Future of this project?

[danielknell]

history

On the 9th April 2012 after some good discussion about what makes a good hackday, as part of the planning for HACKED, I took a bunch of the points that had been discussed and edited it all down into the first draft of the Hackday Manifesto, a blueprint that others could (and did) use to help organise hackdays around the world...

It was I think the first time someone had organised all the information and advise that had been a kind of tribal knowledge until that point, and then a large number of folk helped further refine things, an astonishing number of people from all over the tech industry signed their name to the ideals it contained, it even got some press in the big tech news outlets of the day...

current state

The project has bit-rotted over the years

Fast forward 13+ years, I am now old, (more) jaded, and I cant remember the last time I even heard about a hackday, let alone attended one...

The project has bit-rotted over the years, its now of a state where the build fails and it no longer deploys, the content is full of archaic references that wont make sence to anyone other than the gerictric millenials that authored it, and i have no idea how much of the content still applies, if there is important things omitted, or worse, if any of the content is outright wrong for a modern audience.

Which brings me to the question...

what should I do with this project?

I've paid to keep the lights on over the last 13 years, and if it remains a useful resource to the community, I am willing to keep doing so, but I equally worry keeping a page full of outdated information online could do as much harm as good?

I have mulled the the ideas of:

• should i just take the site down?
• would anyone be willing to give the project the attention it needs?
• where would I even find someone to pass on the proverbial torch?

If I'm honest, I really don't know what to do with it... 70+ people contributed or signed their names it, so though I kicked things off, is it even my place to decide in isolation?

cc: @tommorris @leeky @cbetta @mseckington @kevinprince @martian-a @TheHodge @andypiper @adamamyl @torgo @jonmarkgo
(appologies for unsolicited pings to contributors, or if i missed anyone)

[jonmarkgo]

I think I (and the MLH team) may be interested in taking the helm and maintaining this project if you're open to it (though I also wanna chat with my team on Monday when they're back online to make sure other folks are on board with the idea).

When we started out back in 2013, the Hack Day Manifesto was incredibly valuable and ultimately inspired us to build our own open source (CC-BY 4.0) and actively maintained guide which happens to be much more in-depth/specific for student hackathons, though a lot of the same best practices certainly apply.

[danielknell]

MLH certianly feels like a good candidate to pass the reins to.

[jonmarkgo]

Gah sorry I totally forgot to follow up here - want to set up a call or something to chat more about this?

[danielknell]

@jonmarkgo do you want to setup a call for next week? ping me an email on contact@danielknell.co.uk and we can schedule something.