How to make the content selection and planning for GraphQL Conf more transparent?

[Urigo]

[jemgillam]

Benjie and I are currently working on a concept of involving "Subject matter experts" in the talk selection process. This would include publishing an article or information on the conf website inviting people to participate. I think ultimately we will be reaching out to people as well. This concept is going to be presented to the conference committee soon.

I personally would love to see publication of who the program committee are, many conferences do this.

[benjie]

I believe Carolyn at Linux Foundation advises against publishing the members of the program committee, I don't remember the reasons but they seemed convincing at the time. I'll ask.

[benjie]

Carolyn says that they've had it before (not for GraphQLConf but for other events LF is involved with) where members of the Program Committee are harassed, so they don't tend to post the list before the event. She suggests sharing a link to the reviewer guidelines instead, "that way, submitters have a clearer understanding of what reviewers are being instructed to look for." This sounds like good advice to me!

[Urigo]

About the participants, I don't have a strong opinion here, I used to be one of the Program Committee members (and maybe also this year?) and I don't mind sharing it, but I can see that other members might not want that - maybe we should ask the members and we can publish just the names of those who agree?

About sharing a link to the reviewer guidelines - @benjie do you know if we share it today somewhere?
Should we post it on the Conf website somewhere we don't today?

I wonder if others from the community have more ideas on how to make it more transparent?

[benjie]

do you know if we share it today somewhere?

I don't think we do, I think we just send it out in email to the program committee once CFP has closed.

Should we post it on the Conf website somewhere we don't today?

I think we should! In particular this would help people submitting talks to know how they're likely to be rated.

[martinbonnin]

Android Makers publishes their program comitee, devoxx also, KotlinConf doesn't.
I personally support publishing both the program comittee as well as reviewing guidelines. It makes everything more transparent and also a good occasion to acknowledge the work of active members in the community.

[jemgillam]

Here's a neat update: graphql/graphql.github.io#1982

I've been working together with @bignimbus @martinbonnin and members of the Foundation conference committee to bring the "Subject Matter Expert" initiative to life. The goal is to bring in more GraphQL community members to rate the talk submissions and therefore help shape the conference schedule. When this goes live, maybe tomorrow, please feel free to share around to any one who you deem to be a good fit for the new panel.

--

What is "Subject Matter Experts"?

The SME initiative is new for 2025. This will be a panel of volunteers drawn from industry experts, working group members, security and observability experts, and maintainers and contributors to open source GraphQL projects. When evaluating the talks, they will focus on how exciting and engaging the talks are; contrasting with the TSC who focus more on talk quality and whether it is a good fit for the conference.

[jemgillam]

This update ALSO includes a new tab on https://graphql.org/conf/2025/#speakers about the talk selection process, heavily influenced by both @martinbonnin and @bignimbus's questions around this process. Hopefully this brings some much needed clarity.

After the schedule is published I also aim to publish an article with some data breakdowns of our talk submissions:- which industries, products or open source projects, end user stories etc as well as talk type (talks, panels, new speakers etc) and how that compares to the schedule make up. I'm looking towards CNCF for inspiration, who do this as a good practice.

Thanks everyone!

[jemgillam]

https://graphql.org/blog/2025-04-02-seeking-graphql-subject-matter-experts/ 🥳