VoterMedia Democracy Blog

New video: Expand VoterMedia to Municipal Politics #bcmuni

2012-01-17T19:10:00.000-08:00

We just released a video: Expand VoterMedia to Municipal Politics

In it, UBC students (and a poli sci professor) discuss the idea of VoterMedia blog competitions that cover municipal governments. They have already had a positive effect on UBC student union politics -- see video How VoterMedia Affects Election Campaigns. A quote from Andrew Carne (Blogger, UBC Insiders):

You get these smaller media outlets, that actually do their own investigative work, they are able to present a different outlook on a story than the mainstream media does. So you get different opinions out there, and you may even get more facts, and information, than you do from the CBC or whoever's reporting.

We are pursuing two promising avenues for funding municipal blog contests:

Participatory Budgeting -- a global reform movement that lets voters allocate part of municipal budgets.
Sponsorship by newspaper publishers.

Here's a current muni contest ballot: votermedia.org/burnaby

$1,000 for UBC blogs #amselections

2012-01-03T11:39:00.000-08:00

The University of British Columbia's Alma Mater Society is sponsoring a $1,000 VoterMedia blog contest to encourage coverage of their annual elections this month. See:

VoterMedia as Participatory Budgeting

2011-12-29T13:58:00.000-08:00

I'm excited about the possibilities for adding votermedia to the menu in the growing global participatory budgeting (PB) movement. So I drafted this paper and submitted it to the March 2012 International PB Conference in New York City.

Related links:

Wikipedia: Participatory Budgeting
Global map of PB projects
The conference in New York will be at the same time as the final vote in the PB in NYC process

#bcmuni2011 Blog Competition Continues #SurreyBC #Burnaby #NorthVancouver

2011-11-20T18:22:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to all participants in yesterday's municipal elections across British Columbia -- candidates, campaigners, media, voters, and election administrators!

It ain't over: The VoterMedia B.C. Municipal blog contests will continue -- rules & (free) entry form here.

When we launched this competition, our plan was to fund each of 5 cities for 50 days x $20 = $1,000. No one entered in West Vancouver or Richmond, so we plan at least to fund the other 3 cities for $1,000 each.

North Vancouver got its first entrants on October 4, so it's funded for 50 days starting then. Last funded day will be November 22.

Surrey will use up its $1,000 on November 29.

Burnaby started later, and will not use up its $1,000 by November 30. As you can see in the rules, we only committed to funding through November 30.

However, we aim to keep the contests going forever in some form, with the goal of encouraging blogger coverage of any issues of interest to the community. So even without funding, the ballots will stay open. New entrants can come in, links will show their blogs & posts, people can vote on them etc. Shares will continue to be calculated daily, but with no funding it will be e.g. 47% of $0 = $0.

There are several possibilities for more funding:
- I might donate some more, and keep it going at $10/day for a while.
- We plan to solicit donations/sponsorships from readers &/or city governments &/or media organizations etc.

So I've updated the contest descriptions on the website to reflect these developments. Will post again here if/when there is more funding.

I welcome any advice, questions etc.

Should journalists endorse election candidates? #bcmuni2011

2011-11-15T17:31:00.000-08:00

My opinion:

Yes, journalists should endorse election candidates. Reasons below. Comments welcomed!

Context:

We are now at the height of the election campaigns for all municipal governments in British Columbia. Voting day is November 19.

VoterMedia.org is sponsoring competitions for blogs covering the elections in Burnaby, Surrey and North Vancouver. (Info & entry form here.)

My reasons:

My main reason is having watched the UBC student union elections for the past 5 years, the endorsements of candidates published by bloggers covering those elections seem to have been helpful information for voters. Voters who did not want to spend much time doing their own research (i.e. most voters), could find well reasoned endorsements to help guide them to choose candidates that would serve the voters' interests well. (Here's an example.)

It's important to note, however, that those 5 years of elections were held in the context of bloggers being rewarded via a VoterMedia system, where voters allocate funds to blogs they found helpful. I designed that system to give journalists a stronger economic incentive to build reputations for serving the voters' interests. Once they have built those reputations, they can endorse candidates without worrying so much that their endorsements will automatically be viewed with suspicion.

Journalists working in other incentive contexts have good reason to worry. There is widespread suspicion (probably justified) that many media organizations have incentives other than the broad public (i.e. voters') interest. For that reason, I think, many excellent journalists avoid endorsing. Many of those who publish endorsements (often non-journalists) are partisan, explicitly or implicitly campaigning on behalf of those they endorse, and often paid for doing so. Perhaps to avoid that taint, some journalists believe they should maintain "objectivity" by not taking sides.

