Voting Begins for $100k Beanie Awards 93
So the 2000 Beanie Awards have
now entered phase two: Intense Voting. The
nominees have been chosen in each category by you readers, and now
you get to choose who wins the money in exciting catagories like
'Best Designed Interface in a non graphical application' and
'Best Newbie Helper'. Each category has a discussion so you can talk about your choices all you want. You may change your vote whenever you like. And the final winners will be announced at LinuxWorld in NY in feb.
No. It's in MASS. (Score:1)
> Really, I appreciate it so much that you voted for me in MASS
Not to be anal...ok, well it is a kinda anal, but shouldn't that be en masse?
Actually, I think he was referring to his supporters from Boston, Cambridge, Cape Cod, etc.
Who's this "Abstain" fellow? (Score:1)
--synaptik
If you want to flame me, do so here [slashdot.org].
Re:Vote for Pico! (Score:1)
-- Does Rain Man use the Autistic License for his software?
Unsung? - Not really (Score:1)
It's a real shame because there were quite a few nominations for _genuine_ unsung heros who have really made a difference to the project they worked on. I guess that this is the nature of the beast though. If they are unsung heros then people are hardly going to recognise them or their work.....
How are the choices listed? (Score:1)
to abstain or what?
Planning ....? (Score:1)
I can't help but think that if more planning, and perhaps a voting system NOT based off the slashdot code (ie., a whole website devoted to the voting) would have been a lot more effecient. Perhaps even some hype before the final announcement. It just doesn't feel wholehearted in the sense that very few people actually care. I know I read "Beanie Awards" and thought to myself, "bla, what the hell is this?". After fumbling through the awkward voting section for a while it didn't seem worth my time. I can't help but think how many others were turned off / simply don't even know what this is all about...
peace,
Netscape 3.x (Score:1)
take a look:
http://members.xoom.com/edutrocity/borked.jpg
MoNsTeR
who is abstain (Score:1)
INTERCAL (was: Re:Abstain?) (Score:1)
You haven't studied your INTERCAL [tuxedo.org] manual... ABSTAIN FROM is a keyword in that wonderful language.
No, I don't say that you should try to write anything useful in intercal, but "he who knows the most programming languages when he dies wins" :-)
Turnout (Score:1)
Would someone in charge care to let us see a running turnout tally?
Re:How were the final selections chosen?? (Score:1)
Actually, there are a ballot that you filled out to nominate your choices. The discussions with the stories were just that, discussions. They had no weight in the actual nominations. This was run a little different from the interviews, I may mention.
-BrentRe:Who are the nominees anyhow? (Score:1)
Well, you have to be logged in to vote, because otherwise someone would abuse the voting. And if you can't vote, there's really not much point in knowing what the nominees are, are there?
-BrentRe:Abstain? (Score:1)
Are you kidding? I use the Abstain kernel module every day :)
Help me out here: Who are the Unsung Heroes? (Score:1)
David Dawes
Donald Becker
Jordan K. Hubbard
Brian Paul
Of course, I know who AC is, but who are the others?
Re:Freakin' A! Where's Signal 11? (Score:1)
Re:OK, I voted (Score:1)
I also found elm(1) missing for best curses UI... shoulda been a write-in kinda thing.
Oh, well. Not like I'm getting a beanie anyway....
Re:Best newbie helper? Huh? (Score:1)
And we are all, too, human, I know. I started posting from my new job, and got one of Tom's auto-mails about HTML posting. Took me many more tries to finally convince Outlook to fix the problem. I think Tom's a guy, and forgive me for thinking in his place, who wants to help those who help themselves. And I'd rather he did that, then not help at all. If his attitude grates on some, well, perhaps one should read before one posts, and accept advice from those more in-the-know then oneself.
And you must recall, Perl's not like Linux. People know they are doing something big when they attack Linux, and seem to realize that they need to check out some fine reading first. And most folks have a friend to help them.
Not so with Perl. At a guess, about once every couple of weeks there is a "I installed Perl on Windows, I double-clicked on the perl.exe, and a DOS box came up for a second, then disappeared! WHAT DO I DO NOW?"
Read. Please. They have no idea, no clue, no concept. Luckily, some can be informed. Others, though, seem to want you to fly over to their desk and write the programs for you. And those types are what drive Tom nuts, I suspect.
