With Howard.


--
Puneet Kishor
science, data, policy... yeah

On Sep 18, 2012, at 6:15 PM, Howard Butler <[email protected]> wrote:

> 
> On Sep 18, 2012, at 9:53 AM, Richard Greenwood <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> 
>> I agree that this is the first year that nominations have been
>> publicly discussed and it is a departure from previous years. I
>> followed Jeff's lead when I nominated Chris.
>> 
>> But hey, we're an open community, I think it's even in the name
>> somewhere. And spreading a little recognition around to hard working
>> members of our community surely doesn't hurt.
> 
> I disagree. The history of the award has been a cloistered deliberation of 
> private nominations. The award is not a political exercise, or at least it 
> hasn't been to this point, and public nominations tip things toward the 
> lobbying direction. Every open source contributor wouldn't mind an award in 
> the field of excellence, and every contributor deserves a pat on the back or 
> two.
> 
> Open nominations opens up a more than few cans of worms:
> 
> - I won't say some stuff about a person in a public nomination that I would 
> in a private one. First off, I don't want to embarrass them, as some people 
> are embarrassed by public fawning.
> 
> - Not every activity and action needs to be billboarded. If you look at the 
> list of past winners, a common trait they all share is they all have kept 
> their heads down and done a lot for the community as whole without regard to 
> recognition. 
> 
> - I might not want everyone to know who I'm nominating.
> 
> - Are we voting on the award? Lobbying the committee? What does a public 
> nomination achieve other than to provide a (biased) public attaboy? There are 
> plenty of opportunities for those that do not have to be conflated with a 
> nomination process.
> 
> The award is selected by an exclusive group of individuals, and this act 
> makes it an exclusive award. The Oscar or Peabody or Pulitzer of open source 
> GIS is much more interesting than the People's Choice. Let's keep it that way.
> 
> Howard
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