Anti-Union/Pro-Union

trekkypj

You want an email for the editor, it's on the website.

But since you can't seem to find it, here it is. :cool:

su.communications@nuim.ie

It's also on every issue of The Spoke since the start of the year. At the bottom of page two or three, in a seperate box.

Now it'll be interesting to see if you actually SEND in a complaint.

St_Crispin

trekkypj wrote:

Firstly, your point is flawed. Media students don't study print journalism, they study broadcast journalism and media theory. And I don't recall that English students were taught how to spell, or to use grammar in third level.

You’re missing the point that they can use a spell check.

trekkypj wrote:

And re your comment that primary students wouldn't make mistakes like that, well evidently they do in college. Let's not blame the SU for people's poor spelling. Most people in third level English, myself included, make mistakes with grammar, punctuation and spelling. It's one of the biggest issues lecturers have with students.

Have you read the articles I mentioned? Because the mistakes were horrific. I’m not blaming the SU either. I’m blaming the idiots who wrote it.

trekkypj wrote:

And do you know why? Because writing for a newspaper is a lot like writing essays in the sense that there are tight deadlines and sometimes people simply make mistakes under pressure of time and can't correct them or don't see them because they're stressed enough about getting it done and dusted.

Then they should make time to do it rather than make a mess of it. They volunteered to do it. If I volunteered to do a job and the bollixed it up, what would you say? Or if I volunteered and knew that I hadn’t got the ability, what sort of person would that make me. Anyway, as I said, it only takes 5 minutes to do a spell check. If you were handing up an essay you’d do it.

Even The Times of London makes typos and spelling mistakes, and they have the cream of writers.

trekkypj wrote:

You expect too much from a FREE, student produced newspaper.

I’m expecting them to use a spell checker. How is that too much? Most of the articles were probably written in word or some other text editor. Not in Quark. Quark is mainly used for layout, design etc…

trekkypj wrote:

The fact of the matter is that the interest isn't there. Only a few people who have an interest are submitting stories. Most don't want to volunteer their time because they have 'better things to do'. Yet often they are the loudest critics.

You see, this is your biggest mistake. Trying to place the blame for someone else’s bad grammar/spelling and their inability to use a spell checker, on me. I am not to blame for their inadequacies. I did not slip them all stupid pills. I don't see how I can be to blame here. I know that I'm not great at writing. I know that my spelling is crap. I definitely know I don't have time for it. Yet, according to you I'm to blame for their faults. And I'm a bad person because I see bad spelling and say that they should be doing better.

trekkypj wrote:

(Why do I have the feeling you have it in for the Union?)

So you expect a former student, who hasn't produced a newspaper before, who is using a program they have limited training for, to be able to produce a paper that meets all of your discerning standards?

And you expect the articles, which are written on a volunteer basis, and have to be because it's a student paper, to be consistently perfect? Get a grip. The paper can only publish the stories submitted to them by the (regrettably few) volunteers.

I have said already that I’m not expecting prize winning journalism. I’m expecting literacy. I’m expecting them to display a certain amount of professionalism. I’m expecting them to take a bit of pride in their work.

The reason I mentioned the execs was not to criticise them (although you were overly defensive when they were mentioned. I have a feeling that you are the kind of person who would defend the SU against any and all attacks). It was to draw a comparison. They too are volunteers. But we expect their work to be to a certain standard. Yet you say we should not expect any standards from contributors to the spoke, because they are volunteers.

trekkypj wrote:

They are far from inept. Failing to produce a paper regularly, or at all, is ineptitude. And the people who do produce the paper volunteered (or were elected in the case of VP Comms/Dev). I might point out that we used to have two newspapers on campus. The other one, TONIC, no longer exists.

I see no reason why the existence of another paper now excuses low standards in another. And drawing on your reasoning, a surgeon needs only to turn up to be a good surgeon. He is not inept if he does his job incorrectly.
A mod on a board system need only be online, he need not actually moderate.

trekkypj wrote:

Why? Because nobody was submitting stories and there was no matetial to publish. The problems with the Spoke stem from the same problem: not enough interest or committment among the students themselves to submit articles.

