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My child has been involved in Hack Club for a number of years, and I support their mission. However, HC do seem to be lacking in "adult supervision", and I und

My child has been involved in Hack Club for a number of years, and I support their mission. However, HC do seem to be lacking in "adult supervision", and I understand that is kind of their approach: having the kids figure stuff out on their own. However, there are things that kids, due to lack of experience, just can't figure out for themselves. For example, the reliance on ChatGPT and reluctance to use professional SMEs is a very "immature" attitude. This sort of cavalier attitude is going to get them in trouble; I'm honestly surprised that this hasn't already gotten them into trouble. Hack Club has enough money that they can easily be a worthwhile target if any of their decisions turns out badly. I'm going to be a bit oblique here because I don't want HC to take this out on my child, but at one of the HC events, the "figure it out for yourselves" lead to our child making decisions and taking actions that could have very easily turned into life threatening. Another situation led to our child being "ditched" in a foreign city and unsure how to get ahold of anyone on the ground to help. Hack Club is a great idea, and I'm glad it exists, but I do think that the way it is currently organized is going to end badly.

embedding-shape 1y ago
> the "figure it out for yourselves" lead to our child making decisions and taking actions that could have very easily turned into life threatening I haven't heard about Hack Club until this very story, so forgive my ignorance, but what exactly happened here? According to their website, it seems to be about a community for teenage programmers, who build open source projects together, sometimes during events. Looking around at the types of events they host, nothing really looks life threatening at all? I'm not doubting your experience, just curious how a bunch of programmers could end up in a life threatening situation during those sort of events.
- Charmunk 1y ago
  During Hack Club's IRL Hackathons, teens can get their parents to sign a "freedom waiver" to allow them to leave the hackathon venue and explore the city (they usually happen in high profile cities like NYC or Boston) without supervision. I assume what happened to them was they got lost during this optional exploration period
  - linsomniac 1y ago
    No, that was not the situation, it happened at the event.
    - Diaphragmwp 1y ago
      [dead]
    - embedding-shape 1y ago
      You don't have to share any specifics or details, but could you at least share how they could end up in a life threatening situation while attending a programming event?
      - linsomniac 1y ago
        https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/world/taiwan-gamer-death#:~:text=A%2032%2Dyear%2Dold%20man%20was%20found%20dead%20in,binge%2C%20the%20island's%20second%20death%20of%20an https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/world/taiwan-gamer-death#:~:t...
        embedding-shape 1y ago
        Do they let children sit and program for 3 days (without breaks?) at these events without a single person checking in on them?! That's absolutely bananas if true, how could something like that even happen, is it a sweatshop of programmers or what's going on? Truly, if they're forcing children to sit and code for 3 days straight someone should call the police this moment.
        Charmunk 1y ago
        No one is forced to code, they have sleeping areas, and plenty of time for breaks, and no one will care if someone decides to take a break for a bit
        1y ago
SigmaEpsilonChi 1y ago
Hello! This is Chris from Hack Club staff (the one cited in the post) I addressed the post itself in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=45921428& https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=45921428&), so I'll skip that part. I would really like to know more about these incidents at HC events. We have a lot of very complex tradeoffs within hack club involving security/privacy/safety for exactly the reasons you identified (ie, giving teenagers a very high level of agency/responsibility in running programs). However, staff try to be extremely conscious of these tradeoffs and highly attentive to the realistic risk vectors that come about in our operations. No teenager will ever (ever!) have anything 'taken out' on them by myself or anyone else that works here. Any time things go wrong or almost go wrong, we just want to know so we can manage that risk in the future. If you are willing to share, please reach out at cwalker@hackclub.com
- linsomniac 1y ago
  The incident has already been discussed with organizers at the time.

embedding-shape 1y ago

> the "figure it out for yourselves" lead to our child making decisions and taking actions that could have very easily turned into life threatening I haven't heard about Hack Club until this very story, so forgive my ignorance, but what exactly happened here? According to their website, it seems to be about a community for teenage programmers, who build open source projects together, sometimes during events. Looking around at the types of events they host, nothing really looks life threatening at all? I'm not doubting your experience, just curious how a bunch of programmers could end up in a life threatening situation during those sort of events.

Charmunk 1y ago
During Hack Club's IRL Hackathons, teens can get their parents to sign a "freedom waiver" to allow them to leave the hackathon venue and explore the city (they usually happen in high profile cities like NYC or Boston) without supervision. I assume what happened to them was they got lost during this optional exploration period
- linsomniac 1y ago
  No, that was not the situation, it happened at the event.
  - Diaphragmwp 1y ago
    [dead]
  - embedding-shape 1y ago
    You don't have to share any specifics or details, but could you at least share how they could end up in a life threatening situation while attending a programming event?
    - linsomniac 1y ago
      https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/world/taiwan-gamer-death#:~:text=A%2032%2Dyear%2Dold%20man%20was%20found%20dead%20in,binge%2C%20the%20island's%20second%20death%20of%20an https://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/world/taiwan-gamer-death#:~:t...
      - embedding-shape 1y ago
        Do they let children sit and program for 3 days (without breaks?) at these events without a single person checking in on them?! That's absolutely bananas if true, how could something like that even happen, is it a sweatshop of programmers or what's going on? Truly, if they're forcing children to sit and code for 3 days straight someone should call the police this moment.
        Charmunk 1y ago
        No one is forced to code, they have sleeping areas, and plenty of time for breaks, and no one will care if someone decides to take a break for a bit
        1y ago

SigmaEpsilonChi 1y ago

Hello! This is Chris from Hack Club staff (the one cited in the post) I addressed the post itself in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=45921428& https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=45921428&), so I'll skip that part. I would really like to know more about these incidents at HC events. We have a lot of very complex tradeoffs within hack club involving security/privacy/safety for exactly the reasons you identified (ie, giving teenagers a very high level of agency/responsibility in running programs). However, staff try to be extremely conscious of these tradeoffs and highly attentive to the realistic risk vectors that come about in our operations. No teenager will ever (ever!) have anything 'taken out' on them by myself or anyone else that works here. Any time things go wrong or almost go wrong, we just want to know so we can manage that risk in the future. If you are willing to share, please reach out at cwalker@hackclub.com

linsomniac 1y ago
The incident has already been discussed with organizers at the time.