2021:Hackathon

The hackathon of Wikimania 2021 will take place remotely on August 13th, starting at 5:00 am UTC. We aim to provide a space to gather the technical community and onboard people who would like to get involved in the development of MediaWiki and many other areas in the Wikimedia's technical ecosystem. We also see this day as a space for experiments. With an open schedule and a light, self-organized mindset, the hackathon day is the perfect opportunity for you to try new projects, formats or to gather people and start working on a new idea.

Get started

The Code of Conduct for Wikimedia's Technical Spaces will be in effect at the hackathon, on all platforms and discussion channels. Please have a look at it and ensure you are willing and able to follow it.
If you don’t have one yet, create an account on your favorite wiki and on Phabricator
Add yourself to the list of participants (New to Phabricator, Click here.)

You can watch the opening session at any time on YouTube or on Commons.
Join the social channels of the hackathon to get in touch with other participants
Have a look at the hackathon Phabricator board to see if there are projects where you could get involved. Feel free to add comments on tasks to manifest your interest and get in touch with the task owner.
Have a look at the schedule to see if there are any interesting sessions for you

Social channels

There are usually various ways to connect with the other participants. Here are a few channels where people are likely to gather and chat:

General Telegram group
Newcomer support Telegram group
IRC chat channel #wikimedia-hackathon (the IRC and General Telegram channels are bridged together, so you only need to be in one)
Matrix.org room (also bridged with IRC/General Telegram)

Talk page on wiki
The hashtag #wmhack on Twitter
Social Jitsi room: this is a space where people can hang out and chat (voice or video) while attending the hackathon. No specific program is taking place in this room.

On all channels and platforms related to the hackathon, the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia's Technical Spaces applies. Please check its content and actively engage in keeping the social channels a safe and friendly place for all participants. If you need to talk to someone or to report an issue, feel free to contact the Trust and Safety team on this Telegram group or to write to techconductwikimedia.org.

Propose a project or a session

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During the Wikimania hackathon 2021, everyone is free to suggest projects they plan to spend time on, tasks they plan to work on, or sessions to host in the schedule.

To propose a project that you plan to work on:

Please add or create a task in the Projects column of the Phabricator board.
Make sure to describe the task in an understandable way, so people can understand what it is about.

In the task description, add any information that will help new people join your project or that describes what you welcome help with: additional links, what kind of help or skills you are looking for, how to contact you, Telegram group for your project, related session in the program, etc.
Feel free to advertise your project on the hackathon social channels. As there is no traditional “project matching” session, this is the easiest way to reach potential contributors.

To schedule a session:

First, look at the schedule to see if a similar idea has already been scheduled, and to check what are the available time slots and rooms. (the hackathon is running from August 13th, 5am UTC (7am CEST) to August 14th, 5am UTC, and two sessions rooms are available on Jitsi)
Please create a task in the Sessions column of the Phabricator board, using this template.

As soon as the task is created, you can schedule your session by adding it in the schedule, filling in one of the table cells. Please add the name of your session and the link to the Phabricator task.
Important: as a session facilitator, you must ensure that the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia's Technical Spaces will be respected during the session. We encourage you to find at least one co-facilitator to help you with this.

Showcase

The hackathon showcase is a gathering where everyone has the opportunity to present what they have been working on. It will take place on Day 5 of Wikimania, on Tuesday, August 17th. It will be in two parts:

15:00 UTC: presentations, watch the replay on YouTube
15:30 UTC: social gathering, Q&A and discussions on Jitsi (not recorded)

More details about the projects can be found here.

Contact

The main organizers for the Wikimania 2021 hackathon are Elfego Solares (WMF), Srishti Sethi (WMF) and Léa Lacroix (WMDE). Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions.

In order to contact other hackathon participants or get involved in the projects, please check the participants list and the social channels.

If you need to report a Code of Conduct issue, feel free to contact the Trust and Safety team on this Telegram group or to write to techconductwikimedia.org.