I definitely don't want to turn into a news aggregator blog, but there have been a number of UBC news items lately that I thought were interesting and wanted to share. And trust me, I think it's totally lame when I read something that is just a recap of other stories I've already read or heard about. So hopefully there is something in here you didn't know about yet...
But only if they form a government. That's a rather large 'if'. Hooray for pandering!
I guess the judge doesn't read UBC Insiders - too bad.
I guess they don't read UBC Insiders either. Otherwise they'd know lawsuits like that don't work.
Incidents like this no doubt contributed to the RCMP crackdown on alcohol. However, I am 99.9999999% sure this did not occur at a licenced event, so if incidents like this are used to justify the stricter rules, it's a red herring.
A Vancouver Sun story with more details from right after the accident can be found here.
There is still hope that one day Hampton Place can be expropriated and turned into student residences.
I'm not sure The Power Within will be welcome at UBC again. This was one of the first non-hockey events to be held at Thunderbird Arena and a test of how disruptive these types of events would be to UNA residents. Everything was going fine until, unbeknownst to UBC, they decided to set up drumming and fire-walking outside the building...
The best part of the ticket is the last line on the back: "This Traffic Notice is issued by authority of the Board of Governors of The University of British Columbia." Whoops.
From the article: "If you can get school paid for just for playing football, that is awesome. But the whole point of college for me, is to get my degree," says Kelly Kurisu. There was nothing stopping him from getting his degree at WWU since the university did not go under, to the best of my knowledge. I wonder what incentives Athletics offered him to come here.
Monday, May 4, 2009
UBC in the news
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
RBF's triumphant return
As you were wandering about campus this week, you might have noticed people strutting about in army fatigues, bright red shirts, and megaphones shouting vaguely about fun, beer, parties, beer, campus life, beer, politics, and beer. These are not drunk Russians left over from the soviet era. Nay, these are the members of the Radical Beer Faction, UBC's oldest political group. Back when the AMS elections ran with parties (called slates) RBF ran a full slate of joke candidates, ranging from fairies to fire hydrants. These days, RBF is an AMS club, focusing on fighting what they have termed the "war on fun" on campus. This "war," being waged upon students by the "axis of boring" of the UNA, RCMP, and university administration, has allegedly reduced the number of parties on campus due to restricted liquor licences, and bitchier neighbours. For the RBF's lobbying document, click here.
RBF VP politburo "Scary" Mike Kushnir recently had a nice little interview on the CBC radio drive-home show On the Coast explaining the Faction and the its activities at UBC. Have a listen.
Mike is a pretty eloquent guy. For the response from the RCMP and a shout-out from Grant Lawrence, CBC radio 3 host of awesomeness, here is part 2 of the segment.
If nothing else, RBF has built itself a kickass brand with Soviet-style iconography, enthusiastic membership, and a great message: the way we party is political. Take a look at some of Tim's old posts here, and here to see why. The issue of beer gardens and how students party on campus actually does relate to the fundamental issue of students' social and political engagement with fellow students. Props to the Ubyssey for harnessing the energy of this group in a by-weekly RBF column, which will be paired with a column from another active campus group, Students for a Democratic Society.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Note to our readers
Hi everyone: I just recieved an email regarding the new Voter Funded Media system:
Only 15 people are registered to vote. Needless to say this is bad for democracy, because I can get my three roomates and brother to vote and sweep the contest. Now then.
As approved by AMS council, VFM is now running on a continuus model that offers smaller prizes for media on a monthly or bi-monthly cycle
From VoterMedia.org (Mark Latham's site) here are registration and voting instructions:
Email your UBC campus-wide login ID (not password) to
mark[at]votermedia.org. I forward them to UBC staff, who usually upload them Mon
Wed & Fri mornings. You only need to register once for the whole year of
periodic contests. (Better do this by April 27 if you want to vote in this
contest period ending April 30.)
Log in at www.vista.ubc.ca.
Click on "VOTE - VoterMedia". You vote once in each contest period.
While this registration process is a bit cumbersome, it'll only cost you one email. Of course we'd love if you choose us, but check out all the other worthy media too. They're listed at Votermedia.org/ubc. Any prize money we win will be chiefly dedicated over the coming months to transitioning into a new and more dynamic blogging platform.
In other news, I've written about 5000 words in the last 30 hours. And still one thesis to go. Sigh.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
VFM launches at SFU
In my life, there's always time to kill. And now I have a fresh method of doing it. Mark Latham has begun sponsoring a Voter Funded Media contest of a slightly different stripe over at SFU. Take a look at the SFU VFM page HERE. The idea is broadly the same as VFM here at UBC, but instead of being a one-off coinciding with the student society elections period, prizes are instead being distributed on a monthly cycle of continuous voting. The prizes are $300-$500 per month, which will add up to around $5000 in a year (compare to UBC's contest which had a prize pool of $8000 for a whole year, given out all at once). Votes are calculated using the interpolated consensus method that we used here at UBC this year.
