -> cited to its real origin? yes/no>
[Archival-overlap risk] <none / declare: what>
[Novelty sentence] <FAccT-ready contribution contrast across the relevant lanes>