Roll out the red carpet!
The RISC OS Awards poll for 2014 officially closed earlier this month, and the votes have now been counted up – on RISC OS, using a combination of a small BASIC program and Colton Software’s Fireworkz.
This year’s poll was open for notably longer than last year, with the voting form going live at the start of December, and remaining open until 7th February, but despite the extra time in which people could cast their votes, the final tally was just over one hundred entries in total, compared with around 150 for the 2012/13 poll, which wasn’t open for as long.
One possible factor in this was the nature of the form: Last year, those casting a vote had up to six options presented to them in each category, and voting was a matter of selecting one. This time, the poll was set up with a text field for each category instead of options, to allow people to cast a vote for anything they could think of. One of the most significant outcomes of this was that no category received an entry from everyone who took part – and some people noted in the fields for those categories they cast no vote in that they were unable to think of something to vote for. It’s therefore not unreasonable to suspect that some people may have opted not to bother at all for the same reason.
This problem should be addressed for the next poll, with the aim being to combine the two formats – up to six options to choose from, along with an ‘Other’ option and an accompanying text field. However, that’s the 2015 poll, which should appear towards the end of this year – what matters now are the results of the 2014 poll, which can be found below.
Congratulations to all the winners, who will be notified by email shortly (if they haven’t seen the results via the @RISCOSitory Twitter feed). The results will be published on the RISC OS Awards website in due course.
Best commercial product
Twenty different products received votes in this category, with just over half receiving only a single vote. Only one product, however, managed to achieve a two digit number of votes – and it did so with ease. With 40% of the total votes, the best commercial product of 2014 is RiscOSM from Sine Nomine Software.
Best non-commercial product
Twenty eight different products received votes in this category, and just over half received only a single vote. Again, only one product managed to achieve a two digit vote count. With 24% of the total votes, the best non-commercial product of 2014 is NetSurf, from the NetSurf developers.
Best game or diversion
One of the categories with the fewest number of votes cast, only thirteen different games received votes, and most of those received only a single entry. Once again, only one game received enough votes to reach double figures. With 60% of the total votes, the best game or diversion of 2014 is Star Fighter 3000, originally developed by Fednet Software, and now maintained by Christopher Bazley.
Best hardware
The number of items identified in this category ranges from twelve to fourteen, depending on how they are identified – but irrespective of the method used, the organisation responsible for the best hardware of 2014 is the same. With either 35% or 65% of the total votes, the best hardware is the Raspberry Pi from the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Best new development
This category saw fifteen different suggestions identified, with not one of them achieving votes in the double-digits, and most only receiving a single nomination. With 21% of the total votes, the best new development of 2014 is the ARMX6 computer from R-Comp.
Best show of initiative
There were nineteen different suggestions identified in this category, and again none managed to reach two digits, with just over half receiving no more than one nomination. With 21% of the total votes, the best show of initiative for 2014 goes to R-Comp for developing the ARMX6.
Best website or online resource
There were twenty different suggestions in this category with, yet again, more than half only receiving a single vote, and just one reaching double digits, giving it a strong lead over all the others. With 46% of the total vote, the best website or online resource of 2014 is the RISC OS Open Ltd website and forum.
Best publication or offline resource
This category saw only eleven different nominations, two of which managed to reach double digits (with only another two receiving more than one vote). With 46% of the total vote, the best publication or offline resource of 2014 is Archive Magazine, from Abbey Press Glastonbury.
Best foreign language resource
Another category with only a small number of different nominations, there were seven suggestions in this category, with only three of them receiving more than one vote, and the winner soaring ahead. With 62% of the total vote, the best foreign language resource of 2014 is the RISC OS FR website from David Feugey.
Best show or event
This category also saw just eleven different suggestions, with all but two of them receiving just one or two votes, and the other two leaving them behind. With 50% of the total vote, the best show or event of 2014 is the London Show, organised by the RISC OS User Group of London.
Most innovative or interesting project
Twenty one different suggestions were made in this category, with two thirds receiving just one vote, and only one easily reaching double digits. With 40% of the total vote, the most innovative or interesting project of 2014 is development of the ARMX6 by R-Comp.
Best overall contributor
This was another category in which the number of suggestions can vary according to how they are interpreted, ranging from fifteen to seventeen. Only one individual and one company managed to reach double digit votes, though, so regardless of the way the different suggestions were counted, the winner remains unchanged. For this category, however, it is worth noting the runner up as well as the winner – the reason hopefully speaking for itself:
With 21% of the total vote, the second best overall contributor in 2014 is Jeffrey Lee.
And with 46% of the total vote, the best overall contributor of 2014 is RISC OS Open Ltd.
Broken cog of the year
The final category was a harder one for which to count the results and declare a winner. If the votes for different reasons but for specific entities are combined, there would be a clear winner, but if the different reasons are taken into account, the result is a three-way tie.
For the record, the single overall winner if the votes for different reasons are combined would be R-Comp, and the three way tie if reasons are taken into account would be between RISCOSitory, R-Comp and the EU. However, having given the matter some thought, I have decided that the best way to count this category this year is to not count it at all, and instead declare it null and void – if only because some of the suggestions and reasons were [ahem] interesting, and it may be worth looking at them in a separate post at some point.
So that’s what’s going to happen!