Hackathon/Notes
Quick links:
These are notes from the 2013 DevCamp organizers to the 2014 Hackathon organizers.
Tips:
- Use and double check the setup guide
- Notify main lists (Wikimania and mediawiki) about setup guide and signing up as participant
- Collect list of volunteers before event starts
- Have palm cards with important links handy - there is one available on Commons (Greg - add a link here)
- Have signs printed prior to day - ideally by local team to save on costs (again - Greg - add a link here)
- The venue will promise that WiFi and power strips will be sufficient - they're most likely wrong - bring 1-2 routers and at least a dozen (the more the merrier) power strips - the ones purchased for HK should work in London - we ran out - so buying more for the breakout rooms would be advisable
- They are generally not accustom to conferences with massive downloads and extensive bandwidth use - so they tend to think about computer load and not network load
- Keep it simple - attempts to add online video or a big bash have generally been met with "meh - just let us code please" type responses
- Work with WMF engineers and often present volunteers for tips on topics to offer workshops on
- Outline a rough schedule early for helping get sponsors
- Probably wise to bring your own basic supplies - like scissors and wall/poster putty (or tape)
- Setup workshops following program committees decisions on schedule to help avoid unnecessary overlaps with main conference trainings.
- Consider a basic intro to MediaWiki workshop if the hunch is there will be a lot of newbies
Ideas:
- Have power converters on-hand that people can pay a deposit and borrow
- Have laptops available for use or renting - possibly encouraging more people to attend if they don't have to bring along their laptops
- Look into guides enabling Tablet users to do certain aspects of Hackathon activities
- Maybe get Koder and terminal apps to donate some free licenses for use by WM volunteer developers?