Featured Articles and Projects – Lumia award

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Update (25 September 2012): This award is complete – we’ve run out of devices. Thanks to everyone who contributed – there were many more great articles than we were able to feature.

Update (3 September 2012): This award has excited a lot of interest from the community. I’ve managed to secure at least four more devices for future featured articles and projects.

Nokia Lumia 800

Most weeks the Wiki and Project moderators feature an article and project that we think are particularly useful, interesting or cool. We promote these on the home page (wiki/projects), blog (wiki/projects) and also on Facebook and Twitter.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be awarding a brand new Lumia 800 device to the authors/owners of newly featured articles and/or projects related to Windows Phone. We hope this encourages you to contribute even more great Windows Phone articles and projects.

How are the featured article and project selected?
The moderators for projects and wiki select the featured projects and articles, respectively. In both cases we’re looking for content that will be interesting and useful for other developers.

When selecting featured articles we tend to look for well written articles that have a build-able code examples, screenshots and videos. Great articles usually provide a good overview of the topic along with links to other good material. We favour unique articles that cover material that isn’t duplicated elsewhere, or which “adds significant value” over an existing article (for example, articles that expands on reference and guide material with diagrams, code examples, tricks and tips for usage and optimisation). For more ideas on what makes a better article, see our Wiki Article Review Checklist.

The project moderators similarly look for projects that cover interesting subject matter, do something in a “better” or “different” way, provide useful libraries or tools for other developers to reuse, or which have social worth. Projects which make good use of the project infrastructure (discussions, tickets, wiki) etc and which build a community are valued more highly than those which dump code (however interesting). Simple projects can be featured, but they need to be imaginative.

A few rules

  • We have four eight Lumias to give away.
  • Devices are only awarded to Windows Phone related projects/articles. Note that the moderators may not select Windows Phone content in any given week
  • Nokia employees and subcontractors are not eligible to receive a device (if their articles/projects are featured)
  • Only one prize will be awarded to a single person, even if multiple articles/projects are featured.
  • Devices will be allocated to the eligible recipients until they have all been awarded.

The moderation teams are looking forward to seeing what you can come up with!

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43 thoughts on “Featured Articles and Projects – Lumia award”

  4. the projects may have a specific topic?
    What is his minimum requirements? Could it be only a calculator with some additional feature (such as a swipe for some action)?
    Or it has to me more complex?

    • Hi ShiKaZ

      The project has to be related to windows phone – there are no other specific topics.

      A simple project can be featured, but you need to be imaginative.

      We tend to select projects that are “interesting or cool”, “useful to other developers” and “well run as an ongoing project”.

      A simple calculator app dumped into projects as a “one off”, with no documentation would be unlikely to win – because there are lots of calculator apps around and people can’t necessarily learn much from this.

      However a calculator app that had some cool feature not seen elsewhere (and perhaps documented on the main wiki) might win as “interesting”. An ongoing project to build the “best calculator ever” would definitely have a shot – but of course it would have to demonstrate that its an ongoing project, not just a one off code dump.

      For some examples of past featured projects see: http://www.developer.nokia.com/Blogs/Community/Tag/featured-project/

      Hope that helps.

      • It helps!
        Thanks!
        Last question: Could i also publish the project on Marketplace or once it has been published on the Projects page it will became a Nokia application?

        • The app you write is yours, and can be published where you like. However any source you upload in a public project is visible to others and can be used by them under the terms of the license you specify. As a rule we tend to feature projects that have permissive licenses for code re-use. Otherwise there isn’t much point us highlighting the project, since no one else can join it or use the source.

  5. @Diogenes – This isn’t really a “contest/competition” as such, but yes, anyone in the world can submit an article or project and it can potentially be featured.

    We’ve been featuring articles and projects for a long time – the moderators select the most interesting project/article they discover in the week and highlight it for other users. All that has changed is that for the coming weeks we’ll be awarding a Lumia 800 to those that are featured.

    So if you want to think of it as a competition then that is fine :-) , but we’re still thinking of it as finding great projects and articles that we want to share with the community

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  15. You may notice that we’ve now awarded all four of the phones promised. Due to the really superb quality of articles and projects from this promotion we’ve been able to get another four devices, so this will continue for at least a few more weeks!

  16. Hello,

    How do I submit an article for the contest?

    I started a Windows Phone development blog in May and some articles might be interested for the Windows Phone Nokia developers:

    - How to backup your Windows Phone app data to a server such as GoDaddy (http://dotnetapp.com/blog/2012/07/26/how-to-backup-your-wp7-app-data-to-a-server-such-as-godaddy/)

    - How to create a spinner control (http://dotnetapp.com/blog/2012/06/10/how-to-create-a-spinner-control/)

    - How to fix the standard header of a pivot control using a style (http://dotnetapp.com/blog/2012/05/21/how-to-fix-the-standard-header-of-a-pivot-control-using-a-style-and-how-to-fix-a-page-using-the-titlecontrol/)

    - How to mimic the application bar of the game hub (http://dotnetapp.com/blog/2012/05/16/how-to-mimic-the-application-bar-of-the-game-hub-and-to-avoid-the-splash-screen-bug/)

    - How to get the Internet connection type without blocking the UI (http://dotnetapp.com/blog/2012/05/12/how-to-get-the-internet-connection-type-without-blocking-the-ui/)

    Thank you
    ArchieCoder

    • Hi ArchieCoder,

      This is not strictly speaking “a contest” since we picked an article to feature before their were prizes, and we’ll continue to do so after the prizes run out. Its more a mechanism for the moderators to show off content we think will be interesting to everyone, that just happens to get a prize right now.

      That all said, your blogs look really interesting and we would certainly welcome similar content. Particularly as your blogs are more of a “howto” structure, which is common on the wiki. To get started, just select the “Create new Wiki page” button at top left of any wiki page. For an example of other featured articles see this wiki page: http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Wiki/Portal:Windows_Phone_Featured_Articles

      Does that make sense?

      Regards
      Hamish

      • Hello Hamish,

        Thank you for the clarification, I understand better the process.

        It appears that my previous question is not displayed in my Nokia account and I didn’t receive an email notification from your answer. Is it normal?

        Cheers
        ArchieCoder

          • Hello!

            Yesterday, I wrote my first Wiki article. Did I miss a step or does it take an approval to be listed in the Newest articles?

            Thank you
            ArchieCoder

          • Hi

            The feeds are cached. If the article still isn’t there today, let me know and I’ll clear it.

            Regards
            H

          • Good morning,

            The article “How to get the Internet connection type without blocking the UI” is not shown.

            The next day, I published “How to mimic the application bar of the game hub and to avoid the splash screen bug” and this article did not go in the “Newest Articles”, but end up in “Recently Edited Articles” few hours later.

            Regards
            ArchieCoder

    • Thank you. I’m sure it will be appreciated, even if doesn’t get featured.
      The wiki omits lots of “fundamental” topics. The reason is that we’re not trying to duplicate content on MSDN or elsewhere. So a “basics” topic is fine, as long as it adds value over existing content and links to that content. So for example including downloadable example people can try, covering tricks and tips of usage, noting issues that people have run into etc etc. Hope that makes sense.

      • thanks for your appreciation even if i hope it would have some chanche to get featured eheheh.
        by the way i agree with your argumentation, and this is the reason why, even if my topic was already existing on MSDN, i rewrite it making it more simply to understand and with a useful downloadable example!

    • Hi Trung

      This isn’t really a “competition” as such – the moderators just pick a Project or Article they like to “feature”, and if it happens to be related to Windows Phone the person will get a Lumia 800 (we have 2 left). This could be an older article or a new one. So if you’ve created a windows phone project or article then you’re in with a chance.

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