Originally Posted by temara.brown

I just fixed it.. something must be up with your account then :S

edit: So I did the edit on his post but it's not showing up in the top header.. Chaaadd!!! fix this! kay thanks!

Fixed. Sorry about that Mary!

Originally Posted by micadjems

Does the logo remind anyone else of the new Waterloo logo? :O

http://www.universityaffairs .ca/ma...arketing.j pg

actually,

it looks eerily similar to this:
http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content...e-new-logo.jpg

Haha wow! That is eerily similar.

I just wanted to say best of luck to Mary with the campaign! She seems to have an awesome platform and behaviour towards it all!

Why Vote Mary?
Since I met Mary, everything I have seen her do makes me admire her more and more. Mary has a strong mind and a good heart; anyone who has met her can be my proof. As a leader, she efficiently handles every dilemma thrown at her, and she is passionate about the people around her and the tasks she is given. She always puts her best foot forward with an optimistic outlook and a warm smile. She is always looking for different perspectives, listens to the input of others and collaborated to create something wonderful. Mary is always inclusive; she was the first person to make me feel like I belonged in the McMaster Community, as I came into first year. Since then, I have learned that she brings a sense of belonging to whoever she meets and continues to bring the McMaster Community together. Mary genuinely believes in her platform and I believe that her character and comprehensive ideas will make her a fabulous MSU President. Because of this, I am so proud to be part of her campaign team.

RE: MSU Marketplace?

Hi Sam,

The MSU marketplace, as an aspect of MacsList, will provide a McMaster-centric service. This will be a service for students, by students, provided in a safe environment.

The intention behind MacsList is to create one source of information for students to visit. We want to compile all the services and avenues already available to students in one portal, which is administered by their students' union. Since it is administered through the MSU website, there will be no additional cost for students and there will be no user fee.

MascList is meant to break the stigma and get students using the website. We have an extensive and wide advertising and promotion plan to inform students of the changes made to the MSU website (email, SRA, Facebook, welcome week, etc).

I am really excited to have Mary run for MSU president!


I have known her for quite some time now and I feel if she got the position I would have a lot more faith in the MSU! She is very sincere and I feel she would do her best to make changes that are representative of the wants and needs of the student body.

I am glad to see Mary as a frontrunner in this election. I was in a class with her once and she proved to be an excellent communicator and someone who could think big and follow through. The MSU will be in good hands if she wins

Hey Morganne/Mary,

Thanks for the answers.

I was wondering though what your answer to Rohan's rebuttal to your post is?

His allegiance to a campaign team or not Mr Nair is an incredibly experienced web designer and having seen his knowledge on the MSU website(He authored an impressive letter to MSU Network Admin and SLDC in the summer regarding the technical flaws of the MSU website) since before this presidential season & having a bit of background in this field myself I do think he has a very strong and valid point about the inaccuracy of Mary's Web Platform.

Lastly this question remains unanswered:

Just a question about your "Green plan". The green thing has almost become a buzzword for Presidential candidates for years now and promises to work with "MacGreen and Office of Sustainability"(direc t quote from your platform text) have become cliche; yet the fact of the matter is that a cursory look at Globe and Mail Survey's over the years has shown Mac to lag far behind other Canadian schools. Can you please specify what all comes under your research for the green umbrella?

As for Green IT; atleast the Mac's we use at Mills/Thode have a very good "GreenStar" certification that is usually superior to even the latest Windows based PC's. Other then that the manufacturers we use are members of Electronic products stewardship Canada (www.epsc.ca/about) who adhere to industry regulations on disposal. Furthermore, ironically I temped for UTS in the summer in an odd job dismantling components from computers which were then separated into different categories and at least as I was told disposed with the manufacturer and not throw in a landfill. I'm assuming that is their policy.

If the above wasn't what you were specifically referring to can you please elaborate on your lobbying plans for Green IT?

Thanks,

Huzaifa

Thanks!

