Developers awards?

[vijay555]

Guys,

User JNasty suggested the following (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=371535):

Executive Summary:
Should we accumulate donations from members and award prizes to developers in various categories?

Original Post:
"Here's an idea that I have that maybe the moderators and the rest of the community can help me expand on.

Since it's award season (e.g. Grammy's, Tony's, Oscar, Golden Globes, etc) I was thinking that we should have an annual xda-developer's awards.

I was thinking that a group of moderators could take cash donations thru paypal or some other means and hand out cash prizes for the awards voted best. The monies could be collected thru out the year that way by award time there should be plenty of money to "hand out as cash prizes" Maybe T-shirts could be printed for nominees.

I was thinking that moderators could choose the nominee's and then the community could vote on the winners. I think it would be counter-intuitive to have the community vote the nominees.

Some of the categories could be as follows:

Best ROM (To include sub-categories for different handsets) and then one overall ROM of the Year.

Most Creative App: (This categories could include apps that aren't IPhone knock off or sims; Trackme and Advanced Configuration come to my mind quickly)

Best IPhone SIM (e.g. IFonz, itask, S2U2, many others)

Best Skin

Best Finger Friendly Application

Best App collaboration (Many people are not just creating apps on their own)

Developer of the Year (Many devs create more than a few apps or create a killer app and should be considered for this award). This allong with APP of the Year should be considered the TOP awards

Can I get some feed back from any mods or the community? Suggestions on prizes and additional categories? Or even if this idea stinks that's cool too.

Ahh we would need a clever name for the awards as well..or would XDA-Developer awards suffice?

Just my two cents."I think this is a good idea. I see certain logistical problems, eg holding funds for a time, and deciding categories etc. I'm not sure what the other mods think either. However, Let's vote with our feet. Do you think the awards are a good idea?

Time?
I suggest doing it on a 6 monthly or quarterly basis, as a year on the web is a loooong time.

Any suggestions for categories?
Personally, I think "Best Finger Friendly Application" is taking it a bit too narrow. And I already know what my best finger-friendly application is :p.

Methodology?
These things can become quite a PITA for organisation. I suggest we keep it simple, in keeping with our combined limited intelligence.
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/c/c7/200px-Flubber_cover.jpg

The PocketPCMag awards take quite a lot of effort, voting and vetting.


http://www.pocketpcmag.com/awards/board_of_experts_2007.asp

I would propose taking nominations in each class by a deadline, and then polls for the winner. Any thoughts?

PLEASE don't suggest nominations in this thread. It'd be a little premature.
Just ideas for now, if you please.

V

[egzthunder1]

V,

Well, I'm actually glad tht you think recognition is a good idea. I have seen quite a few people trying to vote for "Best Rom" award. It would be fairly unfair to a lot of people since everyone has a different taste for roms. Some people like fully loaded roms, while some others like plain vanilla roms; some people like having RamDisk, some others think it is a waste of good memory... and so on (I guess you get where I am going with this)

My idea would be to not award people who come up with variations of roms, but with people that have actually made breakthroughs in the roms. For instance, I have a BA (3 years old and counting :) ). If it was up to me, I would have to give an award to mamaich, Tuatara, and Helmi_c for being able to port two OS' that everyone said that could not be ported (come on, who can forget the thread about the guy who saw WM5 running in a BA in a trade show. That thread was like a soap opera. Everyone and their grandmother was waiting to see if this guy would be able to dump the rom into an SD card while nobody was watching... ahh, good times!!

I'm getting off track here. But you get my point. Breakthroughs that have helped the XDA community (mamaich page pool discovery was, in my opinion the greatest thing since white bread). This is what should be awarded (at least for the roms).

Now, for smaller apps, then I guess we can have something like a large list of candidate apps for different categories (UI, Lockers, Today Plugins, Touch (cubes and related tools), Dialers, etc). Just dump names into each category and make something like a primary election (without using Diebold machines, that is :D ) for a limited time. This will help you guys filter what people really like from what they don't. After that, just grab the top 3 for each category and make one final poll. That way, you will be able to keep control over the whole voting process.

This is just an idea, but let me know what you think.

[vijay555]

All good ideas.

