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I've seen this before. I was involved in one where the winning team had been working for months beforehand (their website was registered > 6mo before the event)

I've seen this before. I was involved in one where the winning team had been working for months beforehand (their website was registered > 6mo before the event), had prepared presentation materials far before the event including design mockups, and presented with nothing more than a pre-cooked video that was looked manipulated to show "working" code. None of us knew for sure, but it looked like they had just built static HTML pages and transitioned between them. For those of us who had built working products, it felt more than a bit cheap. We saw some great code and very little of it was recognized. I believe the issue is one of expectations and marketing for these events. They are pitched as "hackathons" and try very hard to attract engineers, as you simply can't have the event without coders. Therefore, engineers reasonably expect an event where the best code wins. After all, it's called a "hackathon", not a "meet & greet with investors" or even a "startup weekend". In the end, it just felt like the judges were putting themselves into the mindset of investors, and in that case, obviously the team that has prepared for months beforehand will win. But to the coders, we felt cheated, and that they had completely missed the point.

jacalata 13y ago
So, did anyone complain at the event? Or even after the event? How did the judges and organisers respond to the complaints?
- ssafejava 13y ago
  There wasn't much that could be done. According to the rules, all's fair so long as the code wasn't written until the hackathon itself, which is pretty much impossible to prove or disprove anyway. You can prepare as long as you want. There is a section about a "code review" but I doubt that was really done; IIRC we didn't even submit our code, we just did a demo & video. The strongest complaint we could make was that it was strongly against the spirit of a hackathon, which is a difficult argument to win.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    The strongest complaint you can make is presumably "I wouldn't have come if I knew a team like this could enter and even win, and I won't come to your next one, and I will be sure to let others know that I won't come and why". Saying it publicly with all the other entrants around lets others join in if this is something that is widely regarded as unpopular and lets the organisers know that there is some serious resentment. Not complaining at all is certainly one way to make sure nothing will be done. I mean, nobody here can even say "wow, I won't go to their next one!" because you haven't even named them.
    - ssafejava 13y ago
      You're right, and I wish we had. Instead we were just sort of stunned by the underwhelming ending and the crowd filtered out very quickly (there was no "drinkathon", we were all too tired). It was Angelhack - I suppose, by the name, we should have known that investability comes first, hacking second. Our team was tired out after all-night coding and really didn't possess the mental finesse at the time to walk the fine line between arguing "the results don't fit the spirit of the event" and "we are sore losers".
      - calbear81 13y ago
        Is it not normal to have a team made before the hackathon? We're registered for a few hackathons and a lot of them ask us to join a team ahead of time or join one when we get there but they do ask that teams put down their idea. The rule we adhered to was no prior coding or design work before the hackathon so build everything there but feel free to discuss the idea we want to go in with.
        tomordonez 13y ago
        YES "no prior coding or design" although this is not followed. There is no transparency in the process and also not regulated. There are no code reviews or not way of knowing if somebody came with a "ready to serve" product. Even a less a code of honor.
        potatolicious 13y ago
CalinBalauru 13y ago
You might need to fake it and that's ok. Given that the hackaton might be 2 days, unless your idea is 'simple' enough to have a MVP in 1 day (never seen it happen), the second day will be all preparation for the presentation because this is what will win a jury.
tomordonez 13y ago
I am starting to see this trend where hackathons are more about investors bringing an undercover team to pretend they formed a team and code for 2 days, while in reality. The team was formed a while ago, product was pre-cooked, actually more like ready to be served. And just need it an event to get some PR. Hackathons should have a (literally) Code of Honor. Judges should be hackers and they need to make sure there is no code before the event and do a code review before the judging.
jlees 13y ago
I wonder if it's down to the lack of other places for these pre-cooked startups to pitch? They just want the audience. (Though this happens in Silicon Valley, for sure, where one certainly can't argue there aren't any pitch soapboxes.) Perhaps two judging categories could help. Best technical feat this weekend, and best business concept. Bonus points for the business concept that actually built some kind of MVP this weekend. There's a grey area between new hacks that use existing APIs/tech from a startup (vs. publicly available tech) and completely new projects. Not sure how that should be handled, perhaps just a case-by-case basis (is this a feature for the startup, or is it a brand new project that happens to leverage existing knowledge?)

jacalata 13y ago

So, did anyone complain at the event? Or even after the event? How did the judges and organisers respond to the complaints?

ssafejava 13y ago
There wasn't much that could be done. According to the rules, all's fair so long as the code wasn't written until the hackathon itself, which is pretty much impossible to prove or disprove anyway. You can prepare as long as you want. There is a section about a "code review" but I doubt that was really done; IIRC we didn't even submit our code, we just did a demo & video. The strongest complaint we could make was that it was strongly against the spirit of a hackathon, which is a difficult argument to win.
- jacalata 13y ago
  The strongest complaint you can make is presumably "I wouldn't have come if I knew a team like this could enter and even win, and I won't come to your next one, and I will be sure to let others know that I won't come and why". Saying it publicly with all the other entrants around lets others join in if this is something that is widely regarded as unpopular and lets the organisers know that there is some serious resentment. Not complaining at all is certainly one way to make sure nothing will be done. I mean, nobody here can even say "wow, I won't go to their next one!" because you haven't even named them.
  - ssafejava 13y ago
    You're right, and I wish we had. Instead we were just sort of stunned by the underwhelming ending and the crowd filtered out very quickly (there was no "drinkathon", we were all too tired). It was Angelhack - I suppose, by the name, we should have known that investability comes first, hacking second. Our team was tired out after all-night coding and really didn't possess the mental finesse at the time to walk the fine line between arguing "the results don't fit the spirit of the event" and "we are sore losers".
    - calbear81 13y ago
      Is it not normal to have a team made before the hackathon? We're registered for a few hackathons and a lot of them ask us to join a team ahead of time or join one when we get there but they do ask that teams put down their idea. The rule we adhered to was no prior coding or design work before the hackathon so build everything there but feel free to discuss the idea we want to go in with.
      - tomordonez 13y ago
        YES "no prior coding or design" although this is not followed. There is no transparency in the process and also not regulated. There are no code reviews or not way of knowing if somebody came with a "ready to serve" product. Even a less a code of honor.
      - potatolicious 13y ago

CalinBalauru 13y ago

You might need to fake it and that's ok. Given that the hackaton might be 2 days, unless your idea is 'simple' enough to have a MVP in 1 day (never seen it happen), the second day will be all preparation for the presentation because this is what will win a jury.

tomordonez 13y ago

I am starting to see this trend where hackathons are more about investors bringing an undercover team to pretend they formed a team and code for 2 days, while in reality. The team was formed a while ago, product was pre-cooked, actually more like ready to be served. And just need it an event to get some PR. Hackathons should have a (literally) Code of Honor. Judges should be hackers and they need to make sure there is no code before the event and do a code review before the judging.

jlees 13y ago

I wonder if it's down to the lack of other places for these pre-cooked startups to pitch? They just want the audience. (Though this happens in Silicon Valley, for sure, where one certainly can't argue there aren't any pitch soapboxes.) Perhaps two judging categories could help. Best technical feat this weekend, and best business concept. Bonus points for the business concept that actually built some kind of MVP this weekend. There's a grey area between new hacks that use existing APIs/tech from a startup (vs. publicly available tech) and completely new projects. Not sure how that should be handled, perhaps just a case-by-case basis (is this a feature for the startup, or is it a brand new project that happens to leverage existing knowledge?)