Then they shouldn’t print substandard crap. As someone already said quantity is not the same as quality.

trekkypj wrote:

TCDSU has far greater resources, a far larger campus population, actually does offer journalism as one of their courses, is based in Dublin... I could go on but let me sum up.

That's an idiotic argument to make. Anyone who starts an argument with the words" In Trinity or in UCD or in DCU... x does y" has already undermined their argument. Trinity is not NUI Maynooth and the two newspapers can't be compared because they operate under different circumstances.

The reason I mentioned that is because another poster mentioned trinity. I was simply asking what the bare minimum standards there were. And if they would print an article without reading it.

St_Crispin

trekkypj wrote:

You want an email for the editor, it's on the website.

But since you can't seem to find it, here it is. :cool:

su.communications@nuim.ie

It's also on every issue of The Spoke since the start of the year. At the bottom of page two or three, in a seperate box.

Now it'll be interesting to see if you actually SEND in a complaint.

Could you link the page you found that on? Because I'm pretty certain that I searched every single page there. But Just for my piece of mind I'd like to know where it was.

Gone West

St_Crispin wrote:

Could you link the page you found that on? Because I'm pretty certain that I searched every single page there. But Just for my piece of mind I'd like to know where it was.

Its on the website.
Failing that, you could call in to see the editor of the spoke/communications officer in her office in the SU.
She would cut your points, arguments and finger wagging to shreds. Just like trekkypj has.

But I suspect you are the type of person who prefers to complain about things via email and internet forums, rather than in person.
If you *truely* care about the spoke, why not call in and offer your solutions to your percieved problems.

I look forward to hear back from you as soon as you go have a chat with the editor.


*note: I have no real affilliation with the SU/etc, apart from being class rep for something or other. Just so you know that I'm a neutral party in this debate.

FuzzyLogic

FuzzyLogic wrote:

Its on the website.
Failing that, you could call in to see the editor of the spoke/communications officer in her office in the SU.
She would cut your points, arguments and finger wagging to shreds. Just like trekkypj has.

His points and arguments were that the Spoke recently published a load of rubbish. Which is true. There is no finger wagging about "how does ... fair" and "literareture" etc.

But I suspect you are the type of person who prefers to complain about things via email and internet forums, rather than in person.

Oh the irony :rolleyes:

If you *truely* care about the spoke, why not call in and offer your solutions to your percieved problems.

This is a discussion forum.

I look forward to hear back from you as soon as you go have a chat with the editor.

Since I'm originally the one who pointed out all the mistakes, and I'm actually a student in the college, I will go talk to the editor.

Just so you know that I'm a neutral party in this debate.

Yeah, sure you are.


Slow coach, that was lovely, but it still says nothing for the quality of the Spoke. Particularly since crispin is not a writer for the Spoke and does not claim to be.

St_Crispin

FuzzyLogic wrote:

Its on the website.
Failing that, you could call in to see the editor of the spoke/communications officer in her office in the SU.
She would cut your points, arguments and finger wagging to shreds. Just like trekkypj has.

But I suspect you are the type of person who prefers to complain about things via email and internet forums, rather than in person.
If you *truely* care about the spoke, why not call in and offer your solutions to your percieved problems.

I look forward to hear back from you as soon as you go have a chat with the editor.


*note: I have no real affilliation with the SU/etc, apart from being class rep for something or other. Just so you know that I'm a neutral party in this debate.

Quit trolling. All I did was post a thread about bad spelling. Now I'm a bad person who should have to go into the SU offices to explain myself.

You didn't address any of my points. You didn't come up with an excuse for the bad spelling.

Well, I tell you what, I know you're having a great laugh. But I'm not going to stoop to your level anymore.

I'm outta here.

And BTW, I searched the entire SU site. The spoke isn't mentioned once.

Gone West

My point was that the paper's editors would probably prefer a chat in person than emails pointing out the failings with the paper. It would IMO be more constructive.
I'm not having a laugh.
I said I'm neutral in the debate, I meant it.
I'd love to see the paper improve somewhat.
I dont think youre a bad person.
Yes, it is a discussion forum, but I reckon that if you feel strongly about something, you should escalate it and go to the root of the issue.
Kudos Bluewolf if you call in to the ed, most people wouldn't bother.
Apologies for dragging this discussion further off topic.

