How to get involved with Hackathon Hackers.
Hackathon Hackers is an all-inclusive hackathon community, run for and by the community. This repository organization exists to allow anyone to find out about, and contribute to, the way this community is governed. Every aspect of our growth and moderation policies are meant to be as transparent and open as possible.
If you ever see something on any repo that you feel could be improved, feel free to submit a pull request for a change to be made. This is your community as much as it is ours.
The Hackathon Hackers main group (as well as a few subgroups) is run using the opensource moderation tool, HackBot. When the appointed moderators type the command /delete in response to a comment or post they believe is in violation of our Code of Conduct, or does not belong in the group being moderated, the entirety of the deleted content will be removed, and pushed to a file on a public GitHub repository, along with the details of why it was removed, and by whom. The same goes for every usage of /ama, /thread and /close.
The admin team is voted on by the community as a whole.
The structure of choosing admins works as follows:
- A person is nominated for adminship by filling out this form.
- At the end of every term, the Subgroup Leaders vote to add, remove, or renew adminship for nominated and existing admins. Subgroup Leaders must also decide how many admins will be elected in a term.
- Prior to the elections, new nominees are given an opportunity to campaign by submitting a proposal on their personal vision for the community to the Hackathon Hackers Medium publication.
All newly elected admins must agree to practice empathy when responding to content that should be removed. The purpose of the moderation team is to make sure that their assigned group remains a place where everyone feels welcome.
The duties of the admin team includes:
- Deleting content that violates our Code of Conduct.
- Reaching out to community members, informing them of why their content was taken down.
- Reporting to the admin when they feel as if a community member must be banned, and giving them a comprehensive update on why they feel this is the right move to make.
Voting on the following (% majority needed depends on number of admins):
- Banning users
- Pinning posts
- Modifying the sidebar
- Adding a newly appointed admin
- Maintaining the Hackathon Hackers GitHub, its repos, and helping new contributors
The terms of the Admins are four months long, but can be terminated at any point during that period at the discretion of a 2/3 majority vote of the Admins. The decision to make the terms four months long is meant to accommodate the fact that most of our community is made up of students, whose time available volunteer may vary by semester.
To qualify for the election, members must satisfy the following criteria:
- Must be a member of Hackathon Hackers.
- Must not be banned, and must not have been banned in the 30 days prior to the start of the nomination period.
- Must have made at least one post or comment in the current administrative term.
The nomination period begins 14 days prior to the end of the admin team's term. Once the nomination period starts, eligible members will have five days to declare their candidacy.
Candidates will be allowed to give a statement of up to 500 characters which will appear to voters on the voting portal. Campaigning and voter interactions in the main group, including public questions for candidates, will be restricted to a pinned megathread.
The voting period lasts for seven days; in order to maintain the anonymity of votes, members cannot change their votes once cast. For each candidate, voters will have the following options:
- Support
- Neutral
- Oppose
The support ratio for a candidate is defined as the number of votes supporting them divided by the number of votes cast for a candidate, excluding neutral votes. In other terms:
Support Ratio = Support / (Support + Oppose)
Candidates must have at least a 33% support ratio to qualify to be admins. If there are at least five candidates that meet this requirement, the top five candidates will be appointed as group admins in order of highest percentage of support.
An interim period of two days is provided in order to grant the opportunity to resolve conflicts such as admins withdrawing their candidacy, as well as to provide a transition period during which the incoming admin team can be trained. During this period, the current admin team will remain in place, and the new admin team is only to be appointed after the end of this period.
The HH Subgroup Leaders may vote on new hackbot moderators as they see fit, but they can also be voted out by said Subgroup Leaders. Someone can volunteer for the moderation team via request to an HH Subgroup Leader who puts it to a vote. This is a good way for future admins to show how they work with the community.
The creator of the group exists on the panel, only to ensure that no newly added admin ever reaches a point where they refuse to give up ownership of the group when their term has ended. The creator's sole authority is to ensure that agreed-upon power transitions occur, as specified by this document. The creator may not add or remove an admin for personal or opinion-based reasons under any circumstances, or make any other kind of change to the group.
The Subgroup Leaders is the group for admins who manage HH affiliated subgroups. To become an HH affiliated subgroup, you must meet one of the following criteria:
- 1 week old, 5+ posts, 250+ members
- 3+ weeks old, 10+ posts this week, 100+ members
If your group meets these requirements, fill out and submit the following form and await approval. Once approved, submit a pull request to have your group added to the GitHub repo, as well as a request to join the Facebook group.