Comment by VicVee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by VicVee | Hacker News Reader

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Hey there,

I'm the guy who named the hackathon.

Back in 2013, there was no big Canadian hackathons part of MLH. We were originally going to call it Hack Waterloo or Waterloo Hacks or something along those lines. But the issue we had back at the end of 2013 is that none of the other schools really knew where Waterloo was.

We wanted a name that people could identify with an area. And considering all of the biggest undergrad hackathons are in the USA, and completely without argument South of us... Identifying as the North isn't really off base.

I believe DubHacks (U of Washington) is the only major US hackathon that is North of us.

Also, who doesn't identify Canada as the North? We aren't just a hackathon at Waterloo. Hell, over half our attendees don't even attend UWaterloo. We're Canada's largest undergraduate hackathon. That's what matters. We're identifying as Canada at a hackathon that just happens to be in Waterloo. Basically, we wanted a name that we could use even if we changed the venue to be anywhere in Canada.

You got pretty bitter over the name of a hackathon. As I said, a lot of our attendees identify Waterloo as being North of them. Because it is. Its Canada.

As for your last sentence:

Does HackMIT sound like a hackathon in which you deal with problems faced only at MIT? Does Boilermake sound like a hackathon in which you make boilers? Does PennApps make it sound like its a hackathon in which you make apps for UPenn students?

Its a name that identifies us as Canadian without explicitly being called Hack Canada because we didn't want to be too overarching as to bother the other hackathons in our Country.

Hey, who knows, maybe we eventually will make a hackathon in the style of WHacks (our 2014 April Fools prank) and call it Hack the North: http://whacks.info/

A rather elaborate response to a pretty childish critique.

No point responding childishly.

When I saw the HN headline I wondered what "Hack the North" was. As a Canadian I wondered if it was to tackle "uniquely northern" problems, then went down the pessimistic path if it was for northern problems, it would be pretty douchey & ignorant to pretend that a bunch of brogrammers in a southern city could use their laptops to solve the social problems of a place where many lack safe homes & potable water.

Luckily, "Hack the North" is branding, and it makes sense if you're trying to attract an American audience, although if most of your attendees are from Canada, having them fly south to "Hack the North" is kind of ironic.

For anyone thinking about organizing a hackathon to solve northern problems: Make sure your hackers are actually helping solve problems and not trivializing them.

Two points: 1) "The north" is an actual area, with unique technological problems, none of which involve southern Ontario. Canada has particular relationships with "the north" in areas from climate change to Native rights to arctic sovereignty. Canada even has a minister Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. Waterloo is certainly not on his radar. "The true north" may be in the song, but you won't hear many Canadians refer to all of Canada as any north.

2) "Hack the north" suggests some sort of event dealing with northern problems. HackMIT is accurate because it involves MIT. It's not a call to hack (verb) MIT but MIT is a physical place an it is at least happening at that location. But MIT is not a region of the planet with unique circumstances. Would a HackAfrica or HackOceania event having nothing to do with African or pacific problems be appropriate?

> Would a HackAfrica event having nothing to do with African problems be appropriate?

Yeah I would imagine that would just be a hackathon taking place in Africa.

Unfortunately, I think you're just causing a stink for no reason, and you're not too familiar with the undergrad 'hacker' culture.

Take a look at these names and tell me which ones you don't like: https://mlh.io/seasons/f2015/events

Something tells me it will be a lot of them.

Actually no. HackTheNorth is unique on that list. Every other one seems, to me, accurate in terms of geography. All but a couple are named after the unique place where they are being held. Those with regional descriptors (Desert Hacks) seem accurate. But only the waterloo event uses both "Hack" as a verb and addresses a region totally outside of its location. It is also the only one to include "the", suggesting that the thought process behind the name was slightly different.

From now on I will no longer refer to Canada as the North.

I'll call Harper now and make sure the national anthem is also changed.

"The north" is an actual area

What is the area? Do you have a source for this?

"Northern Canada, colloquially the North, is the vast northernmost region of Canada variously defined by geography and politics."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Canada

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