[jmcohen]

Both first-come-first-serve and random selection are better ways to admit people to a hackathon than "let's play college admissions committee."

HackMIT came up with a nice hybrid solution this year [1]. Most spots were filled by lottery, but a few were reserved for the first people to solve a puzzle. This left a place for merit --- but, like, actual merit, which is not well-assessed by a 19-year-old college student scanning resumes for "placements at major hackathons."

[1] https://medium.com/hackmit-2014/joining-the-fancycat-club-ha...

[zodiac]

I'll just like to point out that no selection system, including the puzzle game, is without flaws and bias. IIRC (I might be wrong) the catmit puzzle was released when most people in the US were awake, which meant it was the middle of the night for me. I was also pretty annoyed that it involved calling a US number.