Limits on my opinion:

So perhaps I should limit my opinion to the context of bloggers in VoterMedia competitions. I don't understand the incentives of mainstream media journalists well enough to have a strong opinion for them. And in the VoterMedia context, I should further limit my opinion by emphasizing that this is only my advice to bloggers and voters, but they are free to ignore it. I'm used to having my advice ignored! ;-)

I believe more strongly in freedom of the press and democratic choice by voters than in my own opinions. But I also believe in free speech, so I feel free to express these opinions.

What are your opinions? Express below or by email to mark[at]votermedia.org...

#bcmuni2011 $5k Blog Competition Update #RichmondBC #SurreyBC #Burnaby #NorthVancouver #WestVancouver

2011-11-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

There's still time to enter and vote in the 2011 VoterMedia BC Muni Election Blog Competition -- entry form here. We're offering up to $5,000 in awards for blogs covering the November 19 elections in:

Press coverage of this contest:

Media Democracy Days in Vancouver this weekend #MDDVan

2011-11-08T16:41:00.000-08:00

Media Democracy Days this weekend, Fri Sat Sun, Nov 11 12 13: Free events but reservations recommended & filling up fast. (Sorry I didn't post this sooner!) Info at mediademocracyday.org.

Panel on The Future of Journalism, Sat Nov 12 1pm-2:20pm at Vancouver Public Library main branch (Alice MacKay Room) is very timely since top B.C. independent political journalist Sean Holman just gave up blogging for lack of $ -- see Tyee article & my comment. Great panellists:

DAVID BEERS is founding editor of The Tyee. He has won national awards for his journalism in Canada and the United States, writing for The Globe and Mail, Vancouver Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, and many other publications. He edited the “Fate of the Strait” environmental series for the Vancouver Sun, which received Canada’s National Newspaper Award for Special Projects.

PETER KLEIN began his career as a radio reporter for National Public Radio, covering the Bosnian war and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. In 1999 Klein joined CBS News’ 60 Minutes as a producer remains a contributor to the program. Klein joined the faculty of UBC in 2005, and in 2008 he launched the International Reporting Program, Among other prestigious awards, his 2010 class’ Frontline/WORLD documentary, Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground, earned him an Emmy for best investigative newsmagazine.

CHARLIE SMITH has been editor of the Georgia Straight for six years. Before that, he was the news editor at the Straight for 10 years. He has also worked at CBC Radio and CBC TV and taught investigative journalism at Kwantlen Polytechnic University for seven years back in the days when it was known as Kwantlen University College. These days, most of his writing appears on Straight.com, but some find its way into the print edition.

KAREN PINCHIN is the founding editor of OpenFile Vancouver, a community-powered collaborative news website. She has reported and edited for The Canadian Press, Maclean’s and Newsweek, and freelanced for outlets including The Globe and Mail and The Walrus.

& moderator:
LINDA SOLOMON is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Vancouver Observer, which was the winner of the 2010 Canadian Online Publishing Awards for “Best online-only articles” and took second place in “Best overall online-only site”. She is also the founder and director of The Vancouver New Media Foundation and is CEO of Observer Media Group. Linda was the recipient of the United Press International award for Best Investigative Reporting.

2 entries in North Van blog contest #bcmuni2011 #NorthVancouver

2011-10-04T18:01:00.000-07:00

Today two blogs entered the VoterMedia.org blog contest, covering the October-November municipal election campaigns in North Vancouver City & District. You can read them and vote them shares of the $1,000 award pool at votermedia.org/northvan.

Anyone can enter a blog in our contests to win a share of the $5,000 in cash awards for covering elections in any of 5 cities: North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey and Richmond. There's no entry fee or deadline. Awards tallied daily in October and November. Info & entry form at votermedia.org/bcmuni2011.

Civic Surrey enters $5k blog contest #bcmuni2011 #surreybc

2011-09-30T18:39:00.000-07:00

Civic Surrey is the first entrant in the $5,000 VoterMedia blog contest covering the October-November B.C. municipal election campaigns -- welcome! You can vote for them and follow links to their blog at votermedia.org/surreybc.

Anyone can enter a blog in this contest, covering elections in any of 5 cities: Surrey, Richmond, Burnaby, North Vancouver or West Vancouver -- info & entry form at votermedia.org/bcmuni2011. No entry fee.

Civic Surrey's entry illustrates our contest rule that even election candidates can enter their blogs. Blog editor Paul Hillsdon is a candidate for Surrey School Board. See rules (end of page) for our reasons, and feel free to comment here!

