+1

I think matching local participants with international participants is a good way to create short term buddies, to help newcomers getting involved, and hopefully to increase the chances that they will stick around after the event, locally and also in our international channels.

@Amire80 - is there any possibility of you (or someone you recommend) doing and "intro to mediawiki" session in hebrew? Would that be interesting / worthwhile?

We will also do intro sessions in english. @bd808 are you planning to do a vagrant instal party? Any other thoughts on this?

Certainly we can match up newcomers who request a buddy with people who offer to be a buddy as @Qgil says.

@Chen_WMIL - maybe we can figure out a fun way to encourage locals and international traveler to meet and interact with each other during a mixer on Friday evening? Any plans there so far?

In T127885#2062117, @Rfarrand wrote:

We will also do intro sessions in english. @bd808 are you planning to do a vagrant instal party? Any other thoughts on this?

Yes, I'm planning to do T122335: MediaWiki-Vagrant install party (#wikimedia-hackathon-2016) and probably also help man a Labs/Tool Labs help desk. I expect the combination of MediaWiki-Vagrant, Cloud-Services, and Toolforge support to be pretty much what I do for the duration of the event.

In T127885#2062275, @bd808 wrote:

Yes, I'm planning to do T122335: MediaWiki-Vagrant install party (#wikimedia-hackathon-2016) and probably also help man a Labs/Tool Labs help desk. I expect the combination of MediaWiki-Vagrant, Cloud-Services, and Toolforge support to be pretty much what I do for the duration of the event.

@bd808, it might also be interesting to do an advanced MW-Vagrant session perhaps? Something like how to create new roles, test them etc or even just how to debug issues (even though that's harder to conceptualise and exemplify). I could chip in with RESTBase / node.js-based services.

In T127885#2063214, @mobrovac wrote:

@bd808, it might also be interesting to do an advanced MW-Vagrant session perhaps? Something like how to create new roles, test them etc or even just how to debug issues (even though that's harder to conceptualise and exemplify). I could chip in with RESTBase / node.js-based services.

I tried to combine install party and explaining how Vagrant and Puppet work at the Zürich hackathon, but it turned out then that getting the basic software working was more important for people. Doing help desk support with people who were having trouble with more advanced work seemed to work out better when I switched to that model in London. That being said, I would be totally willing to collaborate with anyone who wanted to do a more advanced presentation on the MediaWiki-Vagrant stack.

@Rfarrand On Friday evening we are planning a Beer & Pizza night, with a band, at the hostel. All Hackathon participants are welcome. Including locals of course.

Actually, you should also know that we have introduction meeting planned on March 14, to all the local participants. Including "intro to mediawiki" session in hebrew of course and Vagrant Install Party. The meeting will be led by @Amire80, @Alleycat80 & @Matanya.

Interesting! Is there a wiki page with the information? I would like to mention it in our Developer Relations Weekly Summary.

Hey @Qgil! No, there isn't a wiki page, because the audience of the meetup is non-wikimedians... we've simply invited local participants based on their registration e-mails. Currently ~10 people are attending, which is a good number (and we'll send another reminder so it's bound to come up).

We just want to minimize (in any way we can) the risk of people arriving to the hackathon, feeling frustrated because something happened during the installation (or something similar), then leaving...

Understood, thank you.

Some more ideas I am having as I add more to the event wiki:

1. We are going to allow people to introduce their projects or questions during the opening - these people are going to optionally add contact info to an etherpad.
2. I am going to create a page with all of the separate hacking rooms and each day people will be encouraged to add which room they are in, what they are working on, what they need help with and what they can help with. I will make a template.
3. Encourage the use of #wmhack for questions and communication between hacking rooms

Also the smily face buttons are currently being created. 1 color to indicate newcomers who want to be approached and a second color to indicate long-timers who are happy to mentor. It will be a fun experiment.

Should this task be closed?