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Vaniver comments on Stanislav Petrov Day - Less Wrong
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A non-farce award should base its judgment on results, not effort. A peace activist who spends his entire career digging and refilling a hole, for example, should not be anywhere near the Peace Prize shortlist. Despite the little time he spent, Petrov did more for world peace than many others who have been working longer -- not that his decision was easy, anyway.
If prizes exist to incentivize people, there will be cases where you get superior effects from incentivizing effort rather than results.
Maybe. It still comes at the cost of reduced emphasis (at the margin) by activists on thinking clearly about what results they'll actually get -- a kind of thinking definitely in short supply.
Like with FAI, world-changing activism is not a case where you want to play "A for effort", as that tends to reward groups like Bolsheviks, who undoubtedly threw a lot of effort into a world peace strategy.