Call them what you will. There is certainly a debate about what they should be called. Codeathon, Hackathon, Coding Event, Collaboration Party, Edit-a-thon (for wikipedia projects), Hack Battle, Coding Competition, App Challenge (perhaps just “Challenge”), Unconference, Appathon. There is some evidence to suggest that the most common term “Hackathon” is a more attractive to male participants. So the name does matter.
Despite this, I am inclined to continue calling the events Hackathons. I think it is because I remain attached to the original meaning of the word “Hacker“. Which I use to mean here:
A person who practices hacking. Hacking is the process of solving hard problems in clever ways, especially with elegant avoidance of central problems and with some delight in ignoring bad rules.
It is this last bit, the willingness to ignore bad rules. There are people that deserve to be called “Crackers” who ignore ethical or legal rules, while they specifically seek to harm other people. The problem is that “cleverness” and “badness” are in the eye of the beholder.
That makes the word “hacker” something like the word “activist”. Activist can mean Martin Luther King or Malcom X. Most of us are satisfied to call both of them activist, but, even in the civil rights movement, there are any who would posit that only one the two men was a “real” activist, and the other was trying, but failing to be an activist.
Those in power, however, frequently saw both men as a threat. For those who see change as a threat, especially those who are seeking to maintain their own power, they sometimes cannot tell the difference between those who seek change in an ethical manner, as opposed to those who seek the same changes with violence.
Like an activist, a real hacker seeks change. They have a moral agenda and they seek to bring about the change with their work. For this reason, I like the term “Hackathon”. And, in some respects, the whole point of this post is to set our a set of rules for “Hacking with non-violence”.
This post is necessary because of the provocative piece from Wired magazine which suggested that “SOCIOLOGISTS EXAMINE HACKATHONS AND SEE EXPLOITATION“. From that article, sociologist Sharon Zukin says
Viewed through a sociologist’s framework, Zukin says the events’ aspirational messaging—typical Silicon Valley-style futurebabble about changing the world—feels dystopian. Hackathons show “the fault lines of an emerging production system” by embodying a set of “quasi-Orwellian” ideas that are prevalent in the current economic climate, she writes. Zukin encapsulates those ideas in slogans that could be at home on the walls of a WeWork lobby: “Work is Play,” “Exhaustion is Effervescent,” and “Precarity is Opportunity.”
I do find it somewhat ironic that Zukin published her work through an academic journal that charges for access to the paper. After all, the academic journal system is hardly free from work exploitation issues.
Principles: Learn Build Share
List Criticisms
https://www.fastcompany.com/3054023/why-hackathons-are-bad-for-innovation
https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/why-hackathons-suck
https://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2013/04/19/hackathon-events-do-they-really-help-anyone/#b0488cd99920
https://www.fastcompany.com/3028552/new-hackathon-patterns-that-dont-subsequently-disrupt-your-entire-life
Good ideas
https://blog.ultrahack.org/how-to-make-sure-your-hackathon-project-is-not-just-a-one-hit-wonder-interview-with-perfektio-d5c838b55f1f
https://hackathon.guide/
https://www.devex.com/news/tips-for-designing-effective-hackathons-for-social-impact-90820
https://medium.com/@elle_mccann/so-you-think-you-want-to-run-a-hackathon-think-again-f96cd7df246a
https://learn.inn.org/2013/07/28/building-community-innovation-the-power-of-coding-workshops-hackathons-for-nonprofit-news-organizations/