Join California Code Rush 2 at Media Party 2015 in Buenos Aires

A second challenge to hacks, hackers and newbies of all ages

By Ben Welsh

Argentina, the California Civic Data Coalition is coming. And we need your help.

I will be representing our team at the upcoming Media Party conference in Buenos Aires. And I’m bringing a to-do list with me: Dozens of tickets, of all shapes and sizes, to continue our quest to master CAL-ACCESS, the government database tracking money in California politics.

We’re asking you to close them out.

We call it the California Code Rush. It’s a simple game. Submit a patch, win a prize.

We had so much fun with a first run at the idea at NICAR 2015 in Atlanta that I’m back to try it again.

Since then our project was named a winner of the Knight News Challenge and we’re aiming to push things even further.

Don’t worry if you’re new to open source. Spend some time and I’ll guide you through your first contribution, from fork to patch to pull.

A small-sized ticket won’t take longer than 20 minutes. You’ll learn how to use GitHub, make you first open-source software contribution and walk away with a limited-edition sticker (designed just for this event by our man Thomas Suh Lauder, using his revolutionary aesthetic, Blobmorphic Design™).

Close a bigger ticket and we’ll send you a custom t-shirt.

I will be behind a table at the Media Fair for two hours at noon Thursday and host a workshop later at 3 p.m.. I also plan to hold down an open table at the hackathon scheduled for Saturday. You will also see me in the hallways looking for contributors. Find me to learn more and get involved.

But you don’t have to be in Argentina to win a prize. Close a ticket at any time between now and the conference’s close on August 29 and your prize will soon be in the mail.

Dozens of challenges are waiting for you in our two active applications. Grab one to get going.

Many of the small ones, particularly the ones asking for documentation, won’t require you to install any software. But if you take on something big you’ll need to download the code as described here.

Want to know more? Email me at [email protected].