Talk:Hackathons

Recommendations for future bids
We are aware of the fact that Hackathons only started to travel between countries a few years ago and the whole situation is fairly new for all stakeholders. Nevertheless, as a participant of this years bidding process, Wikimedia Österreich would like to share its perspective on and experiences with the current system, in order to improve the process for future applicants.

Criteria
We would recommend to make the criteria for decision making more clear and comprehensible. E.g. this year it was not clear that the location of next year’s Wikimania has a major influence on the decision. More transparency in this regard would prevent organizations from applying when they have little chance of winning the bidding process. Especially for small and lean organizations or groups putting together a bid is a considerable effort. Also, the relative weight of the various criteria is currently not entirely clear. Some aspects (for example cost and convenience of travel, sleep and work at the same venue) seemed to be more important in the Hackathon guidelines than they actually were in the decision making process.

Decision makers
The committee that decides on where the next hackathon in or around Europe takes place should be selected through a transparent process. The persons that sit on this committee don’t necessarily have to be selected in an application process. The format used this year where delegates from previous hackathon organisers took part is a good idea, but it should be clear a few months prior who will represent, so that they in turn can prepare accordingly. An additional benefit of choosing the committee would be the fact that they could also decide on how the various factors are weighted before chapters/organisations start their bids.

Timeline
We appreciate the idea that the whole process should be and stay as flexible as possible. However, the timing of the various steps of the bidding process should be a bit more clear, transparent and rigorous. We found it hard to plan and allocate our human ressources in the process, not knowing whether and and when there will be more questions, feedback and/or other requirements that need to be researched or prepared. Also, the communication with the other stakeholders (venue, caterer etc.) requires to work with concrete dates for reservations, options and the like.

Naming
For many years this event was known as the “European Hackathon”, on the proposal site it is called the “EU Hackathon” as well. We recommend changing the title to encompass more than just Europe so that other chapters close to Europe are also encouraged to bid for the hackathon and in order to reflect the new scope of the event.

--Claudia.Garad (talk) 15:53, 14 July 2015 (UTC) on behalf of WMAT

To merge
Hi, a couple of months ago I had started User:Jean-Frédéric/Hackathon handbook. Feel free to copy whatever is useful − I don’t think my subpage is useful now that this page is up :) Cheers, Jean-Fred (talk) 23:25, 25 February 2015 (UTC)