This thread is pretty interesting, and has mabye spurred me to send in some stuff that I've written for publication. The spoke also needs a website with an online edition of the paper.
Most likely I will call into the spoke people and see if theres anything I can do.

St_Crispin

bluewolf wrote:

Since I'm originally the one who pointed out all the mistakes, and I'm actually a student in the college, I will go talk to the editor.

Don't. You shouldn't have to.

I shall send a mail. It is the method papers usually prefer. Besides there's a difference between the kind of person who writes a letter to the editor of a newspaper to draw their attention to a matter and the kind of person who goes in to complain to the editor in person.

I'm sure the editor of the IT prefers that people write letters and don't actually turn up at her door.

trekkypj

St_Crispin wrote:

Could you link the page you found that on? Because I'm pretty certain that I searched every single page there. But Just for my piece of mind I'd like to know where it was.

What? Not prepared to take my word for it then?

http://nuimsu.com/index.php?p=sabbaticalofficers

Scroll to the bottom.

Marco Polo

Wow, I leave and come back to this.

The editor of the Spoke is paid to do so. That means that we can complain when it's not up to scratch. So this "they volunteered" nonsense doesn't apply.

I picked up an old Spoke that was lying in the house yesterday, chose a random article and in the space of three short paragraphs (about 200 words) found thirteen glaring spelling errors. The occasional typo is forgivable but it's well beyond that.

They can spell-check. They don't.
They can proof-read. They don't.

And rather than fix this, they seem to have created more editor positions. Throwing people at the problem isn't going to fix it.

St_Crispin

trekkypj wrote:

What? Not prepared to take my word for it then?

http://nuimsu.com/index.php?p=sabbaticalofficers

Scroll to the bottom.

I take it that she's the editor?

I said I trawled through the site and couldn't find the spoke mentioned anywhere. I still cant see it mentioned there.

Now if you could read my other post and reply to the points I mentioned there.

brass

I'm running for VP Communictaions and Development this year. And alot of these points about The Spoke are in my manifesto, I'll post it up here tomorrow to see what people think.

Marco Polo

Ah, the latest edition. And the front page has random question marks mixed into the text. They're in the middle of words, sprinkled throughout sentences, everywhere. Seriously, stand there and tell me they proof-read.

LittleKitty

WHO IS THE CANTEEN COROSPONDANT? they should be shot, stop trying to be paul howard!
this is maynooth and not UCD, your artical on the "ralfs" txt some gouy is such pants, how many people in this college are obsesses with waring ralf lauren. your oviously a boy!

dango

He did say in one of the articles that he got a text from a certain jessica (if that is the right name?), so yes, he is obviously a guy.

LittleKitty

LittleKitty wrote:

WHO IS THE CANTEEN COROSPONDANT? they should be shot, stop trying to be paul howard!
this is maynooth and not UCD, your artical on the "ralfs" txt some gouy is such pants, how many people in this college are obsesses with waring ralf lauren. your oviously a boy!

Yeah that attempt at being funny with all the (I wonder who jessica is...?) rubbish was seriously lame

trekkypj

St_Crispin wrote:

I take it that she's the editor?

I said I trawled through the site and couldn't find the spoke mentioned anywhere. I still cant see it mentioned there.

Now if you could read my other post and reply to the points I mentioned there.

Haven't time. Enough to be doing... disseration, essay, the stuff that matters. I made all the points I'm going to.

pisslips

brass wrote:

I'm running for VP Communictaions and Development this year. And alot of these points about The Spoke are in my manifesto, I'll post it up here tomorrow to see what people think.

well................
It's been several days!

Beau

Yeh in all fairness guys the standard is pretty low, no way that can be argued. I`m sure alot of work does go into it.

I still don`t like in Maynooth how if you complain about the union the way some people respond as if free speach dosen`t exist.

pisslips

How dare you, blasphemy:rolleyes:

Correct though, he who has not sinned and so forth......
Your bible-belt correspondant

TheKav

St_Crispin wrote:

The real crime is that it's the students of maynooth who pay for it's publication.

No it's not.

The advertising within the Spoke pays for the Spoke.

Do your homework.

Marco Polo

Does advertising pay for the editor's wages?

TheKav

Marco Polo wrote:

Does advertising pay for the editor's wages?

