San Francisco Hackathon January 2012

If you're a smart developer or designer and want to build an application on top of Wikipedia, or using Wikipedia content, participate in our hackathon in San Francisco (January 20-22 at pariSoma). We'll bring together Wikipedia's senior coders with new developers to build applications running in Wikipedia itself, on mobile devices, or based on Wikipedia's content and data.

This is a free event put on by the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that runs Wikipedia. You'll get a brief overview of all the key technologies you need, and then you'll have a weekend to build something amazing and make it open source. At the end, show it off and take the next step to get it running on our servers. Join us Friday night for drinks and conversations, and get ready for a weekend of coding. Food and drinks provided. :-)

Topics, Goals, & Outcomes


We'll introduce you to the following:
 * The MediaWiki API and how to use it (introducing the query sandbox)
 * Gadget kitchen -- how to whip up a gadget to do what you want with Wikipedia
 * Building Wikipedia Mobile apps
 * Working with the dumps and other copies of our content
 * MediaWiki core and extensions

Our goal is to equip you with the basic knowledge necessary to start developing in your language and for your platform of choice (whether that platform is Wikipedia itself or not), so that you can build something great over the weekend. Ideally, we'd love to have you as an open source contributor long-term. :-)

We're looking for projects in the following themes:
 * Read: Anything that improves the reader experience, by presenting Wikipedia content in novel ways;
 * Contribute: New ways to contribute content, e.g. micro-contribution apps on mobile devices;
 * Analyze: Come up with novel visualizations, reports, and analysis that leverages openly available content and data.

But we're very open to your ideas as well. Put them on this page, or make a pitch at the event!



Venue
pariSoma is a coworking and hacking space in downtown San Francisco.

Parisoma is wheelchair accessible from a side door (that might be locked unless especially opened for you) and the first floor is flat and accessible with wide corridors between tables.

Friday
Evening intro. Introductory talk, project pitches, drinks.

Saturday
Morning: Rest of the day and night:
 * The Basics (overview of key hacking resources)
 * Separate workshops for interested attendees:
 * Using the MediaWiki API
 * Writing MediaWiki extensions
 * Hacking

Sunday

 * Hacking
 * Showcase

Attendees
Registration page

Attendees will include:


 * Sumana Harihareswara
 * Erik Moeller
 * Tfinc
 * Karen Rustad of OpenHatch
 * Pete F (interested, will need to confirm availability closer to the date.)
 * Liz Henry Interested in writing or improving MediaWiki extensions and learning about de-spamming resources for MediaWiki installs.
 * Lee Worden Interested in API and extension programming.
 * Derk-Jan Hartman, MediaWiki & VLC expert
 * GICodeWarrior
 * Maarten Dammers (interested, depends on availability and if I can combine this)
 * Duesentrieb ⇌
 * Sarah Nahm, freelance designer. interested in usability and visualizations

Accommodation
All hotels are also in walking distance of many city attractions.
 * Some San Francisco information for visitors: Visiting San Francisco

Contact

 * Mail: sumanah at wikimedia dot org
 * Panic Phone for emergencies:
 * Program coordination:
 * Logistics:
 * Assistant: