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Hack-A-Ton DC

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The Hack-A-Ton DC was held October 22–24, 2010 just outside Washington, D.C. in the United States. This is our first developer event on the East coast of the United States, and it's designed more of a hackathon/bugsmash than the Developers' Workshop in Berlin, which focuses on demonstrations and small group discussions.

On Bugzilla, a new keyword, bugsmash, has been added to tag bugs to be looked at during the event.

Venue / Hotel

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The meeting was at the Embassy Suites in Tysons Corner (map), just outside of Washington, D.C. See Wikivoyage's page for more information.

Address of Hotel: Embassy Suites Tyson's Corner 8517 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, Virginia, United States 22182 Tel: 1-703-883-0707 Fax: 1-703-883-0694…

Schedule

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Saturday, October 23rd

  • 9:00 - Gather, check email, introductions
  • 10:00 - noon: Bug Smash Sprint
  • noon: WikiBhasha Demo
  • 1:00 - Lunch
  • 2:00 - Testing (RobLa/Trevor)
  • 3:00 - Code Review / Deploy researches (Danese/MZMcBride)
  • 4:00 - Sentence-Level Editing demo (JanPaul)
  • 5:00 - Group Photo and Poster signing
  • 5:15 - Meet out front for transport to WikiMeetup
  • 6:00 - WikiMeetup in Foggy Bottom
  • 8:30 - Transport returns to hotel
  • all night - Hack as you will (tests sprint)

Sunday, October 24th

  • 9:00 - Gather, wake up, etc.
  • 11:00 - Resource Loader (Trevor)
  • noon - Lunch
  • noon - Pending Changes (Alolita, RobLa, Brandon, Priyanka, Chad)
  • 1:00 - Virtualization (Ryan, Markus)
  • 2:00 -
  • 3:00 - End.

Remaining Topics:

  • ArbCom Election Number
  • Coallition

Travel information

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Transportation

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  • The DC metro area is served by two international airports, Reagan (DCA) and Dulles (IAD); Baltimore (BWI) is about an hour north of the city, but can be substantially cheaper to fly into (there's a train you can take into the city for about $10)
  • The subway system in the DC area, called "The Metro" serves 5 colored lines as spokes through the center of the city. Metro connects you to DCA (use trains and busses from IAD and BWI). DC also has an extensive bus network. Tysons Corner is not near a Metro stop. You will need to take Metro's Orange Line out to Vienna (or West Falls Church?) and there might be carpools or shuttles (?) at designated times from there to the Hack-A-Ton venue. Or there is the bus or you can take a taxi (a little bit expensive).
    • I called the hotel for metro+taxi specifics and was told the following: Take the orange line to the Dunn Loring stop. Most times of day there will be cabs waiting right there. If not, you can call 703-522-3333 for Red Top cabs. The cab ride is 3.5 miles and without traffic this will cost $12-$15 each way. As one who lives nearby without a car, this sounds like a good option to me. For those staying at the hotel, the hotel will send a free shuttle to the metro stop. -- Econterms 22:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Taxis can get expensive if you travel far, but are readily available throughout the city.

Emergency numbers

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Emergency numbers work free of charge from any land line or cell phone.

  • Police / Ambulance / Fire: 911

Electricity, Internet, etc.

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  • 120V at 60 Hz. People from Europe, etc: bring an adapter!
  • "NEMA" plugs, 5, see NEMA 5
  • Cell phone coverage is good pretty much everywhere in DC, except in the subways
  • Free wi-fi can be found at some coffee shops (any Starbucks, for example); you might have to look around though

Weather

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  • October in DC tends tends to be mild, with temperatures in the mid 60s F (around 15–21 C); suggest bringing a jacket for night time
  • Forecast: BBC and Weather Channel

Money

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  • DC is very card-friendly; Visa, MasterCard, American Express are all widely accepted
  • ATMs are everywhere

Q&A

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When will we be gathering on Friday evening? When on Saturday? Where in the hotel?
Why Hack-A-Ton?
Well we plan to do a ton of hacking. Also, everybody has FooBar-thons, so we decided to be different.
How safe is the DC area?
DC is a pretty safe city. Of course, like most medium to large cities, there are parts of town you should avoid. But we're not going to be in those parts, so you shouldn't have to worry. The biggest concern in the DC area is panhandling.
What kinds of food are there?
DC is a medium-sized city, so there are plenty of food options for most people. Vegetarian cuisine is available as well.
Can we meet local Wikipedians?
Yes! There will be a special Wikipedia meetup on Saturday evening in DC (near Foggy Bottom Metro station), to get hackers and local DC area (and maybe out-of-towners) Wikipedians together. See w:Wikipedia:Meetup/DC_12 for details.

Participants

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(This is an informal list for now, just to gauge interest) This has pretty much become the official list :)

Maybe

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