#bcmuni2011: $5,000 for bloggers covering BC municipal elections

2011-09-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

British Columbia municipal elections will take place on November 19, 2011.

To encourage better voter information, VoterMedia.org is offering up to $5,000 in cash awards for blogs covering elections in 5 municipalities -- up to $1,000 each for 5 blog competitions covering:

The competition judges will be the public -- anyone who votes on each city's votermedia.org ballot linked above.

Info & entry form at votermedia.org/bcmuni2011. No entry fee or deadline; daily awards start from October 1.

Please forward to bloggers, election candidates, current and former city councillors, and anyone interested in municipal elections.

Twitter: #bcmuni2011

(We're also happy to add blogs and ballot pages for other municipalities, without funded contests.)

#CIRA Election: Who I plan to vote for

2011-09-18T22:03:00.000-07:00

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is holding its annual board election:

Sept 13 - 20: Candidates online forum

Sept 20: Annual General Meeting & Symposium (free & open to public)

Sept 21 - 28: Online voting

As a CIRA member, I've been participating in the campaign forum. As in many large democratic organizations, member engagement and voter turnout are low. This is a problem that votermedia is designed to help solve, so I have focused my participation on the issue of voter information and engagement (here and here).

I'm planning to vote for these candidates:

Members' Slate: Kevin McArthur

Nomination Committee Slate:
Kerry Brown
Bill Gibson
Gary Evans
[2011-09-26 update: Michael Geist's post today has raised my opinion of Bill St.Arnaud. So I now plan to vote for Kerry Brown plus 2 of these 3: Bill St.Arnaud, Bill Gibson and Gary Evans.]

These may not be my final choices. Voting is Sept 21 - 28, so I have time to gather more insight which may change my mind. I don't consider myself especially well informed. I'm posting this in the hope of receiving comments etc from people more informed than I. My main role in votermedia is not blogging -- it's building a system to support and encourage blogging that benefits the community.

I have asked for candidate reviews from people whose views I respect, and so far have received these replies:

From Michael Geist, 2011-09-17:

I'll likely post an endorsement of some kind once the election launches.

[2011-09-26 update: See Michael Geist's post today.]

From Steve Anderson, Executive Director, OpenMedia.ca, 2011-09-18:

I haven't studied the candidates yet - if I come up with a list I feel confident in endorsing I will let you know.

What I can say is that I will vote for and endorse Kevin [McArthur]. He's a long time advocate and active contributor on key issues like Net Neutrality, UBB, and lawful Access. You're welcome to make my endorsement of Kevin public.

If/when I hear more from them, I'll add a comment below and/or edit this post. Meanwhile, here are some reasons why I'm choosing the above candidates:

Kevin McArthur is my clearest choice. He is supported by Steve Anderson. He has been very active in the campaign forum. I like his proactive policy advocate approach to the director's role, as well as the policies he advocates. And his technical expertise seems at least stronger than my ability to assess it.

Kerry Brown has been active in the campaign forum and in his thoughtful blog. His technical knowledge and experience seem strong. I know enough about governance to say that I find his discussions of it intelligent and balanced.

Bill Gibson's track record at MEC looks strong, and very relevant to a large democratic organization with low voter engagement.

Gary Evans is a governance specialist. That alone would not get my support, since many conventional governance models are not worth the time and effort, in my view. But Gary has an eclectic scope that includes some worthwhile approaches, so I think his contribution would be valuable. I should confess a personal bias here: I found one of my publications on his course reading list, and on my suggestion he has added another one. Anyone who agrees with me I find particularly intelligent! ;-)

BTW I also have a positive impression of François Vidal, with his experience on the board of a large nonprofit (Hostelling International - Canada) and for improving CIRA's representation of Quebec.

Anyway, I hope this post will prompt some more enlightening links and comments on who we should vote for and why, from other CIRA members, board candidates, and anyone with insight and/or interest. Please comment below or by email to mark[at]votermedia.org. You could also add a link in the comment thread at https://elections.cira.ca/2011/campaign/topic/7/en.

See you at the Sept 20 AGM!

New video: Mainstream Media vs Voter Media

2011-09-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

Today we released a new video at votermedia.org: Mainstream Media vs Voter Media.

In it, UBC students discuss how VoterMedia (= voter funded media = VFM) provides healthy competition to the University of British Columbia's established student newspaper, The Ubyssey.

