Wikimedia Hackathon 2015/Lessons Learned

**This page is still a work in progress!**

This page is a combination of feedback from a survey sent to participants and ideas from the organizers.

This page will focus heavily on improvements for next time and things that went poorly. However remember that 97.5% of the people that responded to the feedback survey stated that their overall experience with the hackathon was either "Positive" or "Very Positive."

Suggested changes for the next Wikimedia Hackathon

(Main suggestions for next time, more coming soon)
 * Buddy system again, will be optional not forced. Add buddy system participation questions to registration.
 * Opt in during registration for name, interests and contact information to be put on a wiki so participants can talk in advance of hackathon
 * The opening session should have time for project pitches and allow people to find others working on the same thing

Background on Feedback Survey

 * rfarrand & acella created the feedback survey
 * The Feedback Survey was sent out to participants on June 4th, 2015
 * The Feedback Survey closed on August 12th, 2015
 * The survey received 81/200 responses (40.5% response rate)

Considerations for Next Year
This section is based on the fill-in-the-blank/comment sections of the feedback form. Some of these comments will be contradictory. We are mostly trying to include common themes and issues that were felt by groups of people. This section is a bit more subjective than the #Data section below and suggestions may be paraphrased and combined with each other.

(improvements to this section coming soon)

Information from Newcomers, how could we have supported them better?

 * More sessions with information on how to actually get started instead of just an overview of what is possible would be appreciated
 * Intro sessions for each of the main areas of work would have been appreciated, or some easy way for a newcomer to understand all of their options.
 * Request for documentation about what to expect if attending a hackathon for the first time. (This has already been mostly completed since the hackathon here)
 * The buddy system was helpful, WMF staff could have been more productive in reaching out to new volunteers instead of the reverse
 * People were available and receptive to helping newcomers, but sometimes it was hard to figure out who to ask for help

Opening

 * More focus needed, too much logistic info
 * Use this time to introduce projects, pitch ideas and help people find inspiration. Projects can “call for voluneers”
 * English only in mandatory sessions, the majority of the audience only spoke english. The long french speeches with no context were unsettling.  The translations were not helpful.

Demoable Project Showcase/Closing

 * Messy, should have set clearer expectations for presenters
 * Please enforce time limit
 * The demo session was too long, make it shorter or separate by subject area.
 * Cool to see what others are working on
 * Liked the focus on demoable projects
 * Do this in the main room so that people can keep working during if they want and if it takes a long time people wont mind.
 * If it is going to be difficult to connect laptops to the projector, people should be encouraged to pre-record their demo and play it during the closing or there should be a rule of publicly hosted demos only. Don’t make exceptions.

Q&A with Lila

 * Would have been better to have her around the hackathon interacting with people more informally instead of doing the Q&A
 * Instead, Lila participate in the actual hack sessions/discussions to get a better understanding of what we developers are doing
 * Q&A’s with Lila are not good for hackathon, better for Wikimania
 * Too many questions from WMF staff, not enough from volunteers. If WMF are asking that many questions than they should be given other opportunities to ask things.

Common themes:

 * Last minute “haphazard” pairing does not work, it should be done in advance or more mindfully. Don’t call people onto stange and awkwardly make poor pairings.
 * Buddy system is great, nice to work with new people, helpful
 * Make it optional, felt forced, specifically WMF staff did not like to be forced into it
 * Unclear Expectations, define goals more clearly.

Other ideas and themes:

 * Would be nice if experienced participants would reach out more proactively
 * Share a room with your buddy (optional)
 * Pair people up with projects instead of people, that way you can meet multiple new people in a structured way
 * Create an easy and positive way to hand off buddies if the fit does not work out, also provide documentation on best practices for mentorship and what to do in situations where things are not going right.
 * Add buddy system to registration form, and publicize information to  help people pair themselves by publicly providing more information about intended work at hackathon
 * Buddies might distract mentors for getting their work done or collaborating with other people
 * Newbie focused social events so they can meet each other too
 * Birds of a Feather (BoF) board instead of buddy system

Logistics
(coming soon)

Other
(coming soon)

Data
(planning to reformat this section, but if you are reading it now the data is formatted as: Answer, # of people responding with that answer, % of responses that answer got out of everyone who answered that question)

Supporting Newbies
(Only people who were attending a Wikimedia Hackathon for the first time were directed to answer this question)