Join California Code Rush 3 at ONA15 in L.A.

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

By Ben Welsh and Aaron Williams

Yo, #ONA15! Our crew is converging on your conference in L.A. this weekend.

And, trust us on this one, we wouldn’t be caught in Century City without good reason.

We’re carrying a truck full of tickets, in all shapes and sizes, to continue our open-source quest to master CAL-ACCESS, the government database tracking California campaign cash.

We’re asking you to help us close them out.

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

We’ve had such a blast running with the idea at NICAR 2015 in Atlanta and Media Party 2015 in Buenos Aires that we’re back to try it again.

Don’t worry if you’re new to open source. Spend some time and we’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 your 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 iconoclastic aesthetic, Eazymorphic Design™).

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

Our team will be behind the official Los Angeles Times table for most of the conference. Find us there, or flag us down in the the hallways to learn more and get involved.

But you don’t have to be in L.A. to win a prize. Close a ticket at any time between now and the conference’s close on Sept. 27 and your prize will soon be in the mail.

Dozens of challenges are waiting for you in our two core 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].