- Judge the quality of the proposal first, not the proposer
- If a proposal is vague/generic, consider the qualifications of the proposer e.g. has the proposer delivered earlier talks that were received well by the community, is the proposer a contributor to the FOSS project that he/she will be speaking about, etc
- Attempt to provide subjective comments for every single proposal. Our community will improve if we are able to help the proposers improve their skills at putting together meaningful talk proposals
- Comment on the proposal, not the proposer. Your subjective comments should not unnecessarily make remarks about the proposer themselves
The above is an incomplete list of suggestions based on my experience reviewing city meetup CFPs.
Please see Present — SciPy 2023 for a better list of suggestions/guidelines for reviewers for an international conference that is highly regarded.