Re:Do the Decent Thing! (Score:1)
I probably abstained from 50% of the choices, because I know that I am not remotely qualified to judge (having never used a wm or x -- that is about 40% right there).
There is a 'correct' choice for unsung hero though; just take a look at the choices, and then remember where you heard/saw the name. If it was in the media, they probably aren't unsung. If it is in the init code for
I'm changing my name... (Score:1)
Just please be sure to vote for me! I could use the
--
Re:Freakin' A! Where's Signal 11? (Score:1)
it needed to be said.
Apple? (Score:1)
What happened to the little penguins? (Score:1)
Best newbie helper: Havoc Pennington! (Score:1)
Re:Do the Decent Thing! (Score:1)
I am voting intensely for things that I have barely heard of. I mean, If I've heard of one thing, but not the other, it's better, right? I've never used Linux, but I voted on every topic!
Sorry, man. You're fighting a losing battle.
CowboyNeal hugging Bill Gates? (Score:1)
So if Microsoft wins one of the Why the Hell Not's, is CowboyNeal really going to hug Bill Gates? Will there be a webcast we can watch? :)
--
foof
Re:Vote for Pico! (Score:1)
Hemos award (Score:1)
Re:Help me out here: Who are the Unsung Heroes? (Score:1)
Donald Becker is the man behind most of the Ethernet drivers and the ever-popular Beowulf.
Too many good candidates were omitted. (Score:1)
--Brett Glass
Write-in candidate for "Best Dressed" (Score:1)
Re:How were the final selections chosen?? (Score:1)
The result is a rather disappointing ballot. Some of the best candidates mentioned in the discussion are not on it.
Since Andover is likely spending about $150,000 on this project ($100,000 in awards plus around $50,000 on space at the conference, promotion, employee time, etc.), it is a shame to see that they're not getting their money's worth -- and neither are their readers. If you spend enough on awards to buy a decent house, you ought to have a big ballot with lots of good choices.
They can turn this around by allowing write-ins and/or expanding the ballot and encouraging readers to go back and consider the new choices. (This is the Internet, after all; nothing's immutable.)
Unless this changes, expect a lot of people to vote "Abstain.... Abstain.... Abstain...."Well, it's not my first choice, but at least I recognize this one...." Abstain.... "I don't know who this one is, but the name's cool...." Abstain...."
--Brett Glass
Re:Not enough choices. (Score:1)
Re:Hemos award (Score:1)
Don't worry Hemos, I voted for you
kwsNI
Re:Bad voting (Score:1)
----------------
The reason the US DOJ is going to break Microsoft into 3 separate companies is to see how long it takes the largest of these 3 to expand and crush the other two.
Re:What happened to the little penguins? (Score:1)
I'm changing my name to abstain. (Score:1)
Beanie Babies: They're full of 'it' (Score:1)
Beanie Babies and Pokemon could be put in the same category: Narcotics. Nobody wants them, but HAS to have them to 'survive'. I think Garfield said it best; "I don't know, even if I did know, I don't think I want to know." All this fuss over a bunch of tiny stuffed figures is a waste of time and money (unless you are a professional collector, then you're wasting your life, in my opinion). It's sad actually... but it's something we as consumers have to deal with. God, just thinking about this stuff makes my head hurt... I need some Nuprin...
The Gray Wolf
Re:THANK YOU ALL GUYS!!!! (Score:1)
No hugs! (Score:2)
How about some of that cash, instead of a man-thing and a beanie...?
--
could stop infection (Score:2)
Let's give money to companies!! (Score:2)
GNOME - funded by RedHat
Wine - funded by Corel
Mozilla - funded by AOL
XMMS - funded by OSS
Not that these projects deserve recognition, but come on! Now the whole "best open source book" topic makes me cringe. Who does the money go to? The author? The publisher?
I just want to see more projects succeed. These projects have gotten what they deserve. I just want to see new projects grow.
Poiuntless conspiracy theories (Score:2)
François Pinard (Score:2)
Re:Do the Decent Thing! (Score:2)
Actually, I voted for the projects where I think the money will do most good to the community as a whole. This may be against the spirit on one level (it is not what the question states), but probably in the spirit at another level (it helps the open source community).
Unsung Hero
Here, I removed the names that pop up constantly, and checked that the remaining person had done somthing worthwhile.
Best Open Source-Related Book
Here, I chose the one whose authors and creation best fitted with my idea of open source.
