GitHub Finish-Up-A-Thon Challenge

Participation

Can I submit more than once?

Yes, you can submit multiple submissions but you'll need to publish a separate post for each submission.

• In the event that you may win multiple times, and your submission is very close with another participant, we will favor the other participant.
• In the event that you do win multiple times, you will only receive one winner badge.

Can I work on a team?

Yes, you can work on teams of up to four people.

• If you collaborate with anyone, you'll need to list their DEV handles in your submission post so we can award a badge to your entire team! Please only publish one submission per team.
• DEV does not handle prize-splitting, so in the event that your submission wins, you will need to split the prize amongst yourselves. Thank you for understanding!

How old do I have to be to participate?

Participants need to be 18+ in order to participate.

If I live in X, am I eligible to participate?

For eligibility rules, see our official challenge rules.

Submission

Does my project need to be brand new?

No! The whole point of the Finish-Up-A-Thon is to revive an existing project. Your project should be something you previously started but did not complete or ship.

Can my submission include open source code?

Riffing on open source code and borrowing and improving on previous work/ideas is encouraged but it's important your changes are significant enough to ensure your submission is valid.

When does riffing become plagiarism?

It will depend, but transparency is important, license compatibility is important. You can use someone else's code to give you a jumpstart to demonstrate your ideas on top of someone else's base, but not just re-package the base. It should be clear to the judges what you added to the project in terms of the code and conceptual inspiration. This means, you should clearly state what you were building on and what elements are original to this new submission. When building on existing code, we expect a significant change that adds something tangible to the output. i.e. a new animation, and new sprite, a new function, a new presentation. Not just changes to the source - i.e. changing colours, changing one sprite, changing one function.

What happens if my submission is considered plagiarized or invalid?

Anything deemed to be plagiarism will not be eligible for prizes. Incidental plagiarism may simply result in your disqualification from the challenge (regardless of the number of other valid submissions you have published). Egregious plagiarism will result in your suspension from DEV entirely. Any non-generic, non-trivial usage of prior work, including open source code must be credited in your submission.

Do submissions have to be in English?

Non-english submissions are eligible for a completion badge but not eligible for prizes due to the current limitations of our judges. We will not be judging on mastery of the English language, so please don't let this deter you from submitting if you are not a native English speaker! We hope to evolve this in the future to be more accommodating.

Do I need a license for my code?

You are not required to license your code but we strongly recommend that you do. Here are some you may consider: MIT, Apache, BSD-2, BSD-3, or Commons Clause.

Can I use AI?

Use of AI is allowed as long as all other rules are followed. We want to give you a chance to show off your skills in realistic scenarios. If you use AI tools to help you achieve your submission, all the power to you.

Judging and Prizing

Can there be ties?

In the event of a tie in scoring between judges, the judges will select the entry that received the highest number of positive reactions on their DEV post to determine the winner.

How will I know if I won?

Winners will be announced in a DEV post on the winner announcement date noted in our key dates section.

When will I receive my DEV badge?

Both participation and winner badges will be awarded, in most cases, the same day as the winner announcement.

When will I receive my prizes?

The DEV Team will contact you via the email associated with your DEV profile within, at most, 10 business days of the announcement date to share the details of claiming your prizes.

What steps do I need to take to receive my cash prize?

The winner (including each member of a team) may be required to sign and return an affidavit of eligibility and publicity/liability release, and provide any additional tax filing information (such as a W-9, social security number or Federal tax ID number) within seven (7) business days following the date of your first email notification.