The editor is not paid to be the editor. She is paid to be the Vice President. That's like saying the President is paid to attend Governing Authority. Editing the paper is just one of many duties, for which the VP is paid from capitation funds given by the University and HEA, not from the Students.

shroomfox

I know I'm probably opening an old argument here but I wish I'd seen it when you all had been arguing about it because I would have gotten very angry and said this:

I used to be the editor of the Spoke. In fact, I named the Spoke. And anybody who knows me knows that I hate - and I mean HATE - bad grammar, bad spelling and especially apostrophes in all the wrong place. I give out **** whenever I see bad English. I HATE it.

I used to spend hours and hours reading ****e articles by the GAA or whatever Martial Arts club had decided to spend 13,000 words explaining about how they'd gone down to ****ing Tullamore or wherever and rolled around the place and so on - not exactly riveting stuff, but it was my job. And sometimes, I'd read them for hours into the night until it hit three or four in the morning, and it's around then that you forget whether there's an apostrophe in "its" when it's not possesive, or which version of "your/you're" or "there/their/they're" should be there. And the computer decides to run at about 5mph at about ten o' clock every evening until it feels like it.

One person. Reading tonnes and tonnes of ****e. Tonnes. By THIRD LEVEL STUDENTS who can't even SPELL. What the hell are they doing in College?

• There's no spellchecker in Quark.
• The computer runs so slow that when you try to put articles through Word, spellcheck them and THEN put them in Quark it would just say: "No."
• Sometimes, societies will walk in just as you're burning the CD and DEMAND that you have to put their article in the paper because it's URGENT. And you don't have time to read it.
• (You'll like this one.) Sometimes, you lose half the paper. FOR NO REASON. Computers, you know?
• The editor of the newspaper has SEVERAL other jobs. These jobs comprise the work of about three people rolled into one. I am not exaggerating. They include publication work, Clubs & Societies, website, Class Reps, representation and so on. You try talking at a debate where people want to actually stab you, then pop off to read bad grammar for endless hours and finish by waltzing into a meeting with the President of the University at 9 am without sleeping - and try to make sense. I've done it. It's not nice. (I didn't make a lot of sense.)
• People make mistakes. I ****ing hate bad English, but I made mistakes. Everybody does.

And if the Lit & Deb handed me an article with "Literature" spelt wrong twice in 100 words, I'd be delighted to leave it as it was - just to show them up.

I challenge anybody to do that job and do it fully and to the letter - and without mistakes in the paper.

It's impossible.

I don't care who you are. Other colleges have staffs of dozens of students working on the paper. I don't know how it is now, but when I was editor, there was about ten of us. Working on one computer. This is a college without journalism or even design students, with a population the size of Cavan town, and you expect...what? The Washington Post? Last time I looked, most regional papers have more spelling mistakes than The Spoke.

St_Crispin wrote:

For what it matters pulitzer is spelt correctly. http://www.pulitzer.org/ (I have a cousin who's both been nominated for it and judged it so it's a competition I'm very familar with)

LMAO. I remember this one from primary school. I want to see you in live debate sometime!

"B...b...b...but my cousin..."

My cousin's on the Leinster rugby panel but that doesn't mean I can tell you everything about rugby, does it?

shroomfox

Ah, the latest edition. And the front page has random question marks mixed into the text. They're in the middle of words, sprinkled throughout sentences, everywhere. Seriously, stand there and tell me they proof-read.

And you, sir, don't have a clue. I'll take a wild stab at it and say there was a mistake at the printers - which ALSO happens all the time because of differences in fonts and so on. They don't give a crap - it's your paper. But I'm sure you'd prefer to believe that somebody read the front page full of question marks and sent it off as is, because that would give you something to complain about. Huzzah!

trekkypj

shroomfox wrote:

I know I'm probably opening an old argument here but I wish I'd seen it when you all had been arguing about it because I would have gotten very angry and said this:

I used to be the editor of the Spoke. In fact, I named the Spoke. And anybody who knows me knows that I hate - and I mean HATE - bad grammar, bad spelling and especially apostrophes in all the wrong place. I give out **** whenever I see bad English. I HATE it.