"...does VFM work for students? I think yes. Does it increase campus discussion and student engagement? I think absolutely. Does it ensure that established media does a better job? Yeah. And are students and is this campus better off because of that? Well, absolutely." (Justin McElroy, Coordinating Editor, The Ubyssey)

Dan Hind on the BBC & on the riots

2011-08-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

Dan Hind, author of The Return of the Public, last month wrote this insightful critique of the BBC. Quotes:

"I would argue that it is a problem that derives from the structure of the institution, rather than from the shortcomings of individuals."
...
"The BBC is a political actor of considerable importance. It is in some ways central to the operations of the British state and as such it has a stake in the existing constitutional settlement. Its reliance on revenue from the license fee means it is vulnerable to pressure from the political class and from the privately owned media. It has interests about which it cannot be entirely candid. When its interests overlap with those of other powerful actors the social silence is likely to be deafening. For these reasons it is also unrealistic to think that the BBC can be left with so much discretion in decisions about whether and how debates in civil society are covered."

(We can apply a similar analysis to Canada's CBC.)

More recently, he wrote this post (which I also recommend) about the UK riots -- Nothing 'mindless' about rioters:

"...there is no single meaning in what is happening in London and elsewhere. But there are connections that we can make, and that we should make. We have a major problem with youth unemployment. There have already been cuts in services for young people. State education in poor areas is sometimes shockingly bad. Young people cannot afford adequate private housing and there is a shortage of council-built stock. Economic inequality has reached quite startling levels. All this is the consequence of decisions made by governments and there is little hope of rapid improvement. The same politicians now denouncing the mindless violence of the mob all supported a system of political economy that was as unstable as it was pernicious. They should have known that their policies would lead to disaster. They didn't know. Who then is more mindless?

The global economic crisis is at least as political as the riots we've seen in the last few days. It has lasted far longer and done far more damage. We need not draw a straight line from the decision to bail out the banks to what's going on now in London. But we must not lose sight of what both events tell us about our current condition. Those who want to see law and order restored must turn their attention to a menace that no amount of riot police will disperse; a social and political order that rewards vandalism and the looting of public property, so long as the perpetrators are sufficiently rich and powerful."

Website privacy policy revised for Facebook logins

2011-07-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we updated items 2 and 9 in the votermedia.org privacy policy, to reflect our new Facebook login option.

Knight Foundation media innovation contest announces 2011 winners

2011-06-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

"Sixteen ideas that push the future of news and information will receive $4.7 million in funding as winners of the Knight News Challenge, an international media innovation contest funding digital news experiments that inform and engage communities."

"Knight News Challenge winners receive $4.7 million, including $1 million in support from Google; winners include traditional news organizations and Internet entrepreneurs, projects focused on government transparency, mobile and more."

You can browse the winning projects at:

www.knightfoundation.org/press-room/press-release/knight-foundation-media-innovation-contest-announc/

VoterMedia.org entered the contest, but didn't win funding. We congratulate the winners and look forward to watching their progress!

#ubcvotes #votermedia contest results

2011-03-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

Voting ended last Friday (March 25) in the EUS-AUS-SUS rep elections and their 1-time votermedia contest. Two votermedia contestants were disqualified under rule #6 for insufficient election coverage. The remaining three won these awards:

- UBC Insiders: 38% x $1500 = $570

- AMS Confidential: 36% x $1500 = $540

- 11' Eleven": 26% x $1500 = $390

Congratulations and thank you for helping voters with your insight!

If you'd like to see the detailed vote tallies and award calculations, they're in this spreadsheet. More info on the algorithm here.

#ubcvotes #votermedia contestants & rules update

2011-03-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

We now have 5 contestants in the EUS-AUS-SUS rep elections 1-time votermedia contest:

- UBC Insiders

- AMS Confidential

- 11' Eleven"

- The Syrup Trap

- Radical Beer Tribune

Info for voters.

We are still accepting new entries -- more info here.

Rules update: We have added a 40% option to the votable shares menu. So rule #5 is now:

5. The planned total award pool is $1500, and voting menu options are 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%.

The award calculation algorithm will be Interpolated Consensus in 2% steps, with spread parameter = 8 as we have been doing in all Continuous VoterMedia ballots since February 15. Info on the spread parameter here and here.

#ubcvotes #votermedia contest starting now! $1500 award pool

2011-03-10T10:03:00.000-08:00

Win cash by blogging about the UBC undergrad society elections (Engineering, Arts and Science)! Engineering is already campaigning this week (see candidates list) and has an all candidates forum tomorrow (Friday March 11) at 3pm - 4pm in the Kaiser Atrium. Voting starts next Monday, March 14. Arts and Science are one week later.