(Note to newer readers: VFM is the media contest that birthed this blog. According to Latham whose brainchild it is, rewarding media democratically from the public purse will improve democracy. For a previous posts discussing VFM, take a look here, here, here, and here. )
Another interesting difference is that the SFU contest is administered by Latham himself, not the Simon Fraser Student Society, which is equivalent to our AMS. This is interesting to note, because though one would think that having the institutional and organizational support of the student society behind such a project would be a boon, this year's contest at UBC was magnificently botched by the AMS, both on the political and bureaucratic side. Not surprisingly, Latham has managed to run things smoothly at SFU so far.
The continuous monthly model maps much more closely to the ultimate goals of VFM: providing long-term, in-depth media which are accountable to their readers through a democratic reward process. SFU certainly has a smorgasbord of contentious issues to deal with at this moment, with their SSFS elections and referendum to defederate from CFS, the national lobby they are a member of. Media outlets could certainly provide a valuable service to the SFU community by providing some insight on these issues, and make a buck into the bargain.
All this is to not say that the SFU contest is anywhere near effective. So far, it seems to be marginal in both content and readership. The SFU campus radio station has entered, which I think is a brainwave (hint hint, CiTR), and one or two of the blogs have some content worth reading. Nobody seems to be trying very hard at this point. But these things take time to build momentum, and it seems almost stochastic whether such an idea will catch or not.
The question is, how much of a future does VFM really have? If Mark continues to encounter tepid half-successes, how long can he be expected to fund these experiments? And if he stops before the value has been unequivocally demonstrated through a jump in voter turnout or irrefutable data (which the AMS has yet to collect through exit polls. *strangle strangle*) would student societies be inclined to fund such innovations themselves? According to Jeff Friedrich, the incumbent AMS President, probably not. He told me in a meeting last year, that to him these projects are bonuses, and not as essential as making the AMS democracy itself run well through systemic reform in the AMS structure which has yet to be achieved. To me, innovative democratic projects like VFM (or a students' assembly) should be looked at separately from improving the AMS democratic and organizational structure. We shouldn't shy away from investing time and money in either.
For now though, Mark is still willing to pick up the tab. And UBC may soon be transitioning to the continuous model itself. A proposal for this just went up today on the VoterMedia.org website - take a look.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
UBC Insider mission statement
We here on the blog have been feeling that lately we've been losing some focus. With more boisterous and demanding readership, an election campaign, and fewer (non-graduating) writers, the pressure (and temptation) to spit out easy personality-centered posts is hard to resist. This is an attempt to step back and re-balance. Though it may not be in your face, this blog is and has always been based on a certain type of philosophy, which goes beyond reporting news, or having a personal pulpit. By creating this mission statement, we're laying out the values and goals we aspire to with our blog. We hope that it will give both ourselves and our readers clear(ish) expectations of our journalism, and our community here on the blog. We hope that by laying out these expectations and aspirations, we'll help ourselves live up to them, and help you understand the place we're coming from. Bear in mind that this exercise is somewhat platonic - this is a chair in the sky - but this is the chair we'll be trying to approximate, though we may not always make it.
Our Mission:
- To use our experience, networks, and knowledge base to empower UBC students to educate themselves about campus and university affairs. We will present issues, deliver background as clearly as possible, and use those issues as springboards for open discussion.
- To be inclusive. We will strive to engage as many students as possible and invite our fellow university community members to participate in discussion that is relevant to them.
- To thoroughly discuss the issues themselves and where people fit into them rather than the other way around.
- To provide intelligent and insightful commentary and perspectives on issues relating to UBC and the UBC community.
- To create a lively and respectful forum for debate and discussion of campus and higher education issues
Our Values:
- The balance of facts in concert with perspective; the understanding that this balance is fine but adjustable.
- Respect and trust in each other.
- Refusing to obliterate our unique voices and positionalities (or those of our readers) in pseudo-objective conceits.
- The assumption of the intelligence of our readers.
- Accessibility to UBC's complete student body
- due diligence with facts and source checking.
Our philosophy:
Think of our blog as broccoli: it may not be the most attractive and appealing food, but damn if it's not good for you and ultimately delicious. While we may have named ourselves the "insiders," we do not subscribe to the duality of in/out; we recognize the value of different brands of involvement unlike our own. Relating items from the weekly news-cycle to longer term issues is a priority. Gossip will be minimal, but juicy when we do run it. The AMS is not the centre of the universe. Our posts will be accessible on several levels of previous knowledge. The spirit of investigation and depth of analysis are important to us. We write what we're interested in, without presumptions of doing everything and satisfying everyone.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Voter Funded Media results!
Well, here they are at long last!
The Knoll - $1600
UBC Insider - Election Edition - $1500
The Devils advocate - $1400
Cavalier - $900
Let Them Eat Cake - $725
UVote - $600
The Underground - $600
The 432 - $600
Plain title: Awesome Content - $75
The Radical Beer Tribune - $0
Maclean's On Campus - $0
From the VFM administrator Paul Gibson-Tigh:
In the name of transparency, I am passing along the VFM results as they came to me, and then in the interpolated version (both in excel). The results were tricky to interpolate, as they made for a 'case of discontinuity' explained at the bottom of this page (http://www.votermedia.org/ubc/InterpolatedConsensus.html). It was all planned for in advance by Mark. I encourage you to fill in the spreadsheets and see the wonders of interpolated consensus yourselves! I could try to explain the case, but I had to have it explained to me, so keep that in mind.