I used to spend hours and hours reading ****e articles by the GAA or whatever Martial Arts club had decided to spend 13,000 words explaining about how they'd gone down to ****ing Tullamore or wherever and rolled around the place and so on - not exactly riveting stuff, but it was my job. And sometimes, I'd read them for hours into the night until it hit three or four in the morning, and it's around then that you forget whether there's an apostrophe in "its" when it's not possesive, or which version of "your/you're" or "there/their/they're" should be there. And the computer decides to run at about 5mph at about ten o' clock every evening until it feels like it.

One person. Reading tonnes and tonnes of ****e. Tonnes. By THIRD LEVEL STUDENTS who can't even SPELL. What the hell are they doing in College?

• There's no spellchecker in Quark.
• The computer runs so slow that when you try to put articles through Word, spellcheck them and THEN put them in Quark it would just say: "No."
• Sometimes, societies will walk in just as you're burning the CD and DEMAND that you have to put their article in the paper because it's URGENT. And you don't have time to read it.
• (You'll like this one.) Sometimes, you lose half the paper. FOR NO REASON. Computers, you know?
• The editor of the newspaper has SEVERAL other jobs. These jobs comprise the work of about three people rolled into one. I am not exaggerating. They include publication work, Clubs & Societies, website, Class Reps, representation and so on. You try talking at a debate where people want to actually stab you, then pop off to read bad grammar for endless hours and finish by waltzing into a meeting with the President of the University at 9 am without sleeping - and try to make sense. I've done it. It's not nice. (I didn't make a lot of sense.)
• People make mistakes. I ****ing hate bad English, but I made mistakes. Everybody does.

And if the Lit & Deb handed me an article with "Literature" spelt wrong twice in 100 words, I'd be delighted to leave it as it was - just to show them up.

I challenge anybody to do that job and do it fully and to the letter - and without mistakes in the paper.

It's impossible.

I don't care who you are. Other colleges have staffs of dozens of students working on the paper. I don't know how it is now, but when I was editor, there was about ten of us. Working on one computer. This is a college without journalism or even design students, with a population the size of Cavan town, and you expect...what? The Washington Post? Last time I looked, most regional papers have more spelling mistakes than The Spoke.



LMAO. I remember this one from primary school. I want to see you in live debate sometime!

"B...b...b...but my cousin..."

My cousin's on the Leinster rugby panel but that doesn't mean I can tell you everything about rugby, does it?

Thanks shroomfox for telling it as it is. A pity most people are going to just ignore 90% of what you say and say well I still think it's rubbish, just because they can.

TheKav

shroomfox wrote:

And you, sir, don't have a clue. I'll take a wild stab at it and say there was a mistake at the printers - which ALSO happens all the time because of differences in fonts and so on. They don't give a crap - it's your paper. But I'm sure you'd prefer to believe that somebody read the front page full of question marks and sent it off as is, because that would give you something to complain about. Huzzah!

You're spot on. The printers were trying something new and they couldn't print in perpetua on the colour pages. Hence the question marks.

How could anyone possibly believe that someone would type that many question marks in an article and not notice?!?

The Mad Hatter

TheKav wrote:

You're spot on. The printers were trying something new and they couldn't print in perpetua on the colour pages. Hence the question marks.

How could anyone possibly believe that someone would type that many question marks in an article and not notice?!?

I had assumed that it was a problem with the software. The solution is to use different software (and I assume that there's some available...). This would remedy the 'lose half the paper' problem as well.

Equally, if you have problems with the printers, then it's time to start fishing around for different printers. Does the thing really need to be done in newsprint format anyhow?

If someone submits an article late for publishing, then tell them it won't get published. Then maybe they'll get it in on time the next time around.

If the editor's so busy, then he could hire someone else to proofread - I'm sure someone would be willing for the sake of pedantry - hell, I'll volunteer for the job if it's possible to get advance hard copies of the paper.

shroomfox

I just spent ages writing a long post answering your points Mad Hatter, but it was getting way too long. In brief:

• Quark is the industry standard, you can't use anything else.
• You lose half the paper becaue the computer crashes, due to the fact that you have to run several memory intensive programs at the same time, but this very rarely happens - it's just that when it does, it's a real pain. (It happened me twice = three days of work down the toilet both times.)
• You have to publish late articles by societies because the paper is there to advertise events, there's no real choice in the matter.
• And finally, students won't even write for the paper, which is an enjoyable job sometimes. Why would they volunteer to read ten thousand badly-spelt words every two weeks? Volunteer by all means; if you do that job, you're a saint.