Voting in these elections and on the votermedia (VFM) blogging contest will be on Webvote -- instructions here. Blogs entered will also be listed here. The contest coordinator is Rose Gambrel.

UBC students can enter their blogs by pasting this text with blanks filled in an email to mark[at]votermedia.org AND TO hb_t_[at]hotmail.com:

Name of Blog:

Blog URL (web address): http://

I am the main editor of this blog. I hereby apply to enter it in the 2011 UBC Votes VoterMedia Competition. I agree to the contest rules below. I am a UBC student. I request that any award this blog wins in this contest be paid to me as the representative of the blog's contributors. My contact information is:

Name:

Email:

Phone:

Mailing address:

-------------------

CONTEST RULES

1. Since there is no entry fee and we are still working out all the plans, we reserve the right to amend these rules. Any changes will be announced at http://votermedia.blogspot.com. Below are the current planned rules:

2. Any UBC student (including AMS Council members) can enter their blog in the contest with no entry fee.

3. All UBC Engineering, Arts and Science students will be eligible to vote in this contest via Webvote from March 14 through March 25, 2011.

4. There is no hard entry deadline, but we recommend entering as soon as possible, preferably by Friday March 11. We will try to add newly entered blogs promptly, but note that blogs added to the ballot on or after March 14 will start missing out on voters who have already voted by then.

5. The planned total award pool is $1500, and planned voting menu options are 0%, 10%, 20% and 30%.

6. The contest coordinator may require some basic minimum coverage of all three elections (Engineering, Arts and Science), for blogs to be eligible for awards.

7. The contest coordinator may require blogs to refrain from disrespectfully slandering candidates, especially in an over-the-top overt manner that causes the candidates extreme distress.

UBC continuous #votermedia award calculations suspended pending login system upgrade

2011-03-07T22:48:00.000-08:00

We're finding that the non-automated voter registration system is too cumbersome, resulting in low participation rates. This is especially a problem for the UBC AMS funded ballot, because it tends to give award calculation results that do not fairly reflect an AMS community consensus. So we're putting the UBC AMS continuous votermedia award calculations on hold until we finish automating our registration and login system.

A better login system has long been needed and often requested for continuous votermedia. For the past few months we have been giving priority to building an automated system, including giving users the option of logging in via Facebook. It's taking longer than expected, but we're getting close.

In spite of the weaknesses of the no-login system we've been using for the past year or so, we have managed to produce reasonably meaningful award allocations so far. But 2 weeks ago I noticed an apparent hacking attempt from Europe, so I discussed with my AMS liaison (the Student Activities Committee Vice-Chair) that we probably need to implement a manual voter registration system temporarily, so as to keep the award results meaningful. We phased that in the following week, but it turns out to be too cumbersome to attract enough voters so far, so it can't produce meaningful results either. Hence the decision to suspend until the automatic system is implemented.

Meanwhile, the three UBC undergrad societies (Arts, Engineering and Science) are sponsoring a $1500 votermedia contest on their election ballot using UBC's Webvote platform, which uses the Campus-Wide Login (CWL) system. So it is secure enough to work well, and I'm working with them to make the contest successful. See more info in this earlier post.

Login system for #votermedia

2011-03-02T16:10:00.000-08:00

By popular demand, we are finally implementing a better login system for the votermedia.org website. Voter registration works by email for now; we plan to upgrade soon to an automated system.

Anyone can still browse the website to see blog rankings, recent posts, past awards and other info. The main practical impact will be that a login is now required for voting on funded competitions like votermedia.org/ubc.

$1500 for #votermedia coverage of #ubcvotes

2011-03-01T11:30:00.000-08:00

Three UBC undergrad societies (Arts, Engineering and Science) have committed $500 each to reward competing bloggers who cover their upcoming elections. The funds will be allocated by students voting on the election ballots, so this is a 1-time VoterMedia (1VM) contest. [The AMS Continuous VoterMedia (CVM) contest is also ongoing with $1200/month.]

The 1VM contest rules are not quite finalized, but watch the UBC Votes website and #ubcvotes Twitter tag for news.

Engineering (EUS) elections start first: nominations close this Friday March 4, campaigning starts next Monday March 7, voting the following week March 14 - 18. Arts (AUS) and Science (SUS) elections are one week later.

You can start covering the campaigns even if you haven't officially entered the contest yet. So get ready!

