Pete Forsyth wrote: Cracking down on people teaching other people how to write code?? Well, after reading further, it's not as bad as it sounded at first. It looks like these learn-to-code schools are charging thousands of dollars per student, so there's potential for abuse, and so at least some reasonable basis for wanting government oversight. There's a big list of criteria for exempt institutions here: http://bppe.ca.gov/lawsregs/ppe_act.shtml#94874 including this: "(f) An institution that does not award degrees and that solely provides educational programs for total charges of two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) or less when no part of the total charges is paid from state or federal student financial aid programs." The main law appears to be this: "94886. Except as exempted in Article 4 (commencing with Section 94874 [quoted above]) or in compliance with the transition provisions in Article 2 (commencing with Section 94802), a person shall not open, conduct, or do business as a private postsecondary educational institution in this state without obtaining an approval to operate under this chapter." and here is the definition of "private postsecondary educational institution": "94858. 'Private postsecondary educational institution' means a private entity with a physical presence in this state that offers postsecondary education to the public for an institutional charge." So, unless the hackathons and editathons are awarding degrees or charging money, I don't think there's anything to worry about. If there's really some concern, it might be worth asking a lawyer, but I don't think it's worth arranging a meeting just for this. Ben http://pages.iu.edu/~bkovitz/

Thanks Karen and Ben, I appreciate especially the bit about the $2500 threshold. Also, Leigh Honeywell posted a helpful quote from the agency's descriptoin of its mission: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-January/004154.html I think this is worth keeping an eye on, because (while unlikely) it's not inconceivable to me that somebody might offer a course on Wikipedia (probably bundled with some other topics) that exceeds that cost threshold. I generally present events I produce, whether one-off or ongoing, as offering an opportunity to learn something; and I think formal instruction combined with peer learning can be a potent combination. More on all that here, for anybody interested: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2014-January/004155.html But, I think it's safe to say that the $2500 threshold addresses any potential urgency around this :) -Pete On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle(a)kcoyle.net> wrote: