First, the terms of the contest - as stated at www.ora.com - were quite simple:

We all get 'em. We all hate 'em. Error messages are displayed messages that report errors to the user with a simple text message--a very simple text message. These tiresome error messages never seem to explain or help. Send O'Reilly your favorite (most irritating) error message and win books! It's simple. Send in your message (one per person) and Ben Ezzell, the author of Windows Error Messages, will choose the best three.

The three top prizes are:

• 1st O'Reilly books valued up to $150
• 2nd O'Reilly books valued up to $75
• 3rd O'Reilly books valued up to $40

Requirements

All entries should include:

• "Error Message Contest" as the message subject.
• The source of the error message (i.e., the application and version issuing the error).
• How the error message was reached (i.e., what condition produced the message).
• Why this error is inappropriate, confusing, or incorrect.

Contest ends 15 August 1998. Winners will be notified (and their error messages posted) one week from contest closing date.

The Contest Results

The resulting entries were varied; of course, not everyone observed the requirements; a few didn't really appear to understand the nature of the contest and one response was a letter of criticism.

Finally, more than a couple of entries were actually requests for information and, when possible, I did try to offer some suggestions - if not always completely successfully. And a few were simply laments where someone was seizing the chance to air their pet peeves. Hey, nothing wrong with that and the pet peeves are aired following.

Since a great many of the entries came from .COM, .NET, and .EDU addresses, it was difficult to say exactly where the various submissions originated. Many, however, did have addresses suggesting the countries of origin and the resulting international count included Australia (1), Belgium (1), Canada (2), Germany (1), Estonia (1), Finland (6), Israel (1), Russia (3), United Kingdom (5) and United States (2). As you can see, on a per-capita basis, Finland submitted a very high count.

In the Internet, it really is a small world.

Overall, I was very pleased with the contest entries and choosing the winners was no easy task. In selecting the prize winners, three criteria were applied:

• How pertinent was the entry? I.e., how relevant was the cited error message to the topics discussed in Developing Windows Error Messages.
• How well was the submission explained? That is, did the entrant offer a cogent explanation for why they were submitting this entry, why the entry occurred and why it was inappropriate or incorrect. (Of course, this did not apply in all cases – some were simply too obvious for comment.)
• Is the entry really an inappropriate error? Or is there simply a misunderstanding. Also, a number of the errors reported were not incorrect although they were, understandably, annoyances.

The real quandary, of course, is that I would have loved to have awarded about two dozen prizes - each for a separate reason - and I have singled out several entries for Honorable Mentions, each for diverse reasons not necessarily associated with the contest objectives.

I do, however, thank you all for your submissions and, that said, ....

1^st Prize (O'Reilly books valued up to $150) goes to: Nir Arbel for Just Who's The Stupid One Here?

2^nd Prize (O'Reilly books valued up to $75) goes to: Jeff Metzner for Too Many Excuses

3^rd Prize (O'Reilly books valued up to $40) goes to: David McComb for An Unintentional Error Message.

The following contest entries appear (approximately) in the order they were received with links to the specific entries. While not accepted as contest submissions, you may also enjoy the Haiku Error Messages. In any case, have fun – I did.