DIP: Meerkat - Online Q&A at scale and Session Feedback

Devcon Improvement Proposals (DIPs)
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Abstract

Deploy Meerkat to power live, privacy-preserving Q&A and post-session feedback across Devconnect ARG. Core upgrades: (1) reputation-assisted curation to raise question quality at scale; (2) lightweight post-session surveys to close the loop for speakers and organizers. Meerkat is open source and already field-tested at major Ethereum events.

Rationale

In-person, offline Q&A for large audiences has well-known issues: content is unpredictable (often mediocre, sometimes malicious); microphone passing wastes precious time; and the format isn’t inclusive: many shy attendees won’t stand up to ask.

In contrast, Meerkat at Devcon 7 SEA showed that a fully integrated online Q&A yields more relevant questions and a better attendee experience, backed by audience/organizer quotes and high activation rates.

One highlight is captured in this video, when Hart Lambur started Q&A with Vitalik Buterin, Jesse Pollak, Steven Goldfeder, Ben Jones on main stage at Devcon SEA 7 and he realizes how Meerkat curated the questions for him.

“Wow, this is cool!”

— Hart Lambur

Meerkat was developed in cooperation with 0xPARC. It was fully integrated, including the Devcon app and Fileverse.

Based on learnings from November 2024 and follow-up events at Zuitzerland, ProtocolBerg, SDD Berlin, ETHDenver, Building Blocks, and others, we iterated on both product and operations, adding features such as “select a question,” theming, and alternative authentication modes.

For Devconnect, we will evolve Meerkat to deliver more value to speakers, attendees, and organizers. After informal interviews with organizers at the above events and audience feedback, we will apply these learnings:

  • Improve content quality via crowd-assisted, privacy-preserving moderation.
  • Capture actionable per-session feedback with near-zero friction.
  • Maintain attendee privacy and a decentralization ethos (ZK-friendly auth; no PII). The reference implementation supports Zupass-style credentials.

Implementation

Many improvements from Devcon 7 SEA are already available in Meerkat, including event theming, “select a question,” and new layouts. We propose two major changes.

Reputation-based content curation

Moderators play a key role: reading incoming questions, selecting them, and moderating. This is challenging while also managing an in-person crowd. It requires attention to Meerkat while tracking talk content.

For Devconnect, audience members can earn reputation as good question askers or voters. Reputation will allow them to highlight strong questions and hide low-quality ones for manual review. This crowdsources content curation, while moderators, organizers, and the Meerkat team can always override.

Post-event feedback

Organizers and speakers benefit from structured session feedback. While Meerkat already supports feedback, it does not currently remind the audience.

For Devconnect, we will include a short post-session survey that allows attendees to provide feedback to speakers and organizers in a convenient format.

Timeline

  • 2025-09-15: v0 of reputation + feedback + theming ready for review.
  • 2025-11-03: feature-complete; moderator training content.
  • 2025-11-17-22: on-site support at La Rural.

Operational Requirements & Ownership

Deliverables (Meerkat)

  • Hosted Meerkat instance for all approved Devconnect sessions.
  • Moderator & organizer briefing (1h on-site).
  • Theming to Devconnect ARG.
  • On-call during event hours; daily summary to organizers.

Dependencies (Organizers)

  • Listing in official comms + room QR signage.
  • On-site desk near organizer hub.
  • Review meetings during implementation
  • Optional: link in the Devconnect app/website.

Cost

Free for Devconnect and partners.

We request support to cover conference tickets, flights, and accommodation for a team of two to participate.

4 Likes
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Really interesting proposal - I love what you’ve been doing with Meerkat Q&A and badges, the UX is very engaging. I was curious if you’ve explored ways to decentralise the backend, since the current stack looks server-based and could become a central point of control. Networks like Swarm could provide a tamper-evident and persistent way to archive Q&A logs, PODs, feedback, or speaker resources without relying on centralised infrastructure.

There are also other decentralised technologies emerging that can support live participation at scale. I appreciate it may be late to introduce ahead of Devconnect, but I’d be interested to hear what your plans are for moving toward a true p2p experience? The reputation model you describe is also very interesting and aligns closely with my own thinking. How do you see this being managed in practice within a Web3 tech stack?

2 Likes
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Thanks for the thoughtful note and the encouragement.

You’re right - it’s too late to change architecture for Devconnect. Our priority is great UX and dependable on-site ops; introducing new infrastructure now would mean untested code and higher risk. For this event, I’d like to proceed with the DIP as submitted and focus on integration and on-site delivery.

That said, I’m happy to learn more about your vision for a Web3-native stack and the concrete benefits for attendees, organizers, and third-party developers. Would you be interested in contributing to a post-event design discussion?

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The initial concrete benefit of the more decentralised Web3 stack I’ve proposed is that a user would only need to log in once to the Devcon/nect app. From there, they could access Meerkat Q&A with the GPC proof request, eliminating the need for a second login. In this flow, the POD is stored and retrieved from Swarm. Swarm-based forums on speaker UIs would further enhance the experience by allowing attendees to engage before and after the event, with an additional “General” forum for broader discussions.

The key hurdle is ensuring a Web3 stack can deliver the same UX as Web2 alternatives. Centralised solutions may still serve as stepping stones to decentralisation, but if we build with open standards and horizontal layers, we create space for third-party developers and users to extend the ecosystem. For example, PODs could start as event tickets or badges, but later be reused, e.g., a Devcon ticket POD minting a gaming skin/themed outfit for an avatar. PODs could also serve as the foundation of a loyalty program, where loyalty points are based on the POD standard - just one of many possible examples. These kinds of extensions highlight how portable, user-owned data can break out of today’s walled gardens.

At heart, what we’re discussing here comes down to the storage and communication layers. Swarm has messaging capabilities, but its primary strength lies in serving as a foundation for decentralised storage. Meanwhile, protocols like Waku can handle p2p communication - something I’m keen to integrate soon.

On my own DIP, I’d like to refine the scope to focus on message boards within speaker UIs and a general forum, and to place more emphasis on PODs stored on Swarm, in line with our ongoing GitHub discussions. I’d definitely be keen to contribute to a post-event design discussion - It’s something we’re already actively exploring.