Toward an inclusive hackathon culture
timmesserschmidt.com
Toward an inclusive hackathon culture
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: Toward an inclusive hackathon culture
#21. Don't be a dick. (Seriously it's a bit disturbing how much work goes in to using lots of words to try to define this explicitly, only to end up with key parts being subjective anyway ("offensive" is in the eye of the beholder, etc).)
2. Don't forget that drowsy driving (say, after staying up hacking all night) is at least as dangerous as drunk driving. (And of course drowsy hacking is just silly, for much the same reason.)
Re: Toward an inclusive hackathon culture
#3This contains a list of links as opposed to content.
Anyway, here are the first two links:
https://medium.com/@superandomness/hackathons-are-for-hackin...
http://rubinovitz.com/post/97138278847/the-future-of-hackath...
Re: Toward an inclusive hackathon culture
#4Consider it during judging.
I was recently at MHacks as a sponsor, and our 3 top hack choices were half or more than half female. We gave shout-outs to 2 of them, and our sponsor prize to our top choice.
At final presentations, the top 14 apps were seated separately from the rest... People started to notice it was an all male group. It looked and felt wrong. There's just no way that all 14 of those teams were more worthy of stage demos, and it's not encouraging for future participation.
Re: Toward an inclusive hackathon culture
#5It's depressing that in 2014 this is something being discussed at all.
It's equally depressing that otherwise intelligent people will try to argue against codes of conduct, not realizing that as white men, they have literally no say in the matter (or at least shouldn't, even though many throw around their weight and privilege in order to disrupt things). I'd think that in a community so forward-looking and forward-thinking, people would have enough sense to be on the right side of history, instead of going down with the ship clutching their confederate dollars.
Re: Toward an inclusive hackathon culture
#6Consider it during judging. I was recently at MHacks as a sponsor, and our 3 top hack choices were half or more than half female. We gave shout-outs to 2 of them, and our sponsor prize to our top choice. At final presentations, the top 14 apps were seated separately from the rest... People started to notice it was an all male group. It looked and felt wrong. There's just no way that all 14 of those teams were more wo…
Can you link the 14 + 3 apps and let us evaluate them?
I do believe discrimination exists in our industry and have written about it, but I don't like to automatically assume its the default reason.
Re: Toward an inclusive hackathon culture
#7It's depressing that in 2014 this is something being discussed at all. It's equally depressing that otherwise intelligent people will try to argue against codes of conduct, not realizing that as white men, they have literally no say in the matter (or at least shouldn't, even though many throw around their weight and privilege in order to disrupt things). I'd think that in a community so forward-looking and forward-th…
not realizing that as white men, they have literally no say in the matter
...Wait, we're excluding people from discussions on the basis of race and gender now? And calling that "forward-thinking"?
Re: Toward an inclusive hackathon culture
#8What is the exact problem with someone saying "One of the reasons I attend hackathons is to hit on chicks"? Is it the phrasing or the concept itself? Would it be more acceptable to say "One of the reasons I attend hackathons is to meet interesting and attractive women", or is the idea itself the problem?
I can definitely imagine someone objecting to being described as "a chick" instead of "a woman". However, I don't mind being described as "a dude", and I don't really understand the difference between the two.
Re: Toward an inclusive hackathon culture
#9What is the exact problem with someone saying "One of the reasons I attend hackathons is to hit on chicks"? Is it the phrasing or the concept itself? Would it be more acceptable to say "One of the reasons I attend hackathons is to meet interesting and attractive women", or is the idea itself the problem? I can definitely imagine someone objecting to being described as "a chick" instead of "a woman". However, I don't…
It's the concept. It objectifies women. A hackfest is not a nightclub or a dating site. Having to constantly turn down sexual advances is awkward, and many times physically dangerous, and it has an effect of excluding women from spaces.
It's basic male entitlement to think that women should be receptive to their advances, at any time and in any place. Having to fend off creepy, socially awkward men makes conferences and the tech field as a whole incredibly hard to be in as a woman, and as a result, computer science is dragging literally all of STEM down with its grossly imbalanced gender ratio.
Re: Toward an inclusive hackathon culture
#10Consider it during judging. I was recently at MHacks as a sponsor, and our 3 top hack choices were half or more than half female. We gave shout-outs to 2 of them, and our sponsor prize to our top choice. At final presentations, the top 14 apps were seated separately from the rest... People started to notice it was an all male group. It looked and felt wrong. There's just no way that all 14 of those teams were more wo…
Can you link the 14 + 3 apps and let us evaluate them? I do believe discrimination exists in our industry and have written about it, but I don't like to automatically assume its the default reason.
This is the full list: http://mhacks-iv.challengepost.com/submissions
I can't seem to find a list of the top 14. Here's an article than mentions a few of them: http://t.co/DdOmmQiaLY
The ones we liked: Leaftagger (a very useful developer tool for iOS developers) http://mhacks-iv.challengepost.com/submissions/26195-leaftag...
Comfort App (not my favorite idea, but the entire process worked flawlessly, and it was very polished.) http://mhacks-iv.challengepost.com/submissions/26197-comfort
FB Crypt - I normally super-hate any sort of browser extensions at hackathons, but seamlessly PGP encrypting/decrypting Facebook Chat was a great challenge. http://mhacks-iv.challengepost.com/submissions/26314-fb-cryp...
Another trend I see is that if the hack appears sexy or innovative, even if it is not, it will go far. Android for iPhone took 2nd place... It was pitched as if an AOSP copy of Android was running on the phone, but quickly became clear it is just screen sharing like VNC. I've become a serious hackathon judging critic. YC Hacks finalist group was mostly embarrassing.