Hey Lewis, I'd be really interested in attending a UK hackathon. I'm a bot developer, Toolserver tool operator, and occasional MediaWiki hacker.
That said, the dates would be really important to me. It's either got to be a weekend in September (too close) or some time in December. Sorry. Anyway, best of luck with the whole initiative. Harry (User:Jarry1250) On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 1:14 PM, Lewis Cawte <[email protected]>wrote: > ** > Hi all > > Right, I'm not going to bore you with the long back story of this, but I > was reading about the recently announced New Orleans hackathon, and as I > normally do when I can't get to an event because its abroad or whatever, I > go onto IRC and do my normal whiney thing (which I really hate myself for). > But anyway, I got talking with 'sumanah, who is the Volunteer Development > Coordinator at the Wikimedia Foundation (I guess that makes hackathons and > stuff part of her job), but she suggested that if I can't get to these, why > don't I organise my own... > > So anyway, then we got talking about some stuff, and we decided that it > would be best, especially for my first event not necessarily worry about > international developers and participants as much, and that I should focus > the event locally. > > A few of the main hurdles with me not being able to get to the other > hackathons are that my age, I'm 14 (15 in early September), so it makes > finding a simple flight or whatever harder to find (because my parents don't > have passports, and would not be able to afford coming with me, or finding > something else to do), and cash to pay for hotel room and travel is also a > problem. These problems also kind of apply to me running a hackathon, and a > few solutions that came up were that 1, I hold it somewhere in Brighton, or > somewhere rather close, and 2, that I contact my local chapter (if > memberships a problem for no chapter support, I'll get the application in > for the next meeting). > > And basicly I need to know, > > - How many of you would be interested in coming to a MediaWiki > Hackathon, will be before Christmas this year, which would last a day or > two, depending on the level of support and interest we get. There may be an > opportunity for a chapter/GLAM/board meetup depending on > time/venue/interest, but I still need to find out the relevant information > before that can be arranged fully. I plan to cross post an announcement to > - What support I can get from the chapter, I don't have a lot of > money, and I don't get a lot either, if anything, how much would the > chapter > be willing to put into this event. > - Would anyone interested be willing to pay a small fee to attend, like > £5/10 a day? This has yet to be decided but it would help especially if the > chapter doesn't have much money it can spare... > - How many MediaWiki developers, toolserver users (not toolserver tools > users, but people that have their own tools/bots on toolserver) do we have > here, because I personally don't know of that many, but it'd be nice if we > could have some kind of workshop thing or mentoring program, because if we > don't have a few, we're going to have a lot of bored people sitting in a > room for a couple of days. I've spoken to a few of the other developers in > #mediawiki, and I know one or two people that have said they would be happy > to travel into the UK if I can get one organised and run by Christmas... > - Deputy Event manager like person. As I've said, I'll be 15 when this > happens, and I'm not comfortable running this by myself, or booking stuff > in > my name... or being the emergency contact on the time of the event, mainly > because I'm a stupidly heavy sleeper. I am happy, however to go to the > event, do some speaking, go shopping or order shopping for snacks, work out > transport routes and stuff, and I'll go along with someone to visit the > venue if need be... > > Oh yeah, and if anyone doesn't know what a hackathon is, I've probably left > it a bit late to explain, but its a meetup with a few talks and a lot of > coding and bug fixing (and for this one, specifically MediaWiki related > tools (so toolserver, pybot etc as well)). > > Hope I haven't forgotten anything, > -- Lewis Cawte > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org > >
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