Originally Posted by deadpool

The MSU website is not switching to MacID. They are attempting to investigate the possibility of that. The University is not going to give up MacID information to the MSU, because the MSU does not have any proper security measures in place.

I for one will be fighting very hard against this measure as I have seen the lack of attention given to security within the MSU. Please stop hawking on about that point, it is unfeasible and very unsafe for the security of students.

Next, Pauline Taggart's claims about the power of the website are likely overstated. It's not Pauline's fault either, as she is going off what Orbis (the company who makes the software for the MSU site) has said.

Orbis has also said that they can easily construct a collaborative calendar that can accomodate the thousands of students plus the hundreds of clubs/student groups so that students can subscribe to calendars etc.

This is cutting edge software that only Google has brought to the internet.

Also, the Wilfrid Laurier Students Union attempted to move to online voting with Orbis' assurances that this is feasible. A few months later, they are still on physical voting booths as Orbis' could not back their claims up, and WLUSU has moved away from using Orbis.

The MacList idea cannot work because the MSU does not have the technological infrastucture. It's fooling nobody to state these things because all we have to do is look at the shoddy state of the MSU site. Our campaign sites are more intuitive and feature packed than the MSU website.

Hi Rohan,

I'm not sure that we've been hawking on about the MSU site switching to MacID. We have simply stated that this is something that the MSU is working towards.

From our research and from the individuals we have spoken with, MacsList is plausible. While I recognize that you are very knowledgeable in the realm of web design, I feel that it is unfair to discount the expertise and knowledge of Ms. Taggart. She was very excited about this idea and would work with Mary to see it accomplished.

While many students may feel that the MSU website is currently shoddy, improvements can be made. The MSU website can be further improved and developed (as evidenced by changes that have been occurring since the site went live), and that is something that Mary would like to see happen during her presidency.

*Also, we have said nothing about placing voting online through the website, rather we are proposing a portal for students to access various different pieces of information.

Hi Rohan,

There certainly have been difficulties with Orbis, particularly in the beginning stages when we first contracted them to redesign our website. The magnitude of the project combined with the other competing priorities within the organization, the great number of people involved in the process combined with failing hardware and restrictions imposed by the university, as well as many other issues. Though I do not consider myself a technological expert, when dealing with technology seem to be fairly common; one need only look at ELM.

I believe most within the business world promise too much and tend too be too optimistic, especially when dealing with time and money.

My MacsList idea is not something Orbis would need to develop, unlike the majority of the content on the site, which was custom developed. The classified system is a product or module that's already developed and that would be added to our site after making some relatively minor changes or modifications. A rough estimate from the company is 3 days, a rough estimate from the MSU network administrator is a week.

Granted, there will be a need to test for bugs, but the price that Orbis quoted should be fairly accurate. While Orbis has not been without its failings, the MSU has gone through most of the growing pains already and the company now has a more comprehensive understanding of the MSU website and how it operates.

Finally, please remember that you are a representative of Kieran, and that as a campaign team you should be presenting a united front. From my understanding of Kieran, he would not be in favour of completely shooting down ideas based on past failings. I respect your opinion and invite your criticism, but would ask that in the future you refrain from using such a hostile, negative tone.

Mary

Hi Huzaifa,

I agree that going green is a common fad, not only within the University but within the greater world of business and government as well. Having said that, the deteriorating state of the environment prescribes a need for this to be on everyone's conscience, so I am glad that this is such an ongoing concern within Presidential campaigns. My platform point "A Greener Campus" is not meant as a specific initiative, more as promise that I will keep environmentalism as one of my top priorities. It is as well a way of explaining to students that the MSU does not hold much sway with regards to the environmental efficiency of our campus, and that we can find a voice by collaborating with the Department of Sustainability.


As for what comes under my umbrella in terms of research, I have gone through the most recent reports from the Department of Sustainability as well as communicated with individuals from within the Department. I have kept this point fairly vague intentionally, given that it is more of a commitment to the students, than a specific goal. While the rest of my platform has been focused around concrete goals, I have chosen to be realistic and outline exactly what I plan to do as president. This is all I can guarantee, hence it is all I have promised.