A total of 249 people voted in the UBC Insiders option (ranging from $0 to $2000) - which was the highest number of votes of any media. There's no real way of knowing how many people voted total - but lets say that 100 people voted, and didn't vote in the UBC-i category, that's still a pretty dire turnout for a contest that's supposed to raise the profile of campus elecitons. The consensus percentile, p, was 61. It seems that (acording to the spreadsheet I'm looking at) the number of votes for each media were not normalized to the total number of voters, but rahter to the maximum number of voters in a particular media (249, in this case). This means that the rule in the VFM code that states that not voting is the same as voting zero wasn't followed (I think, anyway. not sure). You can take a look at the Raw Votes spreadsheet, and the Interpolated Consensus spreadsheet for yourself - see if you can make head or tail of it!!
My major disspointment here is Plain Title: Awesome Content. I think Ian did a great job with the mini-paper. It was the one entry, to me, that actually reached out farther than the insular AMS in-croud, to target everyone else. And he did it with hilarity, opinion, and information. S0 boo-urns to that result. Also the 432 still sucks. Alot.
On a personal note, I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to all of you. It's been a great ride, and that's because of all the readers that have logged on, learned a bit, and maybe commented. The discourse generated here is really the thing that is wonderful to me. Pardon my moment of vanity, but it really is lovely to feel that our little blog is appreciated - so thank you!Monday, January 28, 2008
The 432 isn't worth the paper it's printed on
This is where I get mad. The 432, the Science Undergraduate Society's official newspaper, is ... euuugghh. The very idea that students are funding such a worthless, offensive, and generally craptastic rag is insane. This newspaper, apparently, used to be good. It used to be smart and hilarious, and enjoy more readership than the Ubyssey. Not that that's exactly anything to be too proud of. For as long as I've read it though (about two years), the 432 has been an emblem of stupidity and needless tree-chopping - and this week it just about scraped bottom. Apart from the annoyance of its entering VFM without doing a shred of elections coverage, lets do an enumeration of this week's journalistic offerings: Article about giving you dog a bath (...), Article about the city's sex shops (whaa?), and to top things off with a flourish of offensive bad taste, an article about Sarah Naiman's breasts (classy). This is not harmless fun - it's offensive, student-fee-funded, useless crap. Though not everyone agrees, of course: according to the outgoing Director of Administration of SUS and AMS VP Academic elect Alex Lougheed, this issue represents an improvement in quality. "It's pretty good this week, actually," he said to me, without any redeeming hint of irony.
How about this radical thought: if you don't have anything to write, don't write anything at all? I even left out the "nice" from the kindergarten adage about keeping your mouth shut. There's a balance between informative satire (think Colbert, or The Devil's Advocate, for that matter) and pure farce. Most undergrad newspapers, including the Underground (which, to it's credit, actually contains at least a couple laughs every other issue) seem to be publicly funded mediums for a few amateur comedians to fill space. Yuck.
It seems to be notoriously hard to get people to actually write for these things. The poor editors typically publish whatever they can get their hands on from a few nominally funny SUS councilors the night before press time. But how is this possible?? There are heaps of science students that must have something to say. Maybe a combined undergraduate newspaper from all the faculties would be more interesting and prone to publishing actual content? Maybe a hired position for editor and a committed volunteer staff appointed for a whole year would produce better results?
Anyway, just a few thoughts. It seems like I've been doing a ton of "media" stories lately, and I promise this is the last for a while. Scintillating topical posts about the Vancouver Quadra federal by-election, AMS elections 2.0 (including student court challenges), and other cool stuff are on the way. And it's Science Week! Check out some of the events.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
How to vote in VFM - Interpolated Consensus,WTF?
Voter Funded Media, the contest that accompanied the AMS elections for the second year this year, is an idea that's meant to award media public funds by the will of the people, thus fostering better journalism, more informed voters, better elected leaders, and healthier democracies. The assumption is that media, as opposed to candidates or special interest groups, are able to engage larger audiences, since they are experts in communication. This, at UBC may or may not be the case, particularly considering the contest's mismanagement this year, but in any event, voting for this "race" of sorts is on now on WebVote until the 31st. There's an 8 thousand dollar prize pool that will be distributed among the various media according to votes. If you've enjoyed reading this blog, I encourage you to login and vote for us.
Before you do that though, you should find out about the voting system: "interpolated consensus". It's a tad complex, so just bear with me - and by the end, you'll know how to best allocate your votes! Alors, when you log into WebVote, you'll notice that for each media, you have the option of allocating to them $0, $500, $1000, $1500, or $2000. Lets do a simplified scenario: after everyone has voted, the votes are counted, and the median is determined. The median is a number which 50% of the numbers in a set are below, and 50% or the numbers in a set are above. It's the 50th percentile. The median will be one of the five amounts of money. If this is done for each media, you have an amount of money that each should receive. This is the "consensus" part of interpolated consensus. Taking the median, as opposed to the average, as a basis for awarding prizes is meant to discourage strategic voting - that is, it should encourage the voter to vote for the amount they actually believe that the contestant should receive. With averages, people are encouraged to engage in strategic voting (ie. voting above or below their real opinion) in order to "pull up" or "pull down" the average. If you use the median, on the other hand, the actual number you choose has no bearing on the amount that the media is awarded. All that matters is whether it is above, or below the median. Your vote will pull the median closer to your vote, whichever direction (up or down) that may be. You don't know. So if both 2000 and 1500 is above the 50th percentile of votes, they will both have the same effect on the outcome - by how much they are above the median doesn't matter.
