Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/Archive1/Oddball

Oddball

 * Added to list by ClockworkSoul. Used to award unusual articles (the first recipient would be exploding whales, I think).
 * First thing I thought of when I heard the word "oddball": "eyeball". -- Riffsyphon1024 05:14, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * Why is that barnstar watching me as I move around the room? It's creepy, and I think I likes it. – ClockworkSoul 05:18, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Ahhh! The eyes! The eyes! They stare at me in my dreams. Wash it off, wash it o... I mean, I like it. Could you maybe lighten the green a little? It's a little too bright on some monitors, methinks. --Deathphoenix 23:53, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Sure, coming right up. A darker version is what you meant. -- Riffsyphon1024 06:23, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * It works for me. Zscout370 23:59, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * How about if the eye slowly blinks at you every once in a while? :) BRIAN 0918   04:42, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... not too sure about that. I'm not sure an animated image is such a good idea to place as a barnstar for people. Many people (including me) don't like animated images, and I'm not sure how they'd feel about getting one on their use page. --Deathphoenix 05:35, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * If it did blink, it would have to be very infrequently, and happen very quickly, so that people aren't even sure if they saw itthe first time. – ClockworkSoul 15:42, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I love the darker green eye: it's a brilliant idea, methinks. :) – ClockworkSoul 04:30, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Yup, I like the darker shade. Actually, ClockworkSoul came up with a good idea... what if it were set up to blink VERY infrequently, and the blinking was just a single frame. That is, the animated GIF would have just two frames: one for eye open, one for eye closed. The one for eye closed would blink for just one frame, maybe every twenty or thirty seconds (so this is almost like an Easter Egg of some sort). Riffsyphon, would you be able to do that? If not, I could see what I can come up with tonight, but as the original creator of this image, I'd like you to take first crack at it. :-) --Deathphoenix 14:04, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I could redownload the EasyGIF to make it, however I am currently under the gun of a large history paper. See what you can do. -- Riffsyphon1024 23:13, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

Okay - now what do we call it?

 * If we're happy with the green-eye-barnstar, what should we name this abomination... er... star? Perhaps simple: The Green Barnstar, or obvious: The Oddball Barnstar? I can't think at the moment, so does anybody have any good ideas? – ClockworkSoul 04:49, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * The Monsters Inc. Barnstar? J/k. It's fine as The Oddball Barnstar. -- Riffsyphon1024 06:44, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
 * It should be the Oddball Barnstar. Zscout370 11:48, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think Oddball Barnstar should be the one. --Deathphoenix 14:04, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * No questions. Oddball Barnstar it is (or should be). Redux 02:27, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Proposal
Here's a quick workup, using the slightly darker version of the green barnstar. What do you guys think? Should we open for a vote? – ClockworkSoul 17:04, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC) I learned how to make animations in Photoshop, and here's my attempt. Lemme know if I should change any of the timing settings, or anything else. -- BRIAN 0918  19:18, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Its a keeper. If there is a vote for this, my vote will be a strong Yes. Zscout370 18:19, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * How about just saying "... or is otherwise something that one wouldn't expect to find in other encyclopedias."? --Deathphoenix 20:51, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I copied it from the Unusual articles page, but you're right. I changed it to read "in more traditional encyclopedias". How's that sound? – ClockworkSoul 23:00, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Sounds great! Nine thumbs up! --Deathphoenix 23:05, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Nine thumbs up? (boggle) You're a starnge duck, DP. – ClockworkSoul 23:29, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry, that should have been seven thumbs up. I was trying to quote Homer Simpson. --Deathphoenix 23:43, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * FYI - the reason I'm trying to get this star out so quickly is because I want to award it to Ta bu shi da yu (while he's hopefully still reading his talk page) for exploding whale, which has become something of a Wikipedia icon (you can even buy [[exploding whale] T-shirts and mugs!]). – ClockworkSoul 23:29, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * It's awesome. -- Riffsyphon1024 23:37, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's a good enough reason. I was looking forward seeing a blinking eye, but TBSDY definitely deserves this barnstar first. --Deathphoenix 23:43, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * There's no rule that says we can't always add it later. :) – ClockworkSoul 03:05, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I actually did make a blinking version, but my animation software kept spitting out a low-quality result, so I gave up. I had the eye blink at 10 seconds, then at a minute, then a couple minutes, and when it was blinking, it was just a peach half-circle for the closing eyelid, then a full circle for closed, then half-circle again for opening.  -- BRIAN 0918   03:18, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... sounds too frequent. I'd be more in favour of a single cycle, at around thirty or sixty seconds, and the blink should be quick, probably around the same speed as a human blink. --Deathphoenix 15:21, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * The thing is, that the viewer has to hang around long enough to notice it. But then we don't have to tell anyone outside of this that it blinks at all. We secretly impliment this "easter egg" and then let them find out on a dark spooky night, with the lights off and only the glare of the computer screen lighting their room, and they happen to stumple across what they thought was a blinking eye, but it was just their imagination, or was it? :) -- Riffsyphon1024 17:22, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, that's exactly what I'm hoping for. :-) Thirty or sixty seconds (or perhaps twenty seconds) is a long enough time such that not everyone will see it. Only those who happen to have it open like that will see it... or did they? --Deathphoenix 17:34, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I hope that we can get it implemented. I really love the idea. – ClockworkSoul 17:40, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * If I have time, I'll see what I can do tonight. I would probably be able to preserve quality of the image. If it takes too long, we can always use a static GIF version of the Barnstar, and replace it with an animated picture with the same name later. --Deathphoenix 18:33, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * That's pretty awesome :) Is it me, though, or is the image clarity different? – ClockworkSoul 19:36, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * It's you, you're crazy. :) Apparently animated GIFs all have to go through this "optimization" process to cut down on filesize (otherwise it'd be like loading each frame of the animation as a separate picture), so that'll change the appearance slightly. It looks like the animation might be a little sharper than the original image, maybe due to less colors being used.  Not sure.  -- BRIAN 0918   19:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I still like it, and I think that we should adopt it. I revisied the proposal above to use the new image. :) – ClockworkSoul 20:06, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * At first, I was disappointed because as soon as I looked at it, it blinked at me. But that was because I had the page loaded for a while before I looked at it. I don't believe it, but I like an animated barnstar. :-) 45 seconds is a long enough time for this to be an Easter egg. Thanks to all involved, and seven thumbs up! --Deathphoenix 21:36, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't it have green eyelids? -- Riffsyphon1024 23:45, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * And whales aren't supposed to explode. Don't try to explain it.  :)   BRIAN 0918   00:23, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, precious. Gollum... I mean... I like the blinking barnstar.  It looks good.  No it doesn't!  Who wrote that??  It was the Barnstar, I tellsa ya!  It's alive!!  Redux 02:38, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I have found an article that might be worth awarding with our new Oddball Barnstar: Dwarf tossing. -- Riffsyphon1024 02:46, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * I went and gave the star to the article's author, David.Monniaux. – ClockworkSoul 17:55, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Oddball Barnstar was added to the project page under the category "topical barnstars". I don't think that this barnstar is topical. One can be...excentric in any topic (dwarves and whales are not in the same topic, but two users have deserved this barnstar for those articles &#150; or one of them, but whoever is the main responsible for the dwarf article should definately get this award). Regards, Redux 18:30, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)