Good selection... (Score:2)
Most of the "Unsung Heros" were a bit surprising, though. I -kind- of think most of them not only get sung about, they practically have their own operas about them. Whoever nominated them should look up "unsung", sometime. It does -not- mean "most popular", "best known", or "all-time celebrity".
Having said that, I think these awards are a great idea, and that the nominations put forward were great! Can we do this again, next month?
PICO == PIne COmposer (Score:2)
In any case, as the subject says, PICO == PIne COmposer. I don't believe Pilot (the sucky PINE-style directory browser) stands for anything. While we're at it, PINE stands for two things; the official name is "Program for Internet News and Email," but as every real UNIX-head knows, it's really "PINE Is Not ELM," which expands to "PINE Is Not ELM Is Not ELectronic Mail" and so forth. Yay. Depending on how you parse it, it might end up meaning, to you anyway, "${PINE} is not Electronic Mail;" I don't know what PINE is supposed to be then.
I just use Mutt nowadays though. I got sick of PINE changing its semantics and doing evil stuff behind my back (such as suddenly deciding, when the university admins upgraded to 4.10, to use the broken, not-very-well-hidden-at-all ~/mbox file instead of just keeping stuff in my nice, quota-free /var/spool/mail file). Now my stuff goes exactly where I want it, and I could still use PICO for editing if I wanted (but I don't, so I just use vim instead).
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a . [nmsu.edu]
Re:Funniest Candidate... (Score:2)
Bad voting (Score:2)
In short, what have you done to ensure that who we vote for *really is* who we get? Where are the exit polls to give independant input?
Re:Funniest Candidate... (Score:2)
How Ironic! (Score:2)
Isn't that amazing? And yet, people still expect newbies to read the copious amounts of (free|installed by default| amazingly complete)+ documentation compiled, written, and maintained by Tom.
--
A bit disappointed with the nominations (Score:2)
"Now, which award are we going to give Linus this month?"
Folks are nominating the same old people and projects over and over again, and this award is no exception, despite its original announcement.
Yes, I am a little disappointed that David Hinds and his great PCMCIA kernel modules have not been selected in either category.
He *is* an unsung hero (now that he hasn't been selected, he's an even more unsung hero
I am also unhappy with the kernel module selection. With the exception of Video4Linux, none of them are ready for prime time yet and still *need* to improve.
Oh my.
------------------
Re:How were the final selections chosen?? (Score:2)
Somehow I got that feeling that that's what people were thinking :( Well, this is /.'s first time at this. I guess we should give them a margin of error. Hopefully they'll learn a few lessons for next time.
-BrentFreakin' A! Where's Signal 11? (Score:2)
Re:Good selection... (Score:2)
Maybe the one with the least nunmber of votes should win.
Re:Vote for Pico! (Score:2)
Re:Best newbie helper? Huh? (Score:2)
Sure.
Several months ago, I was a newbie in a couple Perl newsgroups (but not a newbie to programming in general) -- and all I thought of him was "pompus ass".
Of course, before I can help to change your mind, you first have to tell why you think the way you do. What makes you think he's a "pompus ass"?
Within the first week of watching the groups, I saw a listing of his supposed kill list including keywords that would pretty much nuke 95% of newbie messages.
Perhaps if you flag your postings with "NEWBIE", "PERL 4", "WINDOWS" or similar things, you get nuked. For that matter, I do the same as well. But if you post a Perl question, chose an appropriate subject, and can be bothered to look at the manual and FAQ first, you would have had a pretty good chance of getting your question answered by Tom. Of course, I speak in the past tense. All the whining of the form "why don't you spoon feed me?" have made Tom follow Larry Walls way, and he no longer posts in clp.misc. Which is a big loss, specially for newbies.
IMO, that's not what newbie help is about.
Then, do tell us, what is newbie help about?
-- Abigail
Re:Let's give money to companies!! (Score:2)
It's getting more and more popular without major corporate funding. It's a terrific language, too. Especially for people like me who were raised on C (printf, yay).
If anybody deserves it (in the list anyway, but that's a whole other can of worms), it's them.
Re:Go LiViD! (Score:2)
Time is also a key issue here. The sooner DVD playback finds it's way into Red Hat and other distributions, the more difficult it will be for the MPAA and the DVDCCA to convince a judge to ban the project.
