Proposal: Monthly OpenHack Community Hangout

[qrush]

We have 33 OpenHacks going now around the world. I'm beyond happy about this. I expected a few cities but I didn't expect it to go global so fast. If your meetup has been active, or you're still getting started, or things haven't happened yet...thanks for being part of this.

I'd love to bring the OpenHack community together on a global scale...and I think the first step to doing this is a Google Hangout.

Unlike our meetups, this probably needs some structure. What if it had:

• A quick status update from me about OpenHack and the community in general (~5 mins)
• 2 15-minute talks (Should we take questions, and how? I can MC)

Some ideas for how to select the talk ideas:

• Theme is programming related, obviously
• Topics and languages/frameworks must be different for each one
• All of this will be recorded and distributed on YouTube

What I'd love to see to make this happen:

• A way to submit & vote on talks (ANONYMOUSLY to avoid discrimination, log in via GitHub to vote?)
• A backchannel in IRC for discussion, Q&A. (We need to register #openhack on Freenode)

[jcaudle]

I like the idea, but I'm curious about execution. G+ limits participation to only 10 people at a time. Were you thinking of having active participants on a first come first serve basis, but then everyone else watching a YouTube feed with IRC (kind of like the RubyGems hangout)? I've been thinking an OpenHack channel would be awesome as something to use on a regular basis for meetings anyway.

[qrush]

Yes, the speakers and anyone organizing the specific hangout/fielding questions would be in the hangout. Everyone else would watch live on YouTube.

[imrehg]

I'm interested. :)

[qrush]

I'm going to kill this idea for now. I lack the bandwidth necessary to do this well right now.

[bcardarella]

How do you feel about creating a new issue for active discussion on how to better openhack events? This could work in place of the hangout.

[qrush]

That's #69!

[bcardarella]

@qrush I'm talking about a message thread that is always open for discussion on the organization of events, instead of doing the hangout. #69 is closed and was specifically about a hangout.

[qrush]

#69 is not closed?

Also that seems like a poor way to handle it. I guess we could say "If you have questions open an Issue" but that feels strange to me. I really don't want to open another Google Group. :(

[bcardarella]

Oh sorry, I saw the reference from this issue's "Closed" image at the bottom.

It's not ideal but in lieu of a google group or some mailing list it is the simplest solution.