The research community in a field, e.g., real-time systems, consists of everyone working in the area, independent of their role in TPCs, whether they publish in respective outlets or not.
The conference serves the entire community (and society overall, but not detailed here) by
- providing a forum to make results accessible to public
- ensuring correctness of these results
- the experts of the conference check, so the public does not have to
- aiming to represent the overall RT community in its directions, decisions etc.
- including those in the overall RT community
- providing a unique outlet for publication of results
- as opposed to nearly the same group of people running most conferences in nearly the same way
- conferences should have unique goals and procedures
- the set of conferences in a field should cover the spectrum of work in the entire community
The conference does not serve
- the “PC community” i.e., those who are regularly on PCs, in particular in small communities such as RT
- the persons who are involved in conference and have deeper understanding of its working than those outside
- a status mechanism for friends and benefactors
- TPC membership, chairing etc are often used as quality indicators status, e.g., used for promotions
- this is of course acceptable side effect, but should not influence who gets involved
- to exclude those not “in the game”
Any member of the overall community should be able to publish their (good) work and understand PC decisions in the same way as those running the conference, including the TPC.
This is a matter of attitude, organisation, monitoring, and motivation.