[bahador]

I've noticed two things that have ruined hackathons for me:

- People that say they have skill in XYZ, when in fact they have little to no experience in XYZ. It would be nice if I could have some reasonable confidence in a stranger's ability to be experienced in a skill they claim to have.

- "Entrepreneurs" interested in getting free dev labor for their unicorn app idea. I sign up for a hackathon to have some fun and write some code with hopefully cool people, usually for some cool or good cause. I don't come there to make a beta for some greedy MBA student.

[hkmurakami]

Along the same lines, participants who spend all their time running around and "networking". Socializing and meeting people is obviously one of the draws of these events, but a few bad apples do tend to ruin the atmosphere for everyone.

[crdoconnor]

>"Entrepreneurs" interested in getting free dev labor for their unicorn app idea. I sign up for a hackathon to have some fun and write some code with hopefully cool people, usually for some cool or good cause. I don't come there to make a beta for some greedy MBA student.

This is the only type of hackathon I've ever seen. It's put me right off them.

Plus, the amount of work you can realistically get done in a weekend is limited.

[asafira]

These are two great points. It's important to note that Hackathons should be open to people with a wide range of skills, but there's definitely a ceratinly baseline when it comes to saying "I know XYZ".

Honest and hard working > skills but not actually.