Massively

Linden Lab has published the following information to guide nominations, and clarify the rules:

Nominations

If you would like to nominate your open source peers for a Hippo Award, then please

• Sign in to the Issue Tracker and add the person's Second Life avatar name as a subtask to the appropriate category (below), and
• Write a comment about what their contribution was and why you find it to be exemplary. Please cite jira issues, wiki pages or other examples of the contribution wherever possible.

Nominations are open from now through 2008 July 8 at noon PDT.

Additional notes:

• Although the issue tracker has a voting feature, winners will not be selected by popular vote but through the jury process described below.
• Please create only one jira issue per nominee per category. You are welcome to second a nomination by commenting on the jira opened in that nominee's name.
• People may be nominated in multiple applicable categories.

Eligibility

• Nominees are eligible to win if their contribution was made between 2007/07/01 and 2008/06/30.
• Linden Lab employees and family members are not eligible to win.

Judging

These are juried awards, and winners will be selected based on a point system used by the judges. The judges panel will be comprised of Linden open source team members and developers.

Categories

Nominees should exhibit not only a great track record in their respective categories but also exemplify core community values of collegiality and respect. Visit the jira links below to read a description of the category and make nominations.

• Best Documentation MISC-1301
• Best Project Organizer MISC-1302
• Best Contribution MISC-1303
• The Jesse Malthus Award for Best Community Influence MISC-1304
• Contributor of the Year MISC-1305

We have redefined some of the categories from last year and added a new one in order to reduce overlap and increase coverage of the breadth of work coming from the community.

Awards

Award winners will be announced in early September. I'll be sending another message with the exact date, time and location of this event. You can see last year's award announcement on the blog.

Prizes

The 2007 Hippo Award winners received a rent-free parcel on the open source island Hippotropolis for one year and a gift of Linden dollars. The Contributor of the Year also received a Macintosh computer. Based on feedback from the 2007 winners, we'll be making some changes to the prize types and distribution this year, though the overall value of the prizes will be similar. A later announcement will detail this year's prizes.