2008 Hippo Award Winners Announced
Sunday, September 7th, 2008 at 9:24 AM by: Katt LindenWe’re pleased to announce the winners of the second annual Linden Lab Innovation Awards, known as “the Hippos,” which honor the exceptional, and varied, work done by open source community members.
Rob Linden presented the awards at a mixed reality event that linked an inworld gathering of nominees, attendees of the Second Life Community Convention in Tampa, FL, and others tuning in via audio stream. See the wiki for the full text of his presentation and a review of the last year’s highlights.
Winners were selected by a panel of six Linden judges who studied each nominees contributions and rated them for both for impact and positive influence. The judges all came away awed at the breadth of cxontribution and felt they were just scratching the surface. Today’s list of winners includes only a small portion of what is fantastic about this community. While we’re not sure we’ve recognized everyone we could, we’re very confident that we should give special recognition to these individuals.
And now, the winners…
Best Documentation
In this category, we wanted to find someone who contributed lots of great documentation and helped build a community of fellow writers in a helpful and friendly way. This is an area where a lot of people do a lot of great work — people like Gellen Glenelg, Strife Onizuka, SignpostMarv Martin and Catherine Pfeffer — and, in fact, we had to declare a tie.
One of the winners tirelessly translated hundreds of pages into Japanese on the wiki, expanding the universe of Second Life residents, builders, and contributors in the process. The other was equally impressive with French translations. The work that these two residents have done has greatly expanded the reach of the ecosystem. The 2008 Hippo Award winners for Best Documentation are Asuka Neely and Gally Young.
Best Organizer
We split Best Organizer into two categories.
A. Best Issue Tracker Organizer
Organizing our issue tracker, aka “PJIRA” is a category in its own right. We had several really worthy contributors in this area: Ellla McMahon, Lex Neva and WarKirby Magojiro. However, we found that our winner could not be beat in raw, productive, obsessive compulsive organizing. The 2008 Hippo Award winner for Best Issue Tracker Organization is Harleen Gretzky.
B. Best Working Group Organization
Working group organization is also a very important asset to the community, and we have an embarrassment of riches here, too, including Zha Ewry and Saijanai Kuhn. Our winner in the category has been not only a good organizer, but a blog author and an implementor. After the first meeting of the Architecture Working Group, despite not being there in person like many people, he wrote what was probably the best summary of the meeting and what was discussed, which educated a lot of people about what AWG is about. He also has been instrumental in the creation of the PyOGP reference implementation for the open grid protocol. The 2008 Hippo Award winner for Best Working Group Organization is Tao Takashi.
Best Code Contribution
For this category, we were looking for the best feature or other code contribution. At first, we looked more closely at utility, but we also looked at how it was contributed. Runners-up included McCabe Maxstead’s “classic” viewer skin and Seg Baphomet’s OpenAL contribution. Choosing a winner was tough, but in the end we recognized that contributor who’s work was not only of great utility to the passionate and significant machinima community in Second Life, but who also did the work in a tidy and thoughtful way. The 2008 Hippo Award for Best Code Contribution goes to the contributor of the voice lipsync feature, Mm Alder.
The Jesse Malthus Award for Best Community Influence
This award is named in memorial to Jesse Malthus, an early contributor to the Second Life open source initiative who was always a cheerful and positive influence in-world and helped make things interesting and fun.
This year, the winner is a formidable presence on PJIRA. This resident often comments on very contentious issues in a constructive and thoughtful way. PJIRA would be a lot less organized and friendly place to be without the winner in this category, so it’s with great pleasure that I announce this year’s winner of the20008 Hipppo’s Jesse Malthus Award for Best Community Influence: Lex Neva.
Contributor of the Year
We had so many good choices to pick from here, including Whoops Babii’s 64-bit platform work, Carjay McGinnis viewer patches, Alissa Sabre’s translation work, and Gigs Taggart’s patches and PJIRA work. Our winner this year has contributed her fair share of patches, working with us to make sure that our transition to CMake is a smooth one. Many patches have helped get the Linux version of the viewer much closer to parity with the other platform versions. All of this is done with a cheerful and constructive attitude that attracts others to the project. It’s with great pleasure that I announce the 2008 Hippo Award Contributor of the Year is Michelle2 Zenovka.
