Just to answer a few questions.

Yes, this is a Ruby thing.  We're announcing the winners are Railsconf
because it's the biggest Ruby related conference in the next two
months.  I imagine it might be the biggest Ruby related conference all
year, so why not give the winners the most recognition we can (even if
they aren't attending).

The Panel was put in place so we wouldn't have to make this a
popularity contest.  When doing something like this you have two
choices:

1. The person with the most nominations wins.  Obviously someone could
easily post to their blog "Nominate me!", get all their friends to
nominate them... yadda yadda.

2. Put together a reputable panel of voters who can look through all
the entries, take the number of nomination someone gets into account,
and pick out the proper winners.  Who is on the panel in my opinion
doesn't really matter, as long as they keep up to date with what is
going on in the community.  We were lucky enough to find a few people
I personally would consider "community leaders", who wanted to help
out.  I see this as lending more credibility to the awards
themselves.

FYI. By being on the panel, they've also disqualified themselves from
winning any of the awards.

Perhaps the people who win the awards this year can join the panel the
next time we do awards (maybe at Rubyconf this time).  ;-)

-Gregg