Talk:Wikimedia Hackathon 2025

Save the date!

Save the date for the next #wmhack! We’ll be meeting in beautiful Istanbul, Turkey for the Wikimedia Hackathon May 2nd - 4th, 2025, registration will open on November 12th, 2024 - mark your calendars and register early! DTankersley (WMF) (talk) 16:40, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Registration is open!

Registration for the 2025 Wikimedia Hackathon - May 2nd to May 4th, 2025 in Istanbul, Turkey - is now open, let us know if you will be attending! DTankersley (WMF) (talk) 02:06, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

2025 Wikimedia Hackathon - register now

2025 Wikimedia Hackathon, May 2-4, Istanbul: decide which project you’ll be working on and register! Registration is open until April; scholarship applications are available through December 10th. DTankersley (WMF) (talk) 23:27, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I want to apply scholarship but really new in phabricator. I'd like to contribute on Wikipedia Mobile Apps which aligned with my current background as mobile programmer. Is it still open for Indonesian? Thanks Affandy Murad (talk) 13:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello, @Affandy Murad - the Wikimedia Hackathon is focused on bringing together people who have already contributed to various technical aspects of the Wikimedia projects, who know how to find their way around our technical ecosystem, and who are able to work, or collaborate, on projects rather autonomously. If you're brand new to Wikimedia / Mediawiki projects and haven't made contributions already, this might not be the event for you. We encourage folks brand new to the projects to start here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2025/Participants#Additional_resources. Hope that helps! DTankersley (WMF) (talk) 14:12, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Final reminder: scholarship application period ending soon! Self-funded registration open until April 2025

Final reminder: the scholarship / WMF sponsorship application period is ending soon - good luck and thanks to everyone who has already submitted their application! Self-funded registration will be open until April 2025, or until we reach capacity. More information is available on wiki. DTankersley (WMF) (talk) 14:07, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Family name in form

Hello @DTankersley (WMF),

Letting you know, a lead developer I mentor for their first Wikimedia Hackathon application do not have family name. He shown me his passport, and indeed, no family name. Only a first name. Your form *requires* a family name to proceed. So I advised that person to add a — as a place holder in that field. Your team can email that applicant for confirmation and Passport's scan. Yug (talk) 06:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

https://wookware.org/name.html --Jeremyb (talk) 17:06, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Come on...

The scholarship failure message said that "This year's Hackathon will focus on people who are already experienced with the technical aspects of the Wikimedia projects, and can participate autonomously to the activities during the hackathon. Scholarships were granted to people who participated in technical projects actively, recently, and for more than one year. Unfortunately, it seems that your application did not fit fully into the scope of our criteria. We do, however, welcome you to attend the event either in person (using your personal funds), at a satellite event nearby, or by watching the wiki pages and Phabricator board."

except that I did - "actively, recently, and for more than one year" are all true for me.

• I don't mind failing - it's something I am used to and it could well be that others were better than I. But why give a message that isn't correct?
• Why was there no warning discouraging new contributors from applying to the hackathon, when it was clear that such users were setting themselves up for failure? Similarly, why was "actively, recently, and for more than one year" not mentioned in the scholarship application form?

Leaderboard (talk) 13:08, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I would like to support this statement, as it was not mentioned that it was not for new contributors :( 103.85.206.35 06:02, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Q. Hackathons#What do hackathons achieve?

A. (goal #3) Reach out to new developers, onboard them during the event, and help them become regular contributors

Perhaps part of the scholarship application process should be some sort of aptitude test. You'll need some prior knowledge of programming, and particularly PHP. You're not going to pick that up at a three or four day conference, you need to take a more formal course, either at a university or some sort of coders "boot camp" or self-paced online course. – Wbm1058 (talk) 14:26, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

@Wbm1058 I oppose this - why PHP? There are ways to contribute without knowing PHP. Leaderboard (talk) 09:04, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes I think one problem here is that there is only ONE Hackathon, so an assumption, rightly or wrongly, might be that it covers everything. There are so many tech skills involved in supporting Wikipedia, and I think it's best to focus on a subset of those and become more expert in them. mw:How to become a MediaWiki hacker says most of MediaWiki and extensions are written in the PHP programming language, so that's what I'm focused on. I want to make changes to the Core so I don't have to spend so much of my time cleaning up after other people who mess things up, well, because of the sub-optimal way the core behaves. I started out with supporting bots, which is a better place to get started because that's much less complex and easier than working on Core. What are your skills, Leaderboard – what would you hope to learn and accomplish by attending this conference? Wbm1058 (talk) 15:08, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

@Wbm1058 "what would you hope to learn and accomplish by attending this conference" - well since I failed the scholarship application, that automatically means that I won't show up for the conference itself (except perhaps remotely). But did you get the scholarship or ...? Leaderboard (talk) 15:12, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

No, I did not apply for a scholarship because Turkey is a long trip from my home in Ohio, and there is another conference that may be happening in Ohio around the same time. I applied once for a developers summit in San Francisco, years ago, and was turned down, so I never bothered to try again for that one. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:21, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Diff article about this hackathon says: "This edition of the Wikimedia Hackathon will focus on bringing together people who already contributed to various technical aspects of the Wikimedia projects, who know how to find their way around our technical ecosystem, and who are able to work, or collaborate, on projects rather autonomously." Nemoralis (talk) 17:09, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

@Nemoralis, however, the scholarship form specifically had a checkbox for people that didn't know any programming (something like "I don't have experience but I am willing to learn). Leaderboard (talk) 09:03, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

LOL. "how to find their way around our technical ecosystem". I've been struggling with that for years! Every now and then, light bulbs come on for me and over time, I've come to understand more and more pieces of the elephant. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:08, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

@DTankersley (WMF), I'm looking for an answer from you regarding this. Leaderboard (talk) 04:37, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello @Leaderboard,

As much as we'd love to send everyone that applied for a scholarship to Istanbul, unfortunately, we do not have that kind of funding available - for any of our events.

