Update on the Hackeragenda: new sources, filtering and a new section related to code 2014-05-15

I've made quite some significant updates to the Hackeragenda during the previous days, here is the mail I've sent to the mailing list announcing the good news:

Ohai folks,

I haven't gave you any news since my first mail about the hacker agenda, but that doesn't mean that nothing has changed!

Reminder of what hackeragenda is: it's a website that aggregate the events in belgium interesting for hackers of the hackerspace community. It does that by fetching data from other website (by scraping most of the time ...) instead of asking users to submit events on it. This is my modest attemp to answer the problem "everyone is doing shitload of things and no one is aware of that and that sucks".

(tl;dr at the end)

First of all and starting with the oldest changes: the hackeragenda now has a real domain name: http://hackeragenda.be easier to remember, such wow

In the mean time, with the help of Titou we've added some new sources, most of them are either hackerspaces, hackerspaces-like, fablabs or numerical artists.

Staz has worked on a json specification of a format that an organisation can implement to ease our work to add it to the hackeragenda. It's described in the FAQ. Said in another way: if you give me an url that provide me with a json document that follows the spec, I can add you very easily to the hackeragenda.

But the big news is that I've just coded the possibility of filtering events by sources and by tags! The absence of that possiblity is one of the reason of my absence of communication/advertissment: I didn't wanted to be in a situation where I would have to answer to someone "no, your stuff is not ~hacker[space]~ enough to be in it". Now I don't care anymore, I just have to not list it in the events by default. This also mean that you can do your own selection without having me imposing my choices on you :)

To play with filtering click on "customize" or chose one of the predefined filter next to it. Filtering works this way:

  • each source/tag has three state: active (colour), inactive (grey), excluding (sticked)
  • if all filters are inactive, everything is shown
  • if some filters are active, only those filters are shown
  • if some filters are excluding, those filters are not shown
  • those rules applies per type of filter (source or tag)
  • play a bit with it, you'll understand quickly
  • of course, filters modify the url to save your preferences

This might not be the most intuitive interface, but this is quite powerful are your are not the normal users :)

Also, this new filtering interface allows me to introduction sections \o/ I've put some already:

  • [default](http://hackeragenda.be: this is what everyone is sawing by default, it's nearly the same that it was before: events from hackerspaces/fablabs/hackerspace-like/numeric artists/some stuff in the hackerspace community, the only modification is that now I don't show regular hackerspace meetings like techtuesday, techwednesday etc... to focus more on "more unique" events.
  • all: show everything

  • hackerspaces: show events from what I've identified as hackerspace (it's possible that some are missing)

  • /!\ NEW /!\ Code: events related to programming/database/agile that I've found on meetup.com, if you know others don't hesitate to send them to me by email

If you have sections ideas (with sources) that can interest hackers, don't hesitate to send them to me (or send patchs, the code is simple). Same if you have sources (they must be parsable in a more or less reliable state).

Also: I still refuse to add events by hand in the hackeragenda, I'm extremely lazy and totally hate moderation, I only add new sources. The hackeragenda must be able to work without anyone touching it for months. However, if someone is willing to build a website where you can submit events and that implement the hackeragenda API, I'll add this source with pleasure to the hackeragenda and if it's in Django I'm ready to contribute to it (but I don't want to do moderation) (I'm thinking from time to time about coding this, but I'm not very motivated and after I'll need to find responsible and motivated moderators which takes time). Ohai folks,

Code is available here: https://github.com/Psycojoker/hackeragenda if you want to contribute :) It's python (django)/js(mostly jquery) for the front end. The code is normally quite simple and clean.

tl;dr

  • it has a real url now: http://hackeragenda.be/
  • new sources added (mostly hackerspaces and numeric artists stuff)
  • a json format has been defined, so if you implement it it's very easy for me to add your organisation to the hackeragenda, see the FAQ
  • new filtering engine, this allows me to put more stuff without overloading the default view
  • filters also apply on rss and ical
  • therefor a new section "Code" with a lot of sources of events that I've found on meetup.com, send me the one I'm missing! http://hackeragenda.be/?section=code
  • also the default view don't show regular meetings (like techtuesday, techwednesday ...) anymore to focus more on "unique events"
  • I still refuse to add events by hand because I'm lazy and hate moderation
  • if you have sections ideas (with sources) that can interest hackers, send them to me (or send patchs, the code is simple)
  • code is (still) here if you want to contribute https://github.com/Psycojoker/hackeragenda

But, most importantly, I'm doing this to solve the problem "everyone is doing shitload of things and no one is aware of that and that sucks" and to solve it efficiently, well, people need, at least, to know that the hackeragenda exists (and I suck at advertisement), so it would be very kind of you if you could spread the word of its existence around you :) Thanks in advance!

That's all folks!

Cheers,

<3