Here's an excerpt from a recent MPAA court filing [2600.com]:
DeCSS remains (for the moment) a "hacker phenomenon." One of our principal concerns is that, in the absence of a judicial finding that DeCSS is illegal, its use will become more widespread.
Let's make the MPAA's fears come true!
Best newbie helper? Huh? (Score:2)
Okay, he's a good author (or has really good editors), and he knows a lot -- but I've seen rants in Perl newsgroups that probably scare newbies away forever (or at least make them very afraid to ask anything).
IMO, that's not what newbie help is about.
Maybe I've missed his efforts elsewhere, or maybe he was just joking -- but I don't remember seeing any 's.
Honestly, can someone help me change my impression of him?
Several months ago, I was a newbie in a couple Perl newsgroups (but not a newbie to programming in general) -- and all I thought of him was "pompus ass".
Within the first week of watching the groups, I saw a listing of his supposed kill list including keywords that would pretty much nuke 95% of newbie messages.
-- CP
Re:Best newbie helper? Huh? (Score:2)
It was just an overall impression derived from reading hundreds of his posts. The technical content was there of course, but there often was an underlying "tone" that just wasn't necessary (IMHO). If I had the time, I could do some searching on Deja -- but I think you know what I'm talking about (at least one other person posted a message similar to mine here, so I know I'm not totally out to lunch).
Perhaps if you flag your postings with "NEWBIE", "PERL 4", "WINDOWS" or similar things, you get nuked.
Obviously, people can nuke whatever they want -- it's their choice. But remember my comment was posted specifically in response to Tom's nomination as "Best newbie helper". Having a kill file heavily optimized to eliminate newbie posts (and flaunting that fact in the newsgroup) seems to counter that nomination, IMHO.
"PERL 4", I can understand.
"Windows" is questionable -- Perl can obviously be used under Windows; although I can understand if he doesn't want to deal with the platform-specific issues.
"Newbie"? If he wants to help newbies, why the heck is that in there? The message never gets seen because the person is being honest?
IIRC, he also kills messages that were posted with any known Windows news client. I don't understand the point there. Okay, maybe he hates Windows -- many of us do. Could it be possible that this "newbie" isn't up to speed on *nix clients yet? Hmmm? Maybe they have to use Windows at work or whatever?
The more help these folks get in the *nix world, the more they'll use *nix, the more they'll like *nix -- the better chance they'll say "Goodbye" to Windows forever. Isn't that the goal?
All the whining of the form "why don't you spoon feed me?"
Yep, that's annoying. Anyone answering newsgroup messages gets fed up with it eventually.
But remember we're talking about newbies here -- it's going to happen. Some newbies don't know where the FAQ's or HowTo's are. Those folks need a polite "that, along with a bunch of other good stuff is covered here: xxx.xxxx.xxx/xxx go check it out; it covers your question in far more detail than I can here".
If you want to be voted "Best Newbie Helper" then you best have a spoon in your back pocket -- because you're going to need it every once in awhile, like it or not.
The trick, of course, is to transition them off the spoon as quickly as possible. The really annoying people can be added to the kill file when appropriate.
That, IMO, is a reasonable alternative to a broad stroke kill file that will nuke many (if not all) first posts by newbies (remember, we're talking about someone who actually wants to help newbies and get that coveted "Best newbie helper" beanie).
Then, do tell us, what is newbie help about?
I think I've covered it a bit, but I'll try to summarize: Making them feel welcome instead of chasing them away. Enhance their learning by pointing out applicable resources and encouraging them to use them. If a question is easy, go ahead and answer the damn thing (along with pointing out where similar answers can be found in the future). Often, more time is wasted flaming people than would be used to answer the damn question.
In case you don't remember, there is a bit of a ramp with Perl -- I have all the references, but still stumble across conceptual problems once in a while that turn out to be really obvious once I find the answer.
-- CP
Go LiViD! (Score:2)
of people on the project and we are working hard
to bring better video to Linux.
Check us out at the LinuxWorld Expo. We have a
booth in the
Re:Help me out here: Who are the Unsung Heroes? (Score:3)
David Dawes - XFree86 leader
Donald Becker - Wrote nearly ever ethernet driver in the kernel, invented Beowulf
Jordan Hubbard - FreeBSD's leader
Brian Paul - Wrote the Mesa OpenGL-alike library used by eg. Quake, Unreal Tournament, etc.
