My biggest annoyance to way-too-much-positivism is at Chicago's Open Gov Hacknight (http://opengovhacknight.org/). The whole point of it is to use data from FOIAs or 'data portals' to either fix, or raise awareness on issues. Very few people seem to have any genuine interest in making the world a better place, with a constant happy-outlook.
The major focus seems to be about making websites with the latest frameworks, using the latest nosql databases, using AWS. That probably accounts for about 60% of the crowd. 30% of the crowd doesn't know how to code, and 10% of the projects will have a genuinely strong impact.
That's not to say that their work doesn't have a net positive effect on the city. However, considering the kinds of minds that go to these events, I feel that their time could be better spent in working on larger projects to make this a better place to live.
The major focus seems to be about making websites with the latest frameworks, using the latest nosql databases, using AWS. That probably accounts for about 60% of the crowd. 30% of the crowd doesn't know how to code, and 10% of the projects will have a genuinely strong impact.
That's not to say that their work doesn't have a net positive effect on the city. However, considering the kinds of minds that go to these events, I feel that their time could be better spent in working on larger projects to make this a better place to live.