Nothing to stop us having a category for the best virgin rom and for the best Britney Rom (everything hanging out, more than anyone wants to see).

http://hollywood.outsidethebeltway.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/britney-flash-crotch-un-copy.jpg

I think the polls might be useful for us to actually keep track of which roms and apps members are finding most useful at any one time. As such, "resetting" the polls, ie by having fresh polls every quarter etc, will allow us to give newer apps a shot as well.

And again, being less weighted towards non commercial apps, it won't be duplicating efforts of the PocketPC Mag awards either.

V

[egzthunder1]

I can't see the picture, but I can only imagine (despite of how much I don't want to :D )

... but hold on a sec!!! Does that mean that Britney is not a virgin???!?!? OMG

[DaveShaw]

Sounds like a good idea V.

Another suggestion for a category would be Contributor of the year/month, whatever. From just reading the Kaiser forums I know there are a lot of good Devs out there who don't create full apps or ROMs. They find fixes for all sorts of stuff (from bricked phones to SW issues), make CABs, help out noobs (occasioally flaming them :)) and update the wiki's.
I'm not sure if this wiki has an easy way to see a single users contribs (mods might be able to) but from that you can see what they give to the community.

Just an idea...

Thanks,
Dave

[st3v3]

lol A_C will go directly into the hall of fame.

[Vukile]

Its so strange I was thinking of starting a similar thread today. This forum is very much like Hip Hop back in the early nineties.

[Menneisyys]

We could even cooperate; for example, integrate this awards to the Smartphone & PPCMag Awards 2008 in some way, giving orders of magnitude more exposure the titles / the devs.

If you come up with a decent category system (still) not present in the Awards categories, I'll copy the categories and nominate all the best titles in the XDA-Devs category. Everything can come except cooked ROM's and rips like Jbed (because of legal reasons).

[kidnamedAlbert]

Honestly I think this is a good idea but im only 15, i dont have money to give for awards :(

Maybe just a cool picture next to your name that says best rom, skin, etc etc etc(kinda like donation stars)

[Mr. Zach]

My only worry with creating awards is that it would develop open competition. I'm sure it's still around and yes it is necessary is some cases, but here at xda it's always been a community helping a community, no competition between us and no rivalries with everyone trying to be the best. just my point 02

[dinscurge]

its good idea, dunno about money as "prize" that would start competition but competition isnt bad if its from people used to working with "hardware" like the people at first robotics, anyways i degress its a good idea but the "community" shouldnt be so fast to limit the catagories so fast it is expanding and more catagories will emerge ect, as for awards for contributors and stuff you could also give awards for generosity and kindness bein a good person n what not,

[zamolxees]

Since the not quite so legal stuff would not enter the competition, why not contact HTC and make a bid for a sponsorship. The prize could be money, hardware or both.
I think xda-dev community is very important to HTC with all the support and software it provides. That is since many (I for sure) decided to buy HTC because of this community. And that is why in my mind the HTC marketing dept should take an offer like that into serious consideration.

However, there are two other thoughts here:
1. I agree with Mr. Zach when arguing that maybe competition is not good among friends.
2. Xda would have to have some sort of formal organization going on in order to be able to sign contracts, receive and manage prizes etc. Or maybe not, I'm not into legal stuff so I dunno. Maybe they could send the prizes directly to the winners, so any papers should be signed between them and HTC.

Another good argument for the HTC sponsorship is that from all the active users around here, almost if not all of them own a htc device on one hand and a good number have owned other and probably will buy more of htc's devices. Again, because of xda.

[uniqueboy]

I think it would be nice to acknowledge people for their work. I could look after the money. I think that cash awards, unless they were staggering, would not cause competition, the people here don't do it for the money. Also some thought needs to go into the categories, if there are too many, any prizes surely would be a pittance. Best overall software, best entertainment software, best GPS sw, best today sw, best contributor to forum, most innovative sw, most popular sw. Best rom, for each device? that is a lot awards by itself. If the awards were every six months then maybe we should alternate the rom awards and the software awards? Off the top of my head.

[negamann303]

I believe rather than giving "cash" prizes. you should donate to other ppc causes/organizations under the winners "name". People aren't here to make money, It's a hobby. I'm doing something similar over at my site very soon.