Signed hackathon results anyone can recompute and verify
Every hackathon platform converged on the same features then stopped at the judging. The biggest one cannot weight its criteria. The ones that advertise score normalization do not document how it works. None of them lets you recompute a result, so a ranking is something you trust because the platform says so. DOGFOOD is a 72-hour event with one product in it, a submission and judging platform…
The hackathon platform DOGFOOD offers a unique approach to judging and verifying results. Unlike other platforms, DOGFOOD allows participants to recompute and verify the results themselves, eliminating the need for trust in the host. The system assigns scores from 1 to 5 for each criterion and assigns a weight to each criterion based on the organizer's preferences. The final score is a composite of the weighted criteria, which stays within the 1-5 range.
The judging process involves removing judges' leniency and ranking projects based on the bias-removed quality. The ranking is then signed and published, along with raw scores, rubric, method, parameters, code commit, and the ranking. The verification process ensures that the ranking can be recomputed from the raw scores, and any changes to the scores will result in a "NOT VERIFIED" message.
DOGFOOD also reports an uncertainty band next to every score, indicating the range of statistical ties. The platform runs on a standalone laptop, with no cloud accounts or hosted databases, ensuring full transparency and control. The code is open-source, available on GitHub under the MIT license, allowing anyone to inspect, verify, and build upon it. The demo showcases the entire event process, from event creation to submission, judging, and verification, ensuring the integrity of the results.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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