Ringer Team
A team whose participation in a hackathon would be disqualifying at any reasonable Class A event but is not formally excluded by the event's published rules. Funded startups, hardware-rich teams, groups with pre-existing work, and teams with former-employee members of the sponsor are all canonical examples.
A ringer team is a team whose participation in a hackathon would be disqualifying at any reasonable Class A event but is not formally excluded by the event's published rules. Funded startups, hardware-rich teams, groups whose project has been in development for months before the event opens, and teams whose members include former employees of the sponsor are all canonical examples. The Book's position on ringer teams is structural rather than moralistic: ringers are fine at events that have honestly labeled themselves as Class B or Class C, and the failure mode is mislabeling — events that present as Class A while quietly accepting funded teams. The case study salesforce-1m-2013 illustrates the canonical scandal of the underlying dynamic. See no-ringers-without-disclosure, class-a, and pre-event-work.