As mentioned in the main page of the 2025 event, this year's Hackathon will focus on people who are already experienced with the technical aspects of the Wikimedia projects, and can participate autonomously to the activities during the hackathon. The scholarship review was intense and as thorough as we could make it, based on the information each applicant put in their registration form and if those folks had participated in technical projects actively, recently, and for more than one year. There were quite a few applications that did not meet that criteria.

We do welcome you to attend the event either in person (using your personal funds), at a satellite event nearby, or by watching these wiki pages and Phabricator board. Alternatively, we encourage you to explore the possibility of organizing a satellite event in your region. These events present an excellent opportunity to bring together your local community for a pre-hackathon gathering, providing a platform for onboarding individuals to the technical aspects of Wikimedia projects and serves as a catalyst for community-driven projects tailored to your specific region. If you are interested in organizing a satellite event, we recommend initiating contact with other individuals to form an organizing team. This could include reaching out to your nearest Wikimedia affiliate or user group.

If you are new-ish to the technical aspects of the Wikimedia Projects and want to learn more, we suggest you start with a list of resources that might be interesting for you. It is also possible that your local user group will organize a pre-hackathon event in your country - feel free to reach out to them to find out more.

We appreciate your understanding and wish you continued success in your contributions to Wikimedia technical projects. DTankersley (WMF) (talk) 22:47, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

@DTankersley (WMF) Unfortunately, that's a bunch of corporate-speak. I was challenging (i) the misleading message given by the failure message as I did meet the requirements and (ii) no explicit message discouraging inexperienced contributors from applying. For instance, why was "actively, recently, and for more than one year" not mentioned in the form? I'm looking for an answer to that. To be clear, I am not appealing my failure, but rather this is meant to be constructive but firm feedback as it appears that I was not the only person affected. Leaderboard (talk) 14:16, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

I hear what User:Leaderboard is saying. Hackathons/Laptop setup implies that, in the past, hackacthons targeted less-experienced participants. Surely any candidate accepted for this year's conference would have done most or all of that stuff a long time ago; they wouldn't be just doing it at the eleventh hour in preparation for attending the hackathon. – Wbm1058 (talk) 14:41, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

No Google Form - Travel Request Form

I noticed that users have to fill a Pretix form to ask for a scholarship (that is very good since it's Free Software ❤️) but I noticed that to confirm the scholarship they must fill a ❌ Google Form.

Requiring participants to accept Google Forms Terms of Services and execute proprietary JavaScript in their browser webs is a problem: m:Wikimedians for software freedom#Google Suite.

As solution for 2026, I know Wikimedia Foundation already has a m:LimeSurvey account and also Pretix and also CryptPad forms is available, so it would be lovely for 2026 to completely abandon Google Form for this process, for the reasons expressed in m:Wikimedians_for_software_freedom#Why.

Available to help :) Let's completely abandon Google Forms.

Thanks for your work. Very excited to hack \o/ Valerio Bozzolan (talk) 14:27, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

P.S. I mean this Google Form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeM4-vv3kYQSy9_iG5lIbz-Eg_gqXrtP69VgRcGaHcghnuu_A/viewform

Thanks again --Valerio Bozzolan (talk) 14:29, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with this. The use of Google Forms is discriminatory and, IMHO, against Wikimedia's values. Mind Booster Noori (talk) 15:30, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Totally agree with @Valerio Bozzolan.

Wikimedia using Google services instead of FOSS solutions feels like vegans eating meat for convenience.

A big thank you to the organizing team and all the volunteers for their incredible contributions to this hacktivity. Let’s continue working together to resist the influence of big tech and uphold the principles of free and open knowledge. Irdiism (talk) 16:27, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Valerio Bozzolan - thanks for your (and others) comments here about future opportunities where we could use more open sourced software packages such as LimeSurvey or CryptPad in the Hackathon process. We'll look into it! DTankersley (WMF) (talk) 22:50, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Satellite events

Hello there!

Just to let you know that we're hosting a satellite event of the hackathon in Italy (in Palermo on March 14-16). We created the event page at Wikimedia Hackathon 2025/Satellite Events/Palermo, although Wikimedia Hackathon 2025/Satellite Events doesn't exist yet, and we'll be happy to add the link to the list of satellite events when it's created. (I was not sure where you intended to add it, so I didn't edit any hackathon page yet).

We're looking forward to host the Italian-speaking technical community at our event and to connect with participants of the international hackathon! For any question or suggestion about our satellite event, feel free to reach out to me. Auregann (talk) 11:49, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello!

I've added in a new page for the Satellite Events - thanks for getting the ball rolling, @Auregann! DTankersley (WMF) (talk) 15:33, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Pinging @Magioladitis as well since I noticed the Ionian Wikithon 2025 category ;) Auregann (talk) 08:30, 9 January 2025 (UTC)