I'm not involved any more so it's not really my business and I don't mean to knock down every idea people throw up. It's just things like this:

Marco Polo wrote:

Ah, the latest edition. And the front page has random question marks mixed into the text. They're in the middle of words, sprinkled throughout sentences, everywhere. Seriously, stand there and tell me they proof-read.

See this post? This is the prime example of the criticism you face in that job. No interest in asking what the real reason for the problem was. No thought that the person who makes the paper probably isn't a chimpanzee wearing a stupid hat and that there was another external problem. And it's all marbled with a thin vein of self-superiority. Mmm mmm mmm!

That job is the toughest I've ever done. It's a 60-hour-a-week highly-visible abuse-rollercoaster and there's no person who has done it who hasn't had problems with it.

St_Crispin

A question. You said that ppl walk up at the last moment are submit their articles on cd. What format is that in? Because I'd imagine that most students wouldn't do it in quark. Considering it costs $899 for QuarkXPress 5.0, I doubt that most students have a copy of it. In fact I would imagine that they compose their articles in MS Word. And that's the format that you're given them in. At the point that you get them, you could do a spell check. Or you could refuse to accept any articles that have that many spelling mistakes.

I refuse to accept any of these "I'm tired" or "but they're volunteers" or any of that bleeding heart crap that's been posted here. I don't care if it's one part of the comms officers job. It's still their job. If I continously mess up one part of my job, I'm considered incompetant.

Some points....
1. If you can't do the job don't bother
2. Being a volunteer doesn't excuse anyone. It's the most pathetic excuse I've seen in this thread. If I volunteer for a job and do it badly then I should be chastised. Not be told, "you did a bollox job, but hey you're a volunteer, so we'll excuse it".
3. The editor actually ran for that position. It is not something they just walked in the door and was asked to do. They campaigned for it.
4. My bad spelling does not excuse theirs. I may not be a chef, but if I'm served up ****, I'm allowed to complain.
5. No-one cares why there's exclaimation marks on the front page. We just care that they're there. but the fact that they're there means that someone bolloxed up. Trying to deflect by saying "but you don't know why" is just bloody stupid. Back to the food analogy, if I'm served up crap, I don't care why. And unless printers change spelling, I can't see how that excuses the bad spelling in the articles.
6. The L&D article.... Have you guys read it? There was far more than just the literature mistake. That was only one example. It was abysmal. Until you've read it, quit defending it. Because you're just looking like fools.
7. You're computer crashes...Well, that happens. But don't use it as an excuse. Next you'll be showing a letter from your mum saying you were sick. **** happens, I've lost work because of pc crashes, but I've never expected any leeway because of it. And unless you lose IQ points when your pc crashes, I can't see how you're excused from bad spelling.
8. So, apparently the editor isn't paid to be the editor, she's paid to be the vice president. The vice president who's job it is to edit the paper... I'm failing to see how having a different job title excuses her. I have many duties in my job. Including at the end of the night taking out the rubbish. I'm not called the sanitary disposal engineer. But that doesn't mean that it isn't part of my job. Anyway, where does capitation money come from? The money that pays the editors wages? And what exactly is our registration fee used for?
9. Most regional papers don't have that many mistakes. Seriously, look at the L&D article. Then come back and say that.

10. And if you answer one question, or address one point, what is the barest minimum standard that a publication must have?
I would imagine that spelling/grammar is. I wouldn't complain about a few errors. And I've said that I'm not expecting award winning journalism (I've said it loads of times). I'm not expecting beautiful prose. I'm just expecting a proof read for spelling errors.
As far as I'm concerned, that's the most basic standard that one must have. After being factually correct (I have to add that because let's face it, that would be even worse).

And just to reiterate, I'm not expecting no errors. They do occur. But the number of errors in that paper was disgusting. I'm not jumping on someone because of a few errors. I'm stating that there are a disgusting amount of errors. I'm pretty sure I asked this already but trekky (bless him and his selective literacy) didn't seem to want to answer it. How many mistakes are allowed? What are the barest minimum standard? Is it printing any old toss like trekky said?