#votermedia spread parameter increased

2011-02-16T11:41:00.000-08:00

I explained how the spread parameter helps to spread award shares more broadly across more blogs, in this December 10 post. Then on December 16 I implemented it, setting spread = 4 for all communities on votermedia.org except UBC AMS, whom I needed to consult since they are funding their votermedia ballot.

When UBC AMS reactivated funding for their ballot on February 1, I outlined in this post their plans for setting their spread parameter to 4 on February 8, and raising it to 8 on February 15.

Concurrent with UBC AMS, yesterday I also increased the spread parameter from 4 to 8 on all votermedia.org communities. The impact is not dramatic, but would be felt more in cases where one blog has a very large share, say above 50%.

You can see the effects of these changes on each community's "horserace" page, which shows the daily history of award shares. It's linked below each ballot.

UBC continuous #votermedia changes

2011-02-09T09:35:00.000-08:00

As explained in this post a week ago, yesterday we increased the "spread" parameter in the UBC Continuous VoterMedia contest from 1 to 4. This is designed to enhance competition at all award share levels, and especially to make it easier for less-known blogs to get started and get some funding.

You can see the effects of the change (effective as of the 2011-02-08 shares) on the sequence of past shares at votermedia.org/ubc/horserace. (But keep in mind that some votes come in each day, so that has an effect too. Also shares are determined in 1% increments, so there is a slight effect of rounding off.)

Vancouver Opera, La Clemenza di Tito, freedom of speech

2011-02-06T11:27:00.000-08:00

So glad I saw the Vancouver Opera production of La Clemenza di Tito last night! While the impressive performance gave plenty for opera buffs to enjoy (videos here), for me the greatest gift from this opera was to get an introduction to the amazingly public-spirited reign of the Roman emperor Titus (= Tito).

The opera focuses on four fictitious characters, and an act of forgiveness by Tito that was, frankly, unbelievable. But there is a brief reference in the dialog to a political act by the historical emperor Titus that blows me away for being so far ahead of its time. Here is a fuller description from Wikipedia:

One of his first acts as an emperor was to publicly order a halt to trials based on treason charges, which had long plagued the principate. The law of treason, or maiestas law, was originally intended to prosecute those who had corruptly 'impaired the people and majesty of Rome' by any revolutionary action. Under Augustus, however, this custom had been revived and applied to cover slander or libellous writings as well, eventually leading to a long cycle of trials and executions under such emperors as Tiberius, Caligula and Nero, spawning entire networks of informers that terrorized Rome's political system for decades. Titus put an end to this practice, against himself or anyone else, declaring:

"It is impossible for me to be insulted or abused in any way. For I do naught that deserves censure, and I care not for what is reported falsely. As for the emperors who are dead and gone, they will avenge themselves in case anyone does them a wrong, if in very truth they are demigods and possess any power."

Consequently, no senators were put to death during his reign; he thus kept to his promise that he would assume the office of Pontifex Maximus "for the purpose of keeping his hands unstained". The informants were publicly punished and banished from the city, and Titus further prevented abuses by introducing legislation that made it unlawful for persons to be tried under different laws for the same offense.

This free speech issue is alive and well today, as various laws against slander, libel, intellectual "property" infringement, and yes, treason, are used to silence voices that are exposing corruption. I won't give specific examples here, because I should get to work on solving this problem, I'm sure you can think of examples yourself, and I don't want to get sued!!

Continuous #votermedia relaunched!

2011-02-01T15:24:00.000-08:00

UBC AMS has reactivated funding for its Continuous VoterMedia (CVM) contest at votermedia.org/ubc. The blog award pool is now $40/day; they plan to continue this through April 30, then lower it to $10/day through August 31. You can track the award series at votermedia.org/ubc/horserace.

The contest is also reopened for new entries -- see votermedia.org/ubcentry. AMS Council has approved these new contest rules, including:

Minimum 40% UBC-related content.
Council members may not participate in the contest.
Blog Editor's name must be submitted but need not be made public.
"The SAC Vice-Chair may also impose penalties up to and including removal from the contest for the publication of content that the Vice-Chair deems to be libellous, offensive, a violation of personal privacy, or a violation of Society policies on confidentiality."
Funding shall be established each year in the AMS budget [likewise for 1-time VoterMedia].

To encourage more competition and diversity among blogs, the SAC Vice-Chair has approved the following implementation of proposals I made in this post:

Raise the cap on votable shares from 30% to 40% (effective today).
Raise the "spread" parameter from 1 to 4 (effective Feb. 8).
Raise the "spread" parameter from 4 to 8 (effective Feb. 15).