Now, let's abandon our simplified scenario, and look at how it actually works. First, your five voting options represents a discontinuous set. That is, you're only allowed to award media in $500 intervals. To make the set more continuous, each vote for 500 is interpreted as 1/5 th of a vote for each 100-dollar interval between 300 and 700. Similarly, each vote for 1000 is interpreted as 1/5 of a vote for each 100 dollar interval between 800 and 1200. this is the "interpolation" part of interpolated consensus. If you didn't get that, just ignore it - it's a way of making the set of numbers more continuous. Second, we have to scrap thinking about the median (the 50th percentile) that we've been imagining. This is because taking the median of each media's votes and giving them that amount of money may not add up to the prize pool of 8000 dollars. In order for the system to actually allocate the prize pool, the percentile which will allocate exactly 8000 dollars is used - lets call this the pth percentile. This pthe percentile arbitrarily represents the "consensus" vote, and voting above or below it will change the prize for that media.
I have a few problems with this system. It seems to me that strategic voting is still possible: if you want to be sure that you'll have an upwards effect on a contest, always vote 2000. If you want to be sure to have a downwards effect, vote 0, or don't vote. If you want the media to get a specific amount, you should vote for that amount. The system will bring the pth percentile closer to the amount you chose, no matter if it's an up or down effect. The other problem I have is with using the pth percentile to determine how much money to give to each contestant, instead of using the median, scaled to $8000. It seems to me that it's quite likely to have a highly discontinuous set of votes with some media. This makes taking some percentile and awarding it highly arbitrary. It could jump from quite high to quite low as the result of a couple people that didn't vote (ie, voted 0) - or vice versa. If you're going to use a consensus system I think it makes much more sense to use a weighted median. I tend to think a voucher system with averages makes more sense to begin with, but that's just me. Thoughts?
For a more detailed explanation and simulation, go to VoterMedia.org
Friday, January 25, 2008
Elections Results: photos and mockery.
Last night, I took photos. This morning, I mock people. You know you like it.
Aaron from UBC Devils, undoubtedly plotting.
Austin from UBC Devils. I'm a firm believer in keeping one's friends close and their enemies closer.
Andrew Forshner, of whom I cannot take a photo without it looking like he's singing.
Stef Ratjen, heading out of the Gallery for some air.
We've got all sides of the competition covered...
...especially when it comes to UBC Devil's head dude Stephen McCarthy.
It was Open Mic night in the Gallery, and this fine gentleman serenaded the throng of politicians for a while. Sadly, I didn't catch his name.
Erin Rennie ponders her picks for the elections pool.
Gina, another Open Mic Night entertainer.
Erin Rennie wanted the Presidential race to be a series of staring contests, as she is totally schooling Matt Naylor.
Angelina from the Devil's Advocate, and her paper airplane.
It's an Exec Sandwich!
I'm not sure EA Brendan Piovesan can exactly be called the most popular man... but everyone did want to hear the results.
Team Flyerfuck awaits results.
Azim Wazeer raises the roof upon hearing he made it.
VP Finance-elect Chris Diplock was all smiles and hugs.
Unsurprisingly, Team Flyerfuck went straight for the makeouts upon finding out Alex had won.
Erin Rennie, relieved to have gotten her 10% and also to have not won.
President-elect Mike Duncan and VP Admin Sarah Naiman.
Maybe there are pink UBC cowboy hats in our future.
VP Students Brian Sullivan was also in attendance.
Tyler "Che" Allison relates the story of voting at every poll booth, his concerns about the way paper ballots were handled, and details the coming revolution for Eric Szeto (off camera, holding mic)
Congratulations to the newly elected student representatives, and condolences to those that didn't make it; there's still plenty of opportunity to make your mark!
It was an interesting election, and voting isn't over - be sure to vote for the UBC Insider in the Voter Funded Media Contest!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Ineptitude? Carelessness? Cheating? Elections train is off the rails
In a surprising announcement today, Elections Administrator Brendan Piovesan confirmed that the race for VP Administration, between incumbent Sarah Naiman, "Scary" Mike "the Rabbi" Kushnir, and Yian Messoloras, has been cancelled. The exact reasons are yet unclear, but they involve campaign rules transgressions on the part of one candidate. Apparently, Messoloras broke the rules when he asked people to vote on his laptop computer on the spot. The elections code specifies that candidates cannot pressure people into voting and they have to be at least 10 meters away from voting stations. All the votes that have been submitted on the electronic voting system, which closed yesterday, will be discarded. This may not in fact be allowed, according to AMS elections code, however.
Article 3, Section 7, states: "if serious offences have been committed by more than one candidate in an election, the Elections Committee may declare the results of that election invalid."
