1. here to

Make it a open poll, competitors can not vote.

Announce it on mamo front page.

I would vote for option 2 with the proposed full-back to option 1 if Nokia don't do their share.

And thanks for taking the initiative, we got some useful things out of the contest.

What about to let the winner of each category decide?

This was so far a fair competition with developers helping each other and pay tribute to other projects.

We could take a modified option 1. Spread the donations to place 1., 2. and 3. - but let the winner of each category decide, would you take the small Bounty from the community or is the Trip sponsored by Nokia or a shiny new N900 enought for you and give the money (it's already not soooo much) to place 2., 3. and 4. as a booby prize to appreciate their work and to motivate them to continue their projects.

Here's the half time report on the donor's mood, in the universal language of asterisk chart.

Happy: ************ (14)
It's ok: * (1)
Unhappy: * (1)

Fourteen donors were happy with the choice of option2, one donor preferred option1 but was fine with option2, and one donor (as he expressed earlier in this thread) would have preferred option1.

I'll update as and when more replies come in.

Asterix chart bump! 4 more replies from donors, all in the happy camp.

Happy: ************ (18)
It's ok: * (1)
Unhappy: * (1)

Now eighteen donors were happy with the choice of option2, one donor preferred option1 but was fine with option2, and one donor (as he expressed earlier in this thread) would have preferred option1.

I'll continue to update as and when more replies come in, there are 8 donors left to reply.

I am not against following the path the masses take, I am more against not having the chance to vote on it.
/me respects wisdom of the collective.

I personally think that the winner Option 2 is the best option.
The real winners of each category already get a very good prize from Nokia, and rewarding the 4th place is also a great idea.

Kojacker is also right: asking the donors about where their money goes is the cleanest and most fair approach.

Thanks again everyone for your feedback. We just had number 19 reply happy, with the caveat that if there is no Nokia prize at the end of the day then we will reward the 1st placed winner. Ofcourse, that is what we are proposing with option2 as the first choice, backed up by option1

That makes the current scores on the doors:

Happy: ********************* (21)
It's ok: * (1)
Unhappy: * (3)

With 3 left to reply, I'm confident that the overwhelming opinion is there is happiness in the poll decision as far as the donors are concerned. I should say, however, that many of them would have been happy whatever was decided - they're a happy generous bunch!

That option2 was chosen was no surprise to me as that was the overwhelming feedback I received. At the beginning I was under the assumption that we were going with an option1 type share, this poll was only quickly made after continued suggestions that with Nokia's generous awards for the winners we use the bounty share for the runners up.

The competition has been driven by the developers and the donors really getting behind it, I think it's no surprise that the final poll reflected their optinions.

However there is a case that the wider community who maybe did not follow the competition so closely now feel they haven't had their say in the outcome. Personally Im not so bothered by that as long as the developers and the donors are happy, driving the competition on is probably the only reason we made it this far.

A lot of the feedback from donors was to not re-run the poll and to go ahead, although I did get one response telling me to save myself from the hassle and just run it again. The only thing that stops me carrying on bullishly anyway is lcuk's reply. He was one of our first donors and someone I respect a lot, im unhappy that he wasn't able to make his voice heard until after the poll. He earned and deserved that.

I'm trying to look for the compromise, running a poll for a week is not it. The idea of voting to decide where prize money goes after the competition has ended is nonsense. After 2 months of hard work there's no way Im turning the competition into a farce! Let's be serious

Speaking of serious, please remember Quim's words - "the prizes offered are serious, just like we expect this community driven competition to be serious..." In my opinion, we have a community need and obligation to bring you onboard and make you feel proud of the competition we are running, at the same time we need the community to stick with us and not drag the competition down. We also have an obligation to Nokia to work together on this and run the best competition we can. The good news is we've worked through problems all the way along, and we can work through this too

But time is running out and here's what i suggest. The poll stands, as is now, and we will continue to move forward with that. In the meantime you are welcome to have a wider community poll to ratify the result. This is a community competition, it belongs to you all and if you can show to me that the community is unhappy with the bounty share decided then we will have another look at deciding it. The only thing I'd ask is that the new poll will finish before the voting threads are closed so final positioning in the contest does not affect the voting in your poll.

Thoughts?

I agree to leave it as it stands.

Come on, guys, it is certainly bad that you didn't get to vote. But the decision was made. All three options were sensible and the best one had by far more votes than the others. As kojacker said, lets not turn it into a farce.