This will smooth out the "progressive tax rate" on blog votes as a function of share%. There's more detail in my earlier post, but below is a brief comparison. [Remember that each blog is supported by the number of (interpolated) votes above their current share%, and the required number of supporting votes is chosen so that share%'s total 100%.]

With the previous 30% cap and 10% interpolation interval, UBC Insiders at their recent 30% share has a tax rate of 50% (being half way through the interpolation) -- only half of their votes for 30% are being counted; AMS Confidential at 31% is taxed at 60% -- only 40% of their votes for 30% are being counted.

Now that the votable cap is 40%, let's suppose that all the 30% voters change their votes to 40%. [Actually some may not, and those that do change will take some time to do so.] So suppose there are no votes for 30%. Consider a blog with a current share of 33.333%. A spread parameter of 8 would discount the votes (for 40%) by dividing the number of votes by 8 to the power 0.33333, which is 2 -- so a tax rate of 50%, the same rate UBC Insiders are facing now. The interim (Feb. 8 through Feb. 14) spread parameter of 4 would discount votes by 4 to the power 0.33333, or about 1.6 -- a tax rate of about 37%.

The idea is to give the top blogs more upside potential if they work harder, while still facing tax rates progressive enough to give opportunity to several other blogs working their way up to becoming known. The new tax rates phase in much more gradually than before.

Unlike the "floating cap" system I outlined in my ealier post, the UBC AMS ballot will keep its cap at 40% for now. That will mean double taxation if a share goes above 35%. But I will probably recommend letting the cap float in the summer, when funding drops to $10/day and there may only be enough news to justify a couple of active blogs.

I thank everyone at the AMS who helped get CVM going again, especially Legislative Procedures Committee Chair Iggy Rodriguez and Student Activities Committee Vice-Chair Alannah Johnston. Let's keep monitoring and improving VoterMedia to maximize the benefit to UBC students!

Your comments are invited as always...

UBC 1-time #votermedia results & calculations [#amselections]

2011-01-23T16:54:00.000-08:00

Congrats to all participants in the UBC AMS elections that ended yesterday! It got messy at times, but ended with a success for democracy, it seems to me.

- Results for elections & votermedia

- Detailed vote counts

If you'd like to see how we calculate the voter media awards from the vote counts, see this spreadsheet. In words, we find a cutoff number of votes that will allocate the exact total $2000 award pool, when we award each contestant the amount of money supported by that many votes for that amount or higher. (Well, the spreadsheet is coded in terms of percentiles counting up from $0 instead of votes counting down from the top, but it comes to the same thing.)

One extra wrinkle is that we interpolate the votes. Voting is in $125 increments, but we wanted to calculate awards in $25 increments. So (for example) a vote for $250 is treated as 1/5 of a vote for each of these amounts: $200, $225, $250, $275, $300. (Votes for $0 are not interpolated.) The spreadsheet first shows what the awards would have been without interpolation (easier to follow), and then the actual awards with interpolation.

Last year's AMS 1-time votermedia contest had 4 times as much funding -- $8000. So all the increments were 4 times the size -- see spreadsheet.

Comparing the two years' results, I think UBC students "get" votermedia better this year, making awards that correspond more with the quality of the blogs. For example, Radical Beer Tribune did not place first the way it did last year when most observers found that odd.

The above results are for the 1-time VoterMedia (1VM) contests on the annual AMS elections ballot. We also have Continuous VoterMedia (CVM) running year-round on this ballot.

[See also Twitter: #votermedia OR #amselections]

CTV News on E-voting at UBC AMS [#amselections]

2011-01-13T17:30:00.000-08:00

CTV News last night talked about possibilities for internet voting in B.C. to engage more young voters. They used UBC AMS elections as an example, interviewing AMS President Bijan Ahmadian -- see the January 12 link on this page, about 18 minutes in (3 minutes before the end).

Continuous vs 1-time VoterMedia

2011-01-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

At tonight's UBC AMS Council meeting they plan to review funding allocations for the Continuous VoterMedia (CVM) and 1-time VoterMedia (1VM) contests. I just got an email requesting more info on this issue. Here's what I've pulled together:

Links --

1. Video: VoterMedia Should Be Continuous – UBC students' views on how CVM benefits the AMS community.

2. CVM statistics for November 2010 (also linked from votermedia.org/publications).

3. CVM funding shares since January 1, 2010.

4. Spreadsheet discussed below: Correlating media votes with President votes (also linked from this post).

The main conclusion from the spreadsheet in link #4 above: Most CVM voters read the blogs before voting on them. Most 1VM voters didn't read the blogs before voting on them, so their voting decisions were more superficial (e.g. based on the blog name), and the funding allocations were not as well aligned with the quality of blog content.