Cancellation thus requires that there be serious offences committed by more than one candidate. As far as we know, here there's only one. Also, there's no power to "suspend" an election - only to declare the results invalid. This decision may find itself in Student Court.
Right now though, brand new nominations for the position apprently going to open, and the new race will take place in February. Questions about why the disqualification of the candidate in question, as opposed to the cancellation of the whole race, was the course of action chosen remain unclear. This development will doubtless bode ill for the VP admin race, which will probably have a lower profile and lower voter turnout due to the delay.
This incident is only one in a string of administrative and political gaffes that have marked this elections period. Other notable controversies include the bungled all-candidates' meeting, too-short campaign period and late and absent updates on the AMS elections website (including updating candidates' blurbs in a timely fashion). In addition, if you expect to find candidate profiles, media coverage, or posters near the paper ballot voting-booths tomorrow, you may be disappointed. Uninformed voters hoping to make an on-the-spot decision will find it hard to gather information at the voting booths, since Piovesan has confirmed that neither candidate blurbs, nor bulletin boards for posters will be provided at the voting stations. Candidates may independently bring their posters to the voting sites, but according to Piovesan, they will not be officially organized. "No way. I'm not gonna do that," quoth he.
In the realm of the Voter Funded Media contest, things are not much better. Voting using the Interpolated Consensus counting system is impossible on Web Vote software, and even a simplified voting system has not been organized on the university-controlled program. Therefore, voting for the VFM contest has been delayed, only to take place after the elections are over. It remains unclear on what system this voting will take place. Speculation about the influence of this delay on VFM results abound: will late name-recognition entries that have done no coverage (like the Science and Arts undergraduate newspapers) end up benefiting at the expense of smaller unfunded independent media? We'll see.
Of course, administration hasn't been the only issue. Some candidates seem to have stopped showing up to debates. The BoG debate on Monday was notably missing two prominent candidates, and yesterday the VP External debate did not even take place due to the absence of one candidate. Of course, candidates should have the freedom to determine what the most effective campaigning strategies are, but in this elections it seems like unprofessionalism from the administrative side is feeding the same from the candidates to result in a week of exemplary irregularity.
The elections committee redeems itself somewhat by their funny loudspeaker announcements pulling people in to vote on the SUB's North side, but whether that's enough to salvage a voter turnout short of disastrous is suspect.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Letter to the Editor, re: VFM
This was sent to us as an anonymous letter to the editor, and we would like to run it as continued discourse on the VFM:
How to Drink the VFM's Milkshake
name withheld upon request
The VFM contest would have very easy to hack this year. The main problem with VFM is that it is extremely easy to enter. For a measly $150 and five minutes filling out a form, any publication can appear on the ballot. The entry fee was raised from $100 to $150 this year as an attempt to filter out the 'noise'. As Matt Naylor put it, "the idea is to limit the number in the contest; otherwise it would collapse under its own weight." Great idea Matt! Too bad you went about it
entirely the wrong way. The voter media website explains the choice of using an entry fee: "It's better to charge an entry fee than to require media entrants to collect signatures, because an entry fee has far lower social cost." That last part seems to about sum it up: an entry fee has a low social cost. With a $2000 cash prize on the line, an entry fee with a low social cost and a high return on investment, it is almost like the contest was inviting fly-by night publications to enter just for the money. Matt Naylor's mistake was focusing on the number of entrants and not the quality of the publications.
So, how could one hack the contest to assure themselves the top prize. The easiest way would be to pull a James Green. James Green, a relatively unknown, ran for mayor of Vancouver in the 2005 civic elections. He received an impressive 4,273 votes, but many think that the majority of James' votes were actually intended for the similarly named and far more well known candidate, Jim Green. Voters, when scanning the ballot, just voted for the first J. Green they saw. So if
one were to enter the contest with a name similar to another a publication, it can be reasonably assumed that some of the voters would mistakenly vote for it. So which publication's name would one mimic to generate the most accidental votes? It might be tempting to riff off the The Underground, the top finisher from last year, but as that publication is likely to enter the contest, one would more likely split the vote than win the prize. Luckily for the would-be hacker, the most well known newspaper on campus, The Ubyssey, doesn't enter the competition. Mark Latham did something called a "multifactor analysis" of last years results, and concluded that had The Ubyssey entered it would have won by a landslide. And thus, The Ubussy is
born.
So unless the election code is changed next year, I am going to drink the VFM's milkshake. I'LL DRINK IT UP!
Saturday, January 19, 2008
January 17th: Debate photos and commentary.
One of the things people most frequently mention about UBC Insiders is that the posts are often wordy, and lacking in sass. This should remediate both of those.
photos and comments behind the cut (warning, there's lots!)
Ubyssey staff Brandon Adams and Jesse Ferreras, huddling before the debates start. Or exchanging sweet nothings. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Michael Duncan secretly wishes that the Presidential election was, in fact, a big hair competition.
confidential to DP: telling girls about the size of your hydrant is a bad idea.
Che Allison's Head of Police forcibly ejects AUS President Stephanie Ryan.
I support the intention and the action and hope to see Stephanie more frequently bodily removed from things.
Mike hones his "monkey see, monkey do" skills as Erin promises to fight the War on Fun.