Please join Linden Lab in thanking these contributors and the open source community for their work to improve the Second Life experience for everyone.
September 7th, 2008 at 9:35 AM
Clap, clap… great! Congratulations to all the winners.
I hope, the open source community will grow steadily inside and outside SL.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:10 AM
Congratulations !
September 7th, 2008 at 10:12 AM
I would like to thank all of the contributors, not just those who won!
Thanks for all of Your time and dedication to the cause.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:17 AM
Congrats to the winners.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:26 AM
There really aren’t words to say how much we appreciate the timeliness and frequency of your contributions. Sometimes if a Linden needs a bit of a boost, they’ll take a look at a few of the things residents have made in-world. Those remind us just why we’re making Second Life.
Now, it’s gotten to where some of these choice patches, and the dogged JIRA and wiki organization are just as inspiring. It’s hard not to love working on Second Life when your efforts show just how much SL means to you too!
September 7th, 2008 at 10:56 AM
Congratulations to all of this years winners !!!
Keep up your great work !!
Renee
September 7th, 2008 at 11:01 AM
Congratulations to all the winners and other contributors for all the work done for the good of the rest of SLs residents
September 7th, 2008 at 11:42 AM
Congratulations, but what did they win?
September 7th, 2008 at 12:24 PM
w00t, congrats to all of them.
September 7th, 2008 at 12:25 PM
@8 I think they won a hippo award and nothing more. I wonder if it is a tangible trophy.
September 7th, 2008 at 12:35 PM
For those who are curious about the prizes, you can see the full list on the wiki page linked at the top of this post.
September 7th, 2008 at 12:40 PM
Thank you for mentioning me ^_^
September 7th, 2008 at 12:51 PM
Congratulations to all winners!
#8 Magnet Homewood said:
> Congratulations, but what did they win?
Prizes are listed at
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Innovation_Awards
(scroll all the way down)
/me wonders what the Hippopotamus figurine looks like. Any pics available?
September 7th, 2008 at 12:54 PM
Special ongratulations for all winners, and congratulations for all that works to make Second Life a better place to live.
Salute!
September 7th, 2008 at 1:22 PM
Congratulations to the winners! Thanks for helping to make Second Life better for all of us…
September 7th, 2008 at 1:27 PM
Congrats to all winners!
I hope that Opensource community will grow!
Enjoy the prices:
Prizes
This year’s winners will receive
Cash gifts to their Second Life accounts (Contributor of the Year receives US$500, other category winners each receive US$300)
2008 Hippo Winner badge
Complimentary land grant on Linden Lab’s open source island Hippotropolis for one year
Complimentary concierge-level service for one year
Custom last name for a new avatar
Hippopotamus figurine … with a sterling silver Second Life Eye-in-Hand logo necklace.
Linden Lab thanks these contributors and everyone who has chipped in to help make this a fun and productive community to be a part of. While the winners and runners-up I mentioned above are a key component to the success so far, it wouldn’t be as great as having all of you there. Thanks everyone for coming, and I hope to be giving one of these to you next year (whoever you are).
(SL Wiki)
September 7th, 2008 at 1:36 PM
Cool, I feel honoured! Too bad I missed the ceremony though.
Congratulations to the other winners as well! Let’s make the future metaverse rock in an open source way!
September 7th, 2008 at 2:11 PM
Congrats everybody!
September 7th, 2008 at 2:45 PM
WOW! Congratulations to all for such hard work and dedication. I think the fact that Linden Labs allows it’s users to get involved at such levels says a lot. Hopefully other companies will follow their example.
September 7th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
Congratulations to all, and the lindens who made it possible. No doubt it will be a year or future contributions to benefit from, and a world who will give back that much more, as we benefit from their hard work…
September 7th, 2008 at 3:14 PM
once again the good news is flanked by the bad timing of SL issues. oh well, you never choose when these things happen, so best we put our chin up and bear with it…again.
