The 2002 Wet Blanket Awards

[Super Woodio Brother]

Welcome to the Wet Blanket Awards for 2002, the tenth annual sampling
of those who just have to say no to newsgroups.

** What This Is **

Newsgroup vote results over the year were analysed, counted up, sorted out,
mangled, processed, diced and sliced. A point count was assigned according
to how often users opposed newsgroups. Those opposing the most newsgroups
are listed (needless to say, those doing only the occasional no vote should
not receive a high point rating here).

A slight increase in newsgroup votes occurred this year compared to last.
15 votes were conducted from the counts of things versus 14 last year.
When multiple group votes are broken out, this represents 16 individual
newsgroups (slightly below the 17 in 2001). The points rating represents
individual newsgroup elements (and thus some point totals will be greater
than 15; maximum point count is 16).

The threshold for listing the WBA finalists this year will be the same as
last year.

There were no special removal votes in 2002.

Listed e-mail addresses have been spam-busted to thwart net.vandals. The
actual e-mail can be extracted by changing the magic characters to the proper
ones.

** Disclaimer Stuff **

Due to various reasons (lack of disk space, interrupted and/or missing news
at the receiving site, skipped entries for holidays, etc), and due to the
fact that some folks can switch userids on a dime, or site names can be
changed, and other fun complications, there will be a certain margin of
tolerance in the counts.

As of 1997, attempts to match different e-mail addresses to individuals were
abandoned, due to the tedium and imprecision of determining whether different
e-mail addresses belong to the same persons.

In light of the limitations of such a list, and the nature of Usenet vote
counts, no warranties are given with these results.

** Flashback **

Now for a look back at last year's top... or bottom... ten WBA finalists:

8. Aahz Maruch (aahz$pobox.com) (tie) 6
8. Frances Margan Keeling (fran_keeling$my-deja.com) (tie) 6
8. Sydney James Evans (sj_evans21$yahoo.com.au) (tie) 6
6. F. Andrew McMichael (amcmicha$Princeton.EDU) (tie) 7
6. G.P. Ryan (gprrspw$mindspring.com) (tie) 7
4. Ekkehard Uthke (Ekkehard$Uthke.de) (tie) 8
4. Christian Weisgerber (naddy$mips.inka.de) (tie) 8
2. Chris Ebenezer (chriseb$ukshells.co.uk) (tie) 10
2. Richard H Miller (rick$bcm.tmc.edu) (tie) 10
1. Dwight Brown (stainles$bga.com) 16

** Not The Top 5+ **

Now... for this year's list of the biggest newsgroup no-voters (5 points
or more) on the 'net on our way to the #1 group stomper of the year ......

Rnk Name (userid) Pts
...........................................................................
9. Jay Denebeim (denebeim*deepthot.org) (tie) 5
9. Pan (pan*syix.com) (tie) 5
9. Wiz (wiz*verinet.com) (tie) 5
8. D. David O'Brian / Brian (Bob) Douglas / DDMO (dougbob*charter.net) 6
5. Chris Ebenezer (chriseb*ukshells.co.uk) (tie) 7
5. G.P. Ryan (gprrspw*mindspring.com) (tie) 7
5. John . (john0*zworg.com) (tie) 7
4. Matthew Montchalin (mmontcha*oregonvos.net) 8
2. Christian Weisgerber (naddy*mips.inka.de) (tie) 9
2. Richard H Miller (rick*bcm.tmc.edu) (tie) 9

And 2002's newsgroup nay-sayer of the year is...

1. Dwight Brown (stainles*bga.com) 16

** Wrapping Up **

A few highlights of note ... from rankings last year to this year (though
this isn't particularly scientifically comparable, at least Windows XP
wasn't involved in any of this). Note there are possible cases listed under
the condition that a new e-mail address this year refers to the same person
named last year.

(user followed by last year rank -> this year rank)

Who rank: '01 -> '02
..........................................................................
D. "Doug Bob Douglas Jones" David O'Brien (dougbob$charter.net) 11 -> 8
G.P. Ryan (gprrspw$mindspring.com) 6 -> 5 (tie)
Chris Ebenezer (chriseb$ukshells.co.uk) 2 -> 5 (tie)
Christian Weisgerber (naddy$mips.inka.de) 4 -> 2 (tie)
Richard H Miller (rick$bcm.tmc.edu) 2 -> 2 (tie)
Dwight Brown (stainles$bga.com) 1 -> 1

Notes:

[1] if Wiz (wiz$lart.com) in 2001 is the same as Wiz (wiz*verinet.com)
in 2002, then it would be 11. rank last year to 9. rank this year.

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