There was a point being made here, but I've forgotten it. Also, it's not a very good photo. I'm sorry.
Maayan asks a question, as Shawn from Eat Cake erroneously thinks that he looks better in maroon.
Brittany promised violence upon my person if I said anything mean about her, and I figure she'd be at least as thorough at that as she was as VPF...
Brendon watches the debates as Jeff watches us. Because Jeff is watching us all.
Paging Dr. Freud!
I don't want his lucky charms.
Chris Diplock, throwing down fresh rhymes and phat beats during the VPF debate.
Sarah Naiman watches the debates while enjoying a "baby roll", one of the items on the Honor Roll's secret menu. It's made out of babies.
Enraged at being caught in the act of eating a baby, Sarah goes after the wrong member of the media. Luckily, Brandon survived.
Tough questions. Reasonably priced drinks. What more could you want in a debate?
Stef Ratjen, VPX candidate that Jesse Ferreras has neatly disassembled.
Freeman Poritz, VPX candidate that Jesse Ferreras has neatly disassembled.
Some of the Senate candidates look away as Colin Simkus tries to serenade the moderator. Alex Lougheed is definitely taking mental notes.
Being on the elections committee Listening to would-be senators read their resumes would also drive me to drinking. I hope Tariq comes out of this with an intact liver.
VFM and other media-themed updates.
Voting started yesterday (Friday). As you may have noticed, the system being used is the archaic and inflexible WebVote hosted on the UBC Student Services site, not the new AMSLink system purchased by the AMS this year, which is still not functioning. If you tried to vote, you may also have noticed that the VFM entrants are not yet on the ballot. The VFM administrator, Paul Gibson-Tigh to explains:
VFMs are not on the online ballot as of yet, because the deadline for entering the contest was today at 4pm. We didn't want to disadvantage the last minute entrants (of which there were a few) so we couldn't complete the list until the registration period had closed. I would call it a coordination error that I guess arose because the entry form was created before the election period was determined. People will still be able to vote in the contest, even if they have voted for candidates already, so I dont think there will be any problems. I'll keep you and the other 10 entrants posted on whats coming up if this causes any problems.So don't worry - everyone will still be able to vote for their favorite VFMs. Still, this timing is highly unfortunate. Media cannot themselves be publicized and marketed to a campus of 50 000 people in a timespan of days. In turn, I doubt VFM will succeed in fuelling increased voter turnout this year. We've learned that some last-minute entries has been submitted however. True to form though, the VFM website has yet to be updated. Another point to note is that the new voting system (Interpolated Consensus Voting) that AMS council introduced for the media contest this year can't be administered on WebVote. The system is a little hard to understand, and I was planning a fabulous explanatory post, but don't worry, you don't need to know anything about it anymore. As Matthew Naylor amusingly noted last week (in a totally different context, but still) "democracy was narrowly averted". Too bad.
Some other media notes:
The Ubyssey printed an extensive elections supplement yesterday, with profiles of all the candidates. This is great. They've barely published any analysis or real campaign coverage. This is sad. To summarize our official student newspaper's coverage: 1. an article on joke candidate names; 2. an article on one specific joke candidate (the hydrant); 3. an "analysis"/opinion piece running one presidential candidate down.
This last piece is truly unfortunate. While it's nice that the Ubyssey is trying to make it's Friday magazine more dynamic by introducing articles that are not striclty news, but have some opinion mixed in, this patricular piece was NOT labeled as such. It's a bit jarring to read a heavily angled and editorialized article you think is supposed to be news, and to suddenly encounter the first person "I". Obviously, these shouldn't take the place of actual serious reporting, which has been totally absent in the Ubyssey's pages this campaign. The Ubyssey has formed a veritable gallery of photographers and news staff at every debate - so where's the coverage? Given the mismanagement of the VFM contest, most voters that have read anything at all will probably be going to the polls on the basis of the Ubyssey's inadequate and downright skewed coverage.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
VFM 2008 has already failed.
Dissillusioned VFM sponsor Mark Latham and I chatting yesterday. I'm not picking my nose, I swear! Photo Peter Rizov.
Yup, this is a media on media story, so have your cringe and be over with it. Voter-Funded Media (VFM) is the media contest that ran in parallel with last year's AMS elections and prompted the birth of this blog and other student media groups. The contest's sponsor, Mark Latham, in his quest for a worldwide media revolution, chose UBC and the AMS as a testing ground for his idea. Theoretically, publicly rewarded media would increase quality of information, inform more people, and thus improve the health of democracy. He gave the AMS 8 grand for a prize pool, spent months discussing and planning with the VFM committee and then-VP external Ian Pattillo, and finally saw the launch and conclusion of the contest. The first VFM, though it was fraught with issues, (late start, lack of "non-insider" entrants, non-serious entrants in it for the money, lack of publicity), seemed promising. It didn't increase voter turnout, but it was a great resource, a hell of a lot of fun, and probably increased the level of knowledge for the people that did vote. It could have worked. It could have grown.
This year, there was no excuse for making the same mistakes again.