OK, I voted (Score:3)
Compared to their benchmarks, every other piece of FUD was second rate IMO.
Cheers,
Ben
Re:Do the Decent Thing! (Score:3)
> Have you benchmarked it? Done regression testing? Checked the source for comments? No? Then abstain, 'cos you don't know!
What is this nonsense? The concept that you have to be a programmer and look at source code, or run benchmarks to know how a module/project has improved is absurd!
What about driving a car? "This car rides better than a Yugo. It's faster too." What? did you run fifth wheel tests on it to time accelerations? Did you measure suspension travel, and spring rates? No of course not. But you can tell whether something is better by using it:
"Gee, before half my PCMCIA devices didn't work... now they all do"
"Last time I tried GNOME it was barely useable, but now it has every feature I expect of an advanced window manager."
I'd say those are improved....
And don't forget that what's better/worse is an individual opinion! Just because you have one standard of evaluating something as better/worse doesn't mean that others feel the same things are important.
Vote for Pico! (Score:3)
It always seems to get lost among the constant vi vs. emacs holy wars, and the code is (fairly) easy to customize. A job ago, while working at an ISP, I had Pico customized eight ways to Sunday, with automatic comment block generation, line gotos and indentation of C code to my exacting, anal standards. It was fast and efficient and perfect for C coding.
So what if it doesn't have all the features of emacs, or the power of vi? Emacs is like the kid with all the cool toys, and vi's the kid with the Lego. But you always liked to play with Pico best, because he's the kid with the big cardboard box that you would always turn into a little house or racecar. He's the most fun to play with.
---
Tempfiles fugit.
Abstain? (Score:3)
And why does he/she qualify for the Hemos award?
//rdj
Write in candidates, explanations (Score:3)
I nominated François Pinard, leader of the Free Translation Project [umontreal.ca] for the unsung hero award. He has managed to gather support for the project a little at a time and keep it going largely through his own effort. There are certainly plenty of translators working on many of the individual languages, but he has done the organizational work to connect software projects with translation teams. If you are competent to translate, especially into a minority language, one of the best ways I can think of to thank him is to join or form a translation team.
Not enough choices. (Score:3)
What we have here is a popularity contest with well known names and is a very poor representation of the thousands of applications/authors/and groups which are out there.
I don't deny that any of the listed people are worthy of the individiual awards, I just feel that the number of choices is too limited. There were lots of good nominations which did not make it to the vote cycle.
This is not meant to be a flame, or perhaps it is... It just seems more and more that this place is becoming a clique culture and very unwelcoming to newcommers.
For this reason, You'll find my vote for abstain in all categories as the nominees are not a fair representation of the many more canidates nominated. It seems more that
They are a threat to free speech and must be silenced! - Andrea Chen
Deny Hemos (Score:4)
Funniest Candidate... (Score:4)
Thanks for making me laugh Slashdot gang!
Do the Decent Thing! (Score:5)
Abstain when you don't know. Don't just go for the one that rings a bell, if you don't know, don't vote.
Most Improved Open Source Project / Most Improved Kernel Module
Have you benchmarked it? Done regression testing? Checked the source for comments? No? Then abstain, 'cos you don't know!
Unsung Hero
Do you know what each of these people has done? Have you done research to find out how "unsung" they actually are? (Alan Cox has been on TV - thats not unsung!)
Best Open Source-Related Book
Have you actually read *all* of these books? No? Well then don't vote, 'cos you don't know!
I could go on, but your smart people, you know what I'm getting at. Don't just vote off the cuff, vote for what you know, and let those who are in the know's votes count by reducing the "noise" and keeping your uninformed opinion out of it. Like me.
Oh, and before I get moderated down as an opiniated know it all, I've abstained on almost everyting, because I'm honest enough to say "I Don't Know".
Thankyou for your time
ThadTHANK YOU ALL GUYS!!!! (Score:5)
Really, I appreciate it so much that you voted for me in MASS! I'm almost crying! I called mom and she said, "son, I've never believe you'd make it, but now I'm proud of you!". Thank you all for all those votes! And I'd like to emphasize the fact that this is a team work, that nothing would have been possible without me, myself, and I!
I plan to give most of the money to my crack dealer, who's in a dire need. THANKS AGAIN! (where's that pipe)