Working group call on 05/18/20

[blockstackers]

Date / Time: Monday, May 18, 2020, 7:00am PDT / 10:00am EDT/ 2:00pm UTC / 4:00pm CEST / 10:00pm CST (time zone conversion)

Location: https://zoom.us/my/blockstack.community
Recording: Here

(If you'd like to be added to the recurring calendar invitation, please request one on the working group channel.)

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Proposed Agenda (please feel free to amend!)

• Finalize date and timeline for PoX business competition
• Discussion: What resources do we need to set participants up for success? (Reference: https://trust-less-2020.dystopialabs.com/)
• Discussion: Judging projects, selecting winners, awarding prizes
• Add action items to the "PoX Business Competition" project board

[whoabuddy]

Adding #3 as a discussion item since it's still open :)

Link to the project board: https://github.com/blockstackers/biz-model_pm/projects

[xmakina]

Just to clarify my comments in the zoom meeting:

I'm a software developer by trade and hobby. I've done a few hackathons in the past and what I'm hearing on the call is magintudes more complex than anything I've been to and, frankly, it's off-putting.

It feels to me like you're using the word hackathon but it's more of about project incubation. To me, a hackathon is a bunch of folks getting together, eating pizza and smashing code together as fast as possible, "Just ship it" being the absolute overriding order of the day. The most important part is the demo at the end, where everyone demonstrates what they've got. The demo's are usually messy, buggy but the core idea is there and can be explored, however slightly. There are no prizes, or if there are they're token gestures, because the reason someone does a hackathon is because it let's them put a few hours or days aside to explore something new, or expand on a kernel of an idea they've been sitting on for a while.

What is happening now on gitcoin is probably the most extreme end of something I'd call a hackathon, it goes for a lot longer than usual and prizes and judges put a lot more pressure on than I'd normally be comfortable with. It's also worth considering that prizes, especailly substantial cash prizes, don't neccessarily foster the cooperation that is usually at the core of a hackathon.

I'm sure the project incubation stuff sounds amazing to some people, but if you want hackers at a hackathon to kick the tyres of Clarity and explore the limits of a programming language, then I think you're going far too big. If I hear hackathon, I'm thinking pizza, programming, and a goofy demo at the end, but what I'm hearing from the team is more akin to presenting an idea on Dragon's Den and Shark Tank!

[blockstackers]

@xmakina Totally hear your points on this, Alex. It sounds like calling this a "hackathon" would potentially be misleading for actual hackers and devs.

What would you propose we call it instead? And is it just the name that is concerning or is the format of the competition also questionable to you?

[xmakina]

I don't know what a good name would be, I'm not even sure I've heard of anything like this before where even plans can be submitted and prizes might include actual engineering time.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of the format, but I think that it's more important you find something that aligns with blockstack's current goals.

If Blockstack are looking to build techinical experts, then drop the prizes, or at least radically alter them, and push for a hackathon. Get people who actually want to write clarity contracts and node test suites to come and give the tires a good kicking, work out problems and find solutions. You want people to come together in a spirit of collaboration, experimentation and exploration. Huge prizes for the "winners" encourages people to silo information and only share it at the last possible moment, after all, they can still talk about what they've discovered after they've pocketed however many thousands of dollars are on offer.

If Blockstack are trying to get projects off the ground and potentially make folks who have something in the works consider moving over to Clarity rather than Ethereum, then the current format works as a big sweetner to ask people to take a risk on an unproven technology.

Personally, I think you should do both, and do them in that order. A hackathon to build up your community of experts and also get some solutions out there that demonstrate even basic principals in other languages like "a list that I can always add to" and "testing that users can exchange STX". This is my big concern with going so big so quickly, even something as simple as "when a transaction completes add the principal to a list" is hard to do currently. Folks coming in with big ideas might either pitch projects that just don't work very well on Clarity, or worse, go to build it, run into a wall with the less than obvious compiler, total lack of IDE or tool chain and find certain features like the lack of looping so frustrating they write off Clarity as a potential tool for them.

With a stronger foundation of experts in the language, because right now I think your only language experts are Ludo and Friedger, you can pitch something bigger.

[joberding]

Every hackathon I've participated in here in San Francisco (and I've done a lot) as well as online has primarily the same format. I'll focus on the online type.

• A week or three of webinars before the hackathon where the sponsors intro their tools

• A website that provides all rules and resources as well as profiles of the sponsors and judges

• Online hackathons provide a week or three for the actual hackathon period

• Participants submit projects per rules

• 24+ hours later the organizers announce the winners

• Winners are contacted and prizes sent out. (This usually takes longer than the winners would like ;) )

Devpost does a great job at the online hackathons.

I do agree with @xmakina that big prizes may not encourage collaboration amongst the participants. I didn't really notice that with the previous Blockstack hackathons.

However, sponsors get plenty back in that participants have lots of questions and find plenty of bugs. If done right, a hackathon is usually a really cheap way of having a hundred users test your tools and give you feedback. I'm pretty sure Blockstack paid a hell of a lot more for Try My UI on app mining than the suggested prizes in this hackathon. ;)

Just my .02 cents.

Here's some of my hackathon projects, if you are interested. :)

PS. I think there are more Clarity experts in this community than Friedger and Ludo.