The intent of voter-funded media was never to have a perfunctory cash-grab over the course of a desperate two-week campaign. It was always meant to start earlier, end later, and eventually become a sustained and continuous media reward system. This vision is clearly giving way to something entirely less useful, and much more brief. Mark Latham, for one, is not amused. "What the hell was that? I don't get it," he interjected when I asked him about the contest's lack of any outward vital signs. He made it clear to me last night that he would not be sponsoring the contest again unless a change in approach occurred soon. "To me, this is water under the bridge already ... I'm game to sponsor VFM again, starting next month." Not next December. "I wrote the check today. I could have said I wouldn't write it, but I follow through. I didn't want to be the bad guy." The AMS has the check, but that won't save the remarkable opportunity the AMS has had from being wasted. It's a crying shame.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
VFM intro, or, how complicated can counting be?
Voter Funded Media, the contest that saw the birth of this and other (now defunct) charming student publications, is soon to be re-launched for this year. Yay! The media-reform project is meant to improve media culture, and by extension democracy in general. This is theoretically accomplished by making media into a public good: you reward media by votes, from a public fund, that voters pay into. In our case, that means that when you vote in AMS elections, you'll also have a ballot for your favorite elections-media group, and prizes will be allocated accordingly. Also, our "voter funding" is actually being proffered (to the tune of $8000) by VFM-originator Mark Latham, not a public fee.
Last year the contest had many successes and some failures. This year there are some changes afoot. Here's an intro to a few features of the contest:
- Contestants - VFM is open to both established media, and new media. So, for example, last year the established Arts undergrad paper, The Underground, entered the contest and won. Tim and Gina started this blog from scratch, and also did a great job. As the contest matures, and more "new" media sources stick around and get established, the name-recognition advantage for established groups will decrease. The Ubyssey, our official student newspaper, didn't enter last year, to leave the field more open for new groups. They even paid the entrance fee for a bunch of new media groups.
- Start time - This year, the contest will be launching several months before the AMS election campaign begins. The ultimate intent of VFM is to establish permanent, healthy media choices, not just during elections time. This will give media that start early a chance to establish credibility and a reader base. Last year, the contest was pretty rushed, due to last-minute planning and approval at the AMS.
- Formats - Contestants can use a wide range of media formats: internet-based, paper-based, magazine-based, whatever. The mix is pretty fun.
- Media strategies - Last year, a fair number of styles surfaced through the contest. There were some joke entries, ranging from great (Radical Beer tribune) to lame (Cameron Funnell). There were more serious, issue-focused entries like The Knoll and this blog. There were some informative, but unenlightening elections newspapers like Election Erection and The Underground. And there was of course, the Duncan-Kearny group that did no media coverage whatsoever, but got people to vote for them based purely on personal popularity.
- Allocating prizes - At the simplest level, prizes are allocated on the basis of voter's preference. Theoretically, they reward the media that best served them. It gets more complicated though: this year's VFM committee has decided upon a rather complex, unintuitive voting system for the contest, which they claim will minimize the impact of "strategic" votes and narrow-appeal media groups. The system involves each voter weighing the contestants by giving them more or less theoretical money. Then some percentile (not the mean) of the allocations determines how the prize pot is "sliced". Don't worry, a primer on this later.
Last year, VFM sparked some really decent debate. The candidates had to learn alot, and know the issues. It established a lively discourse during election time that was great to be part of. The new media that popped up was exciting and fresh. However, VFM didn't increase overall voter turnout, which is still mired at about 10%. Arguably, the best media contestants did not win. And FVM took up alot of candidates' time, preventing them from pursuing more traditional campaigning methods and getting out the vote. The good thing about VFM though, is that it improves with maturity: with more years, the contest will have more momentum to begin with, and the quality of contestants will be progressively pushed up leaving little room of get-rich-quick punks and deadbeat hacks.
We'll see how things go this year. UBC Insiders' awesome VFM roster is being established as we speak, so stay tuned. Here's to media! *clink*
FYI: The VFM contest is hiring an administrator. This person would be reporting to the AMS Elections Administrator, Brian Peiovesan, and they're offering 750 bucks. The job posting is found HERE, for those interested.
A chat I had with Mark Latham, and revelations thereof, can be found HERE
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
The Ubyssey is kicking ass
Some of you may remember Gina's issues with the Ubyssey - UBC's official student newspaper. They've misquoted, butchered grammar, gotten names wrong, ignored major news stories, inflated readership numbers, published cringeable writing, and been at the AMS's throat in the past.
But I just want to say, that this September, the Ubyssey has been kicking ass. It's bigger and fuller than last year. The design and, especially photography, have been fantastic. The news has been timely. There were thorough updates on campus events and politics that took place over the summer months. The feedback has been fun. The background on news items has been accurate. The relationship with AMS seems to be functioning better.
OK, so the editorials are still a bit tasteless, each issue contains more sports than I'd read in a year, the website is a sodding mess (bring back the old one!!), and the reliance on the where-to-shop/eat/party/travel-on-a-low-budget format is a little heinous, but other than those quibbles, way to go
It seems that the double news editors, Brandon Adams and Boris Korby, are doing good things. AMS president Jeff Friedrich has noted his satisfaction with them in conversation, maybe signaling a more harmonious era between the offices upstairs and downstairs. The dependable Jesse Ferreras pumps out stories on AMS with reliability. Levi Barnet as copy/feedback/research is a welcome relief from the incompetence of Andrew MacRae - you need not fear the butchering of your letters any more!