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS! May they be an example to the rest of us to do some real contribution while we can, and not just complain and rant. SL is such a great challenge to keep up and running and it needs people participating and being patient in working out the kinks. These people try their best, and they are the best..:)
September 7th, 2008 at 3:18 PM
Yes congrats
Bravo Mais félicitations
September 7th, 2008 at 3:38 PM
CONGRATULATIONS to all the winners and nominees
September 7th, 2008 at 4:42 PM
Congratulations to all the winners, and a special kudos to Parrothead Cove’s very own Harleen Gretzky.
We love you and we are very proud to host for such an exceptional person.
September 7th, 2008 at 4:58 PM
Congrats everyone
September 7th, 2008 at 5:11 PM
Congratulations to everyone, and extra special congratulations Harleen and Lex, your contribution to the PJIRA is absolutely mindblowingly amazing.
September 7th, 2008 at 6:24 PM
Thank you to all the contributors, creators and builders here on SL who have made my just short of a year here so much fun and enabled me to meet so many amazing people.
I hope Linden Labs will do whatever is needed to keep all the creative people happy and participating so that SL will stay the best virtual world platform, even with its sometimes annoying quirks, that it is now. And I look forward very much to watching how it will evolve thanks to the imaginative and brilliant talent that comprises the SL creative community.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:37 PM
I edited the post to correct the spelling of Catherine Pfeffer, sorry about that typo and thanks for your outstanding work, Catherine Pfeffer!
September 8th, 2008 at 12:38 PM
It’s always impressive to see the work of great builders inworld, but these contributors have gone literally “outside the box” to improve the experience of SL itself. What great quantity and quality of work from the winners and honorable mentions; features, patches, jira edits, wiki edits, positive discussion, and initiative. Congratulations to the winners and mentions; a salute to your maverick spirits, and a thank you for your community stewardship.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:46 PM
Congratulations Asuka, Gally, Harleen, Tao, Mm, Lex, Michelle and all the excellent nominees!
September 8th, 2008 at 3:14 PM
Great work and gratz to everyone!
September 8th, 2008 at 3:24 PM
Good Job
Yay
Grats
and all that mushy stuff
September 8th, 2008 at 3:30 PM
…::: ~~~ YAY…Thank you all so very much~~~:::…
CONGRATULATIONS..GRATITUDE
September 9th, 2008 at 9:53 AM
Congratulations, these contributions keep Second Life leading the way! We all appreciate the efforts made from everybody including the winners
September 9th, 2008 at 12:47 PM
Neat stuff guys, thanks for all the hard work. My experience in Second Life has been vastly improved since I started in 2006 and I hope that the majority of users share my appreciation too.
September 9th, 2008 at 5:30 PM
[...] 2008 Hippo Award Winners Announced Official Second Life Blog - Hippo Awards Winners Announced. *clap clap* [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 6:19 PM
How could some of the 3rd party viewer enhancements be overlooked.
Like the realXtend teams’ extension of the viewer to include mesh objects?
Or the NakedLife viewer that can render any avatar nude at will?
Or ShoopedLife with its ’special’ enhancements and features?
Lipsync is nice, but without quality speech gestures it’s only halfway there.
September 9th, 2008 at 7:43 PM
The dedication and innovative ideas of our residents is what helps make SL such an awesome environment! It’s good to see hard work being acknowledged
September 9th, 2008 at 9:35 PM
CongratZ to all the winners & for all your hard work you have done to help make Second Life better….
September 10th, 2008 at 5:59 AM
congratulations
September 10th, 2008 at 7:08 AM
congratulations big one
September 10th, 2008 at 11:52 AM
@ Ric Mollor:
Thanks for your question. We open sourced the viewer to enable others to develop unique, creative versions of the viewer, and we’re happy to see that people are doing that. We congratulate these projects for exploring alternative possibilities for the viewer.
The Hippo Awards are focused on honoring people who make the biggest impact on Linden Lab’s viewer and associated programs like AWG. It’s interesting to note that, since the Linden viewer is the upstream source for most of these alternative viewer projects, our community members who contribute code and effort to the Linden source base are also improving these downstream projects. If these alternative viewer projects contributed their work back to the upstream source, we would certainly consider them for a Hippo Award.