As for Green IT; it is essentially a movement to make sure computers on campus are off when not in use, and getting rid of C02 and energy emissions. I learned about this from the program currently run at Waterloo. I've merely identified this as a possible avenue to pursue in turns of sustainability. My point is that I will continue to research and suggest initiatives to the University (especially by collecting feedback from students and seeing what green initiatives they'd like to see on campus) rather than merely following along with what they are doing.

I hope that helps to clear things up, thanks for your questions.

Mary

Mary with all due respect, Kieran's campaign does not exclusively rule my life. I have been a very active member of the MSU community, as well as being a vocal critic of many things that occur.

Anyone on MacInsiders can vouch for that.

I do wish you would stow the condescending tone in attempts to turn this into an attack on Kieran's campaign, and character. I am merely doing what I would do to anyone else and Kieran would not support censoring someone simply because they choose to support his candidacy.

Secondly, Mary and Morganne,

Please do not presume to use my words against me. I said that Orbis is excellent at making promises they have not kept, not that if we were to move to online voting it might not work. I don't discount the opinion of the network administrator either, but I also believe that Orbis is a company who promises something and then presents another, much less intuitive system.

I'm a former manager in the MSU who has worked with the Orbis system and can tell you many things about the lack of power it has. For one, Orbis cannot even offer a proper editing system for their different department websites -- something that MacInsiders, built on free software by one enterprising individual, has. Yet the MSU has paid thousands of dollars for a system that offers precisely.

Secondly, Orbis has not been able to fix the problems on the site in the 2.5 years the site has been active. In the web development word, this is plainly unacceptable and most companies should have taken their business elsewhere.

Thirdly, Orbis is quoting another price for the Macs-List module? That's not exactly a difficult application to write. The problem is the server itself, and how the MSU's cannot deal with the stress of that many users. Plus, there are many security problems associated with the MacID. Web servers are the constant target of attack from hackers, and our MacIDs might be the most crucial component of our personal McMaster identities.

Either the MSU uses the databases hosted on Mac's server -- increasing the load on the same servers that are used by MUGSI/SOLAR -- or the MSU hosts it on their own server -- which has no real security against an attack, because the MSU only has one full-time network person and one part-time, and they cannot deal with the an attack in real time.

Either way, there are disadvantages to the system.

I agree, Myself and John Schieding a few months back were highly worried that the University will reject our desire to hand in student records to even an Enterprise level Professional Online Voting companies. These companies have been in business for a long time and employ security specialists to ramp up their security features almost upto the level of an online banking infrastructure. Even then we still think it won't be easy convincing them because the registrar's office is highly guarded about their security. The MSU server just doesn't have the capability unfortunately.

Secondly, I would ditto what Rohan said about him being a long time upstanding critic of what he stands for. I definitely believe he isn't being biased or selling is knowledge and beliefs because of his association with Kieran's campaign. Again, people who are Macinsiders regulars will testify!

I can vouch for Rohan. He is an active member of MacInsiders and he is not afraid to voice his opinion and play Devil's Advocate. I really respect his opinions because he is always unique in his thinking and makes me think twice about my own perspective.

However, I would like to say that MacInsiders is an online forum where tone can be misinterpreted quite easily. I would like to recommend that as all readers of any thread read posts, to keep an open mind and interpret what is written in a positive way. I would also like to say, that if you are writing a post, keep in mind that words can be interpreted in different ways and may come off as offensive or as attacks.

Originally Posted by mellye

However, I would like to say that MacInsiders is an online forum where tone can be misinterpreted quite easily. I would like to recommend that as all readers of any thread read posts to keep an open mind and interpret what is written in a positive way. I would also like to say, that if you are writing a post, keep in mind that words can be interpreted in different ways and may come off as offensive or as attacks.

My English 2A03 lecture last week in a nutshell.
Sadly, minus the mention of MacInsiders.