Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

tomordonez.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 62 posts

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#11

Post by ssafejava »

jacalata wrote: post #7
ssafejava wrote: post #6

I've seen this before. I was involved in one where the winning team had been working for months beforehand (their website was registered > 6mo before the event), had prepared presentation materials far before the event including design mockups, and presented with nothing more than a pre-cooked video that was looked manipulated to show "working" code. None of us knew for sure, but it looked like they had just built st…

So, did anyone complain at the event? Or even after the event? How did the judges and organisers respond to the complaints?

There wasn't much that could be done. According to the rules, all's fair so long as the code wasn't written until the hackathon itself, which is pretty much impossible to prove or disprove anyway. You can prepare as long as you want. There is a section about a "code review" but I doubt that was really done; IIRC we didn't even submit our code, we just did a demo & video.

The strongest complaint we could make was that it was strongly against the spirit of a hackathon, which is a difficult argument to win.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#13

Post by jacalata »

ssafejava wrote: post #11
jacalata wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, did anyone complain at the event? Or even after the event? How did the judges and organisers respond to the complaints?

There wasn't much that could be done. According to the rules, all's fair so long as the code wasn't written until the hackathon itself, which is pretty much impossible to prove or disprove anyway. You can prepare as long as you want. There is a section about a "code review" but I doubt that was really done; IIRC we didn't even submit our code, we just did a demo & video. The strongest complaint we could make was that…

The strongest complaint you can make is presumably "I wouldn't have come if I knew a team like this could enter and even win, and I won't come to your next one, and I will be sure to let others know that I won't come and why". Saying it publicly with all the other entrants around lets others join in if this is something that is widely regarded as unpopular and lets the organisers know that there is some serious resentment. Not complaining at all is certainly one way to make sure nothing will be done.

I mean, nobody here can even say "wow, I won't go to their next one!" because you haven't even named them.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#14

Post by dangayle »

I'm active in our area's Startup Weekend community, and we try to stamp out the pre-fab work ahead of time. We've never had a funded project come through before, but I know we wouldn't allow it.

I'm also the organizer of a local civic hackathon, where we have one caveat: Feel free to continue work on the project you started at our last hackathon. I'm curious how many will, or how many will start from scratch.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#15

Post by caphill »

I went to my first hackathon a few weeks ago and it was very skeevy with all the idea people floating around looking for folks to build their idea for free while they watch.

Hackathons would be fun if it was all about everyone building what ever and having a good time instead a lot of them seem building a business focused.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#18

Post by sliverstorm »

ZirconCode wrote: post #4
pizza wrote: post #3

don't go to hackathons if you just want to win

That's not the point. I'm sure OP would've been fine loosing, as long as it was in fair competition.

The darkest cynic in me says, competing fairly is for losers. Literally, not figuratively.

Re: The Hackathon Experience Is a Hack

#19

Post by ssafejava »

jacalata wrote: post #13
ssafejava wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There wasn't much that could be done. According to the rules, all's fair so long as the code wasn't written until the hackathon itself, which is pretty much impossible to prove or disprove anyway. You can prepare as long as you want. There is a section about a "code review" but I doubt that was really done; IIRC we didn't even submit our code, we just did a demo & video. The strongest complaint we could make was that…

The strongest complaint you can make is presumably "I wouldn't have come if I knew a team like this could enter and even win, and I won't come to your next one, and I will be sure to let others know that I won't come and why". Saying it publicly with all the other entrants around lets others join in if this is something that is widely regarded as unpopular and lets the organisers know that there is some serious resen…

You're right, and I wish we had. Instead we were just sort of stunned by the underwhelming ending and the crowd filtered out very quickly (there was no "drinkathon", we were all too tired). It was Angelhack - I suppose, by the name, we should have known that investability comes first, hacking second.

Our team was tired out after all-night coding and really didn't possess the mental finesse at the time to walk the fine line between arguing "the results don't fit the spirit of the event" and "we are sore losers".

Post reply on HN