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  •   over 4 years ago

For the Hackathon manager

Am I missing something here?, the objective of the hackathon was "Remote work is here to stay. The challenge? We’re used to being in-person to celebrate, align, debate, and discuss. Build a fun app that sparks joy and connection for remote teams."

It clearly says that the app is meant to help remote teams, and among the winners (second and third place), there is an app for Shopify buyers and one for hiring people, those are not apps for remote teams to celebrate, debate, or discuss

  • 7 comments

  •   •   over 4 years ago

    I noticed that not all of the projects were thoroughly reviewed by all of the judges (e.g. Contextify, FunLand). Check your video analytics for the view count, watch time, and viewer stats. My Loom video demo only got 2 views (none from the judges). And it was just a 1 minute demo that I had cut down from 4 minutes. So I know my submission was ignored/excluded from judging. I'm guessing same for Contextify. And FunLand's demo was only seen by 1/4 judges.

    What I think might have happened is, the judges had already made up their minds on a few standout projects from the start and then didn’t bother much with the rest (hopefully I'm wrong). This is in no way knocking on the winners because they’re all amazing and deserve to win imo, especially the first place entry... oh my :o

    But this way of selective judging does seem unfair to the other teams. I only submitted a hastily put together hack, thank goodness. But I do feel for other participants, like yourself perhaps, who developed some really cool apps that didn't seem to be fairly considered or fully recognized for the amount of time and effort y'all have dedicated to this hackathon. Maybe not as sorry as I feel for the bonus prize winners though cause the 2-hour long meeting with Loom sounds more like punishment than reward to me xD

  •   •   over 4 years ago

    About the time to thoroughly review each project I can understand that sometimes that is difficult to do. The real issue is that they asked us for yellow squares and give prizes to people who made red squares. I explained it a bit better in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wFKsnXMI20

    I'm sure the Devpost hack manager will clear things up

  •   •   over 4 years ago

    omg you're one of the bonus prize winners. I'm so sorry x__x I remember seeing your project and thinking wow, this is a winning entry here. And well, technically you did win... xD

    I listened to your explanation, and you're right. I think most of us can agree that this hackathon reflects poorly on Loom. If they had posted a Loom video that clarified what the judges would be looking for or judging on, since the written description is misleading, that should have settled things. The irony of it all is kind of funny though haha. Like this hackathon is supposed to be about communication, but Loom seems to have completely missed the mark here xD I'm sure this must be demotivating for many of the participants here. Hopefully, the 2nd and 3rd place prize winners don't feel like they're claiming prizes that they didn't rightfully win though. They shouldn't feel bad at all for Loom's mess up.

  •   •   over 4 years ago

    Hey ,

    I represent funland and you are right our video was only viewed by 1/4 of the judges. I agree that that there is some misrepresentation between judging and the hackathon summary. I am not here to blame anyone and congrats to all the winners. It's just that if we had known the scope of the hackathon we could have build something for utility.

  •   •   over 4 years ago

    Hi,

    I am glad that someone brought this up because this hackathon has also been a bit of a disappointment for me.

    As you guys have already mentioned, the main issue is lack of transparency. While the rules looked pretty clear at first, the judges decided to completely disregard them in the end. This hurts not only the non-winning submissions, but also pretty much everybody else involved - the winners, Loom, and Devpost.

    What's worse is that there are some serious doubts that the judges did any actual judging. Why was there no update about the winners? Wouldn't it be great if we got a few words from the judges about the winners' achievements? Or even about all the other submissions? Or how about, I don't know, recording a short Loom?

    My doubts about the judging process only grew once I checked my database and Loom stats. I'm pretty confident that no judge actually saw or used my app (Contextify). It's kinda hard not to feel disappointed when your project was not worth of a minute of the judges' time.

  •   •   over 4 years ago

    Let's hope the hackathon manager contacts Loom for answers about this. I'm pretty sure somebody messed things up at Loom

  •   •   over 4 years ago

    Response from Loom: https://www.loom.com/share/104b9be0759f433a8da9b2c8f3745eb1

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