True, I'm addicted to newsprint in more or less any form. But lets give credit when it's due. And without negating the possibility for plenty of more improvements, I really think it is due.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The Coalition for Student Loan Fairness hits the lobbying sweet spot
There's been a few new posts recently. Don't forget to scroll down.
What makes for great lobbying? What gets you in the news? Why do student governments agonize and student lobbies button up, while a comparatively small group rockets into national media coverage and affects actual national party policy?
The lively example of the nascent Coalition for Student Loan Fairness (CSLF) brought these questions to my mind. The coalition was formed in April by Julian Benedict and Mark O'Meara, to give a political voice to a group of 990 000 graduates that still owe student loans. The SFU and UBC graduates (respectively), neither of whom had ever had anything to do with campus politics or goverance, got together and decided to do something about the disturbing prospect of paying their loans back to a broken system. Since its formation in April, I've heard about the CSLF on the CBC multiple times, and seen more than a few stories in mainstream newsprint and new sires (example: today's MacLean's Magazine article) . At first I was puzzled and a little miffed that it wasn't CASA or CFS, (the two federal Canadian student lobbies) that were constantly in the news about such a crucial topic. How is it possible that the large umbrella orginizations, and even our own student societies have been either ineffectual or silent where a small group of graduates completely unconnected to student government of any sort were making waves?
I called up Julian Benedict, the coalition's communications manager and co-founder to find out just exactly who the coalition was, and how they had made their quick ascent to political currency and newsworthiness. "I truly believe that if you have a good story, it will get out there," said Benedict. Benedict is an SFU history honours graduate. After he graduated, he and CSLF co-founder Mark O'Meara (a UBC student) realized that there are 990 000 thousand borrowers in a gray area with no political representation. These borrowers are a little stranded - they are no longer represented by student government, but are dealing with the fallout of funding their post-secondary education in a student aid system that's often dysfunctional, confused, and abusive.
Through discussion on O'Meara's CanadaStudentDebt.ca website, Benedict began to feel the magnitude of the issue. "In the begining, I spent a lot of time asking myself if this was a real issue," he recounted. The more he spoke to other borrowers, the more he was convinced that it was. Benedict soon started filling access to information requests, talking to administrators, and synthesizing statistics. The information and knowledge amassed in this research process, and the collection of stories from borrowers form the base for the coalition's report, containing an 8-point plan, which provides "solutions to improve public confidence and operational effectiveness" of the Canada Student Loans program. The plan asks for a reduction in interest rates for student loans . It asks for a student loan Ombudsperson office to investigate and redress mistakes and abuses in the system. Other points include providing borrowers with up to date and accurate statements (which, astonishingly, are very difficult to get now), consolidating all loan repayments into one account, enforcing directives to abusive collection agencies, and providing access to grants and debt reduction.
For a novelty song, and tips on media-whoring, check out the rest behind the jump.
The basic premise of the lobby group is fairness. "Our name was deliberately chosen" said Benedict. "Fairness is something all Canadians feel strongly on." The CSLF believes that government shouldn't be making money off student loans; that it's a social service like any other. That isn't happening now. Government charges borrowers rates from 8 to 11 % while it only pays 4 to 5 % interest itself. The margin is far more than what it takes to run the program. In fact, the government made 315 million dollars in 05/06 from loan interest, and is projected to make over half a billion in the year 09/10. According to Benedict, data shows that interest rates themselves are the reason many students default on their debts. Further, there are serious economic repercussions for us as a society when so many educated young people are significantly burdened with debt, or having their credit ruined due to defaults.
Using the often disturbing stories from borrowers of abusive collection agencies, lack of transparency, and severe financial hardship as hooks, the coalition launched their website and started sending out news releases with Canadian News Wire. This can get pricey - getting your story sent out nationally with a news release agency costs at least $130 a pop. Other than investing some money, the key to lobbying success, said Benedict, is knowing a lot, being focused, and remaining so. A tactic he mentioned that appealed to me was turning something into a news story as opposed to an educational piece. "Targeted, relevant, accurate" he chanted over the phone, as I scribbled.
Benedict works full time, but he and 10 other full-time volunteers pour many hours into research and media relations. Their efforts seem to have payed off. Since April, they've had half a million hits on the CSLF website, and countless media exposures. They've received endorsements form several MP's and scores of student organizations including the SFSS, CFS, and CASA (the AMS is notably absent). Most importantly, no federal political party had a policy on student loan interest rates before April. Due to the CSLF's approaches and advocacy, several now do. I asked Bendict why he thought his group has made a significant impact in a short time, while the student movement had not. He essentially reiterated that effective advocacy can only take place when you collect an immense amount o f detailed meachnistic knowledge, and have a narrow focus which you don't waver from. Large organizations in the student movement, he obseved, are run by alot of well meaning people with a finite amount of time to devote to any one thing.
Check out the CSLF's website for Access to Information documents, polling results, news story links, and the coalition's 8-point plan in detail at http://www.studentloanfairness.ca/while you rock out to Mark O'Meara's student debt song at here .
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