Overview of the TREC 2021 Fair Ranking Track

TL;DR

The paper reviews the 2021 TREC Fair Ranking Track, which focused on developing algorithms that ensure fair exposure of documents representing protected characteristics in Wikipedia editing tasks.

Contribution

It provides an overview of the fair ranking resource allocation task designed to mitigate biases against protected groups in Wikipedia content improvement.

Findings

Promoted fair exposure for documents about protected characteristics.

Supported Wikipedia editors in improving underrepresented topics.

Highlighted the importance of fairness in information retrieval systems.

Abstract

The TREC Fair Ranking Track aims to provide a platform for participants to develop and evaluate novel retrieval algorithms that can provide a fair exposure to a mixture of demographics or attributes, such as ethnicity, that are represented by relevant documents in response to a search query. For example, particular demographics or attributes can be represented by the documents' topical content or authors. The 2021 Fair Ranking Track adopted a resource allocation task. The task focused on supporting Wikipedia editors who are looking to improve the encyclopedia's coverage of topics under the purview of a WikiProject. WikiProject coordinators and/or Wikipedia editors search for Wikipedia documents that are in need of editing to improve the quality of the article. The 2021 Fair Ranking track aimed to ensure that documents that are about, or somehow represent, certain protected characteristics receive a fair exposure to the Wikipedia editors, so that the documents have an fair opportunity of being improved and, therefore, be well-represented in Wikipedia. The under-representation of particular protected characteristics in Wikipedia can result in systematic biases that can have a negative human, social, and economic impact, particularly for disadvantaged or protected societal groups.