Rails Hackfest 2007...What's going on? - Part III

I just received Derek Sivers reply to my questions. Here it is:

hi Steven -

Thanks for the email. I didn't know anyone was upset, until getting your email just now. Feel free to re-post my reply anywhere.

Please understand I'm not a core committer and don't even know how it works. I had never seen the Rails Core Mailing List in my life until your email gave me these URLs just now. 

1. The http://www.workingwithrails.com/contests/hackfest2007 has a link to this page, http://www.oreillynet.com/ruby/blog/2007/01/cd_baby_awards_free_railsconf.html, where you are announcing the contest, it seems as though this post serves as the only official rules. Is this post meant to act as official rules of the contest? Are there official rules? Where and when were they posted?

Yep : my blog post and Jeremy's blog post are as official as it gets. They were both posted on January 8.

2. In the announcement you state "RailsConf is opening registration soon after January 22 - that's why we have to make the Jan 22 cutoff date." On the morning of the 22nd, rather than have a list of standings or winners, there was an announcement that the totals are being tallied, and the winners will be announced shortly. But by mid day, that announcement had been removed and the current standings returned, with a note saying, "22nd Jan Update: Registration is still to be announced so the contest will continue to run until then." This seems to be changing the rules mid stream. First the contest will close on Jan 22, then it will close whenever RailsConf Registration opens. What happened? Was this planned? Why didn't the contest end as the announcement stated? Are you concerned that some people will win and other loose as a result of the date change? Are you concerned about possible legal action that those who lost might take?

Jeremy's post says "The top twenty Rails contributors between the new year and conference registration opening day", and mine said January 22. We disagreed on this, and didn't resolve it, so there was conflicting info out there since the start.

Since rubyonrails.org is read much more widely than my blog, (and since that blog had all the comments and mine had none), I thought we should let the Jan 22 cutoff have a little padding just in case someone never saw my blog and was about to commit a bunch of patches on the 23rd. I plan to cut it off tonight and announce tomorrow.

I thought I was doing everyone a little favor, in case someone was, say, in California at 11:55pm on the 22nd submitting a last crucial patch they had been working on all week, and Koz in New Zealand wouldn't see it until the afternoon of the 23rd in Kiwi time.

I got an email from Martin Sadler from workingwithrails.com yesterday, asking if I wanted to do the cutoff. I suggested we let it go one more day so I could double-check when O'Reilly was opening registration. I didn't realize he had already announced some kind of cutoff and conclusion on the site.

As far as LEGAL action... if someone wanted to actually SUE me over this, well then I guess that would be the typically American thing to do, wouldn't it?

1. When will the contest end?

Whenever Martin Sadler wakes up in England tomorrow, reads this email, and does the cutoff on his site. I guess that will be the official close.

On 1/21, Jamie Quint, currently in 14th place, posted this to the Rails Core Mailing List: http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-core/browse_thread/thread/4f6288d7755c947e/3f3491101d8f6cf4?hl=en#3f3491101d8f6cf4 What is really interesting is the response by Rails Core Member, Koz, "With the current score-keeping taking place, I'd err on the side of patches which are too large, lest one be accused of artificially driving up one's score." Is there any involvement by the Core Team in the contest? If so, what is their involvement? Are contributions going to be scrutinized for content? If so, what criteria would be used to evaluate contributions? Do you have a plan to remedy disputes?

This part is out of my hands, and up to Jeremy (jeremy [ ] bitsweat [ ] net). I'm just the guy running CD Baby that's paying for it. I don't know how the Rails + Trac + commit process works.

On 1/22, Rich Collins, currently in 8th place, posted this to the Rails Core Mailing List: http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-core/browse_thread/thread/057f6559d608bb43/203348ca1cb3e2ec?hl=en#203348ca1cb3e2ec It seems as though the scoring algorithm was changed as a result of this post. Rich Collins moved from 20th place to 8th place, I moved from 7th to 6th. (We both made contributions on that date. I do not want to imply that anything improper took place, only to state the fact of our ranking change.) Did the scoring algorithm change on that > date, or any other date during the contest? How are scores being calculated? In your opinion, does it matter if the scoring algorithm is accurate so long as it is the same scoring for all?

Again, I'm sorry I don't know anything not in that post. You'll have to ask Jeremy (jeremy [ ] bitsweat [ ] net).

Today, 1/23, Josh Susser, currently in 10th place, posted this to the Rails Core Mailing List: http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-core/browse_thread/thread/13ff6e7301629839/d91e1161204f53a3?hl=en#d91e1161204f53a3 Do you have any comments about this post and its replies?

Nope. Unfortunately I don't really understand the issue, since I've never done a commit and don't know how the process works.

Do you think anything inappropriate has taken place? Do you think that people might reasonably feel or think that something inappropriate has taken place? What are your feelings regarding this?

Uh... sorry but my honest accurate answer is "I don't know" to all three questions.

Considering all of the emotions the contest has stirred, do you think it was worth doing? Do you think you might do something like this again, either with Rails or outside of Rails (Will you show your generosity by sponsoring this type of contest again)? What do you think of the expression "No good deed goes unpunished?"

I haven't heard of that many emotions stirred. Your email is the first I've heard of this. I'm sure you could probably point me to more Rails-Core posts where people are upset or confused, but it really doesn't seem to be THAT big of an issue. Just some questions.

Of course, with any contest, there will always be SOMEONE upset, no matter what.

At first I thought of just giving the 20 registrations+hotels to my top 20 favorite Rails projects. Then I thought it would be cooler to reward 20 people who have contributed a lot to Rails itself.

Then I thought it would be cool to reward people who hadn't already contributed a lot to jump in and start contributing now. HOW we chose to do that is the best we could do. I could have just arbitrarily picked 20 people I "felt" contributed the most to Rails.

I thought the guidelines were as clear as we could muster, and adding 1 day to the deadline would help make it clear to anyone who was wrapping up their work that it was really time now to finish and submit.

My sincere aplogies to anyone inevitably upset by anything along the way.

-- Derek Sivers, CD Baby, HostBaby
(email & phone omitted)
http://cdbaby.com 
http://hostbaby.com