Wikimania 2021 Hackathon: 24 hours to experiment with other Wikimedians

By the Wikimania Core Organizing Team

What is the Wikimania Hackathon?

Wikimedia hackathons are remote or onsite collaborative events where people from the Wikimedia technical community get together to connect, work on projects together, prototype new ideas, and share skills and knowledge with each other in a productive, fun, and supportive environment.

It’s a great place to get to know or re-connect with other technical contributors (developers, data analysts, technical writers, designers, product managers, organizers, and more) and to learn more about the various technical areas, projects, and options to contribute.

The Wikimania 2021 hackathon is a remote event organized 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 Wikimedia’s technical ecosystem. We also see this day as a space for experiments. With an open schedule and a light, self-organized format, 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.

What day will it be? And for How long?

The Wikimania 2021 hackathon will take place on the first day of the remote Wikimania 2021, starting August 13th at 5:00 UTC and lasting for 24 hours.

What will the Hackathon look like? Where/How is it taking place? Is there a program?

During the 24 hours of the hackathon, people can join from any timezone, work on their projects, collaborate with others, and exchange on the hackathon social channels. Two Jitsi rooms will be available to organize sessions, workshops or discussions (more information on how to add a session in the program here). As for all events organized within the framework of Wikimania, the Code of Conduct for Wikimedia’s Technical Spaces applies.

How can I participate? Do I need to register? How?

Everyone is welcome to the Wikimania hackathon, especially people who never participated in the technical aspects of the Wikimedia projects before. There are plenty of ways to be involved in the hackathon:

• If you already have a project you would like to work on, feel free to create an entry on our task-tracking system
• You can also look at existing tasks and contact their owners to get involved
• You can look at the schedule and attend sessions that seem interesting for you
• Feel free to add yourself to the list of participants and join the social channels of the hackathon to interact with other participants

No registration is needed to attend the hackathon. If you don’t have a Wikimedia account and a Phabricator account, we recommend that you create one before starting.

I have never attended before. What are some things I need to know before joining?

The hackathon is open to everyone, including people who don’t have prior knowledge in Wikimedia’s technical areas and development. If this is your first time, please take a look at the links above to familiarize yourself with our technical spaces.

Will there be a helpdesk or point of contact prior to the event? What about during the event?

The main space to find help are the social channels, especially the newcomers Telegram group. Feel free to join and ask questions or help others. You can also ask questions on the discussion page onwiki.

About this post

Featured image credit: Wikimania2021 Sharing.svg, Jasmina El Bouamraoui and Karabo Poppy Moletsane, CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication

This post originally appeared in the Wikimedia Diff Blog on 19 July 2021.