wildbill@ucbvax.ARPA (William J. Laubenheimer) (01/23/85)
Over thirty people communicated, either by mail or by net posting, on the subject of USENET awards. The overwhelming opinion was that it was sensible to do something of the sort; the only dissenting opinions were fairly mild: > Seriously, what percentage of USENETTERS do you think are really hackers? > I suspect they are mainly ordinary college students and people who work > at computer companies doing generic stuff who enjoy wasting hours > every day reading this stuff... ----- > I nominate the USENET Awards Poll as perhaps the Least Worthwhile Poll. > I see a parallel between these, and the TV awards shows that have the gall > to suggest that there is anything on commercial television that deserves > recognition. Favorable opinions ranged from "Sure, why not?" to "Yeah! Great idea!". I therefore declare the existence of USENET Awards. As stated in my initial posting, the first order of business is to come up with a name with a bit more pizzaz than "USENET Awards". A number of suggestions came in with the affirmative opinions. These suggestions can be broken down into a number of classes. There were people, real and otherwise: > Name: The Beldanelscot Awards ( For Bellovin, Daniel, Ellis, and Truscot) ----- > I'm surprised no one has suggested the 'Bimmler' Awards. ----- > I was going to suggest > the Hopper (for Grace Hopper, but there's already an award in her honor) > a little frog, representing programmers who feed on bugs > the Barbie (goes with Ken, but someone may think of Klaus) > a stacked blonde, representing something or other about calls > but will have to settle for > the Bootle, for Stan Kelly-Bootle, author of The Devil's DP Dictionary. ----- > Since awards are often named after illustrious figures in the area, > I suggest "The Chuqui", after a certain tireless and enthusiastic Usenetter. ----- > I propose that the awards be called "Honeymans". He's laughing up his > sleeve at everyone else on the net, let's have a polite joke on him! ----- > Name? How about the Kernigans (or the Ritchies), after the people most > closely associated with C & Unix? ----- > Oh come on, Bill! I think "The Laubenheimer Awards" has just the esoteric > ring to it that is needed!! Why isn't your name available? After all, the > Pulitzer Prize is named after ITS orginator, the Nobel Prize after ITS > originator -- I think we should seriously entertain the idea. ----- > In favor of naming the awards the "Laubenheimer Awards"! ----- > How about "Neddies?" ----- > I am all in favor of USENET awards. I agree that the awards need a > catchy name, and I would like to propose that they be named after my > mythical friend William P. Baboquivari. William P was a hacker, > strange person par excellens, and Arch-Druid of Chapel Hill. If he > were still around, he would be single-handedly holding up net.nlang.celts. > (biography available on request) > Therefore I propose that the USENET awards be called > The Willy Awards > in the tradition of Oscars, Tonys, Emmys, etc. This has the added > advantage that if the views of, say, Ken Arndt give me the willies, > I can nominate him to receive a Willy too. There were objects: > How about a hot-air balloon for a symbol, and call the award > a Hotsie (or for the "worst" categories, an Enkie (as in n-key)? ----- > Considering the amount of content-free postings to the net, an appropriate > award would be a small statuette of a flame-thrower. ----- > Hey perfect! I have an old Brass blow torch on my desk that would be > the perfect prototype for the award. > The USENET Brass Blow Torch award. There were a few odds and ends, as well: As a name how about the :-) award, to be pronounced as anyone cares to, maybe colon-dash-close? ----- What about the "USELESS AWARD?" ----- How about calling it "The Hacker"? But the most popular nomination was not totally unexpected: Perhaps the awards should be called Wombats. ----- Obviously, the generic award name should be "The Wombat". ----- I think the *Wombat* awards are a good idea ... I'll think on it and get some more suitable recipients for the awards later.. ----- Wouldn't be obvious - they would have to be called "THE WOMBATS". I can see the award now... bright green paper-mache (to symbolize the money AT&T Communications makes over the long-distance phone calls), about three feet tall, with a large, furry, beady-eyed wombat with a lobe clutched in it's greedy little paws. ----- No, No, NO! With a MANGO clutched in it's greedy little paws! ======================================== So there you have it: lots of choices for a name. Also, it's time to build a list of award categories. This will constitute the second discussion round (the first was the probe for interest and comments from which the preceding information was extracted). RULES FOR AWARD NAME BALLOTING Please MAIL your choice (from the above list of possibilities only - nominations have been closed). If you do not consider any of the above choices, or the working title of "USENET AWARDS" or "Netties", suitable, a vote to reopen nominations will be permitted. Balloting will remain open at least until 1 February, under no circumstances beyond 23:59:59 PST 13 Februray, or until no mail or news posting is received on this topic at UCBVAX in 48 hours, whereupon a winner will be announced. RULES FOR NOMINATION OF AWARD CATEGORIES Persons wishing to create a category for award nomination should submit this information. An award category nomination consists of the name of the category and a brief description of the general criteria on which the award should be based. The combined length of award name plus description must be less than 256 characters. Any longer nomination will be discarded. Nominations will remain open at least until 00:00:00 PST 1 February, under no circumstances beyond 23:59:59 PST 13 February, or until no mail or news posting is received on this topic at UCBVAX in 48 hours. Shortly thereafter, a list of nominated award categories will be distributed, with instructions on voting. ======================================== Glad to see a lot of people having fun with this idea. I hope it takes off. Bill Laubenheimer ----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science ...Killjoy went that-a-way---> ucbvax!wildbill