For example in column I: The blog Social Capital endorsed Bijan for President. Among the students who also voted in CVM, those who voted for Bijan allocated an average of $533 to Social Capital, while those who voted for Natalie (the runner-up) allocated $148 to Social Capital, a difference of $385. This strongly suggests that Social Capital readers follow (or at least agree with) Social Capital's endorsements.

By contrast, among the students who did not vote in CVM, those who voted for Bijan allocated $444 to Social Capital, while those who voted for Natalie allocated $384 to Social Capital, a difference of only $60. Comparing this with the above difference of $385, we see that CVM voters are paying a lot more attention to the blog. (CVM-1VM correlations were determined via voters' ip addresses.)

Likewise in column O: UBC Insiders endorsed Natalie for President. Among CVM voters, the Bijan supporters allocated $650 to Insiders, while Natalie supporters allocated $1000 to Insiders, a difference of $350. Among non-CVM-voters, the Bijan supporters allocated $522 to Insiders, while Natalie supporters allocated $648 to Insiders, a difference of only $126. Here again, CVM voters are paying more attention to the blog they are voting funds to.

The sample sizes were small relative to the standard deviations of voted amounts, so only some of the results are statistically significant. Note that AMS Confidential was a brand new blog at the time, so had not yet built its reputation. Thus it makes sense that even CVM voters were not looking to that blog for endorsements yet. Its results are likely to be different in 2011.

The above statistics confirm most observers' subjective assessments that the CVM allocations made more sense than the 1VM allocations. The top award winner in 1VM was Radical Beer Tribune, perhaps partly because the name alone attracts many voters who have not read the blogs, so have only the names to go on. Even the author of RBT felt that it did not deserve first place. From Matt Naylor's video interview (June 3, 2010):

"One of the things that we saw last year was my blog, The Radical Beer Tribune, winning the top amount in the one-time VFM, that we did for the election, but winning the fourth-highest amount – I think it was fourth-highest – in the Continuous VFM. I think, you know, while I am fantastic, the coverage that we provided was probably more deserving of the fourth-place amount, in terms of like consistent coverage and in-depth analysis of the election than perhaps some of the other blogs. But, you know, I’m not complaining!"

In spite of its shortcomings, the past 4 years of 1VM have added a lot to the UBC AMS mediasphere. Each year I have collaborated with UBC students to improve the system, and CVM is the latest product of that process. CVM looks like a promising improvement, but it's still in its infancy. It has been funded only sporadically so far, and has had little promotion. Once it becomes more known and continuously funded as it was designed to be, we can expect its performance to improve still further.

I'll be at the AMS Council meeting tonight. My thanks to the AMS for this productive and fascinating collaboration!

Enter the $2000 UBC AMS Elections VoterMedia Contest

2011-01-10T11:09:00.000-08:00

The annual election campaign at the University of British Columbia's Alma Mater Society starts today! In addition to their Continuous VoterMedia blog contest ballot at votermedia.org/ubc, they are having the usual 1-time "Elections VoterMedia Contest". Entry deadline is this Friday, January 14 -- info here.

UBC AMS Voting Statistics for November 2010

2010-12-30T21:52:00.000-08:00

I've posted a one-page report at votermedia.org/publications, entitled "UBC AMS VoterMedia Voting Statistics for November 2010".

It lists the number of votes supporting each of the blogs competing at votermedia.org/ubc, along with some explanation, analysis and discussion.

New video: What Is VoterMedia?

2010-12-28T19:23:00.000-08:00

We just released a new video at votermedia.org, entitled "What Is VoterMedia?"

In it, students at the University of British Columbia explain that votermedia is a system for rewarding bloggers who inform students about their student union, elections and other issues that matter to their community. "...it’s an innovative incentive structure to encourage independent media to develop and to flourish and to cover events in their local communities." (-- Alex Lougheed)

Thank you to all who contributed to this!

Changing votermedia.org spread parameter

2010-12-15T16:22:00.000-08:00

As discussed in my previous post, I'm changing the way we spread the wealth among competing bloggers. Until this change, we have been capping the menus of votable shares, e.g. to max 30% shares when there are at least 5 competing blogs.

For all communities except UBC, five days ago I let the caps "float" so as to stay at least 5% above the top blog's share.

This evening I'm phasing in the other half of our new spread-the-wealth system, which is a kind of "progressive income tax" on vote counts as a function of %share -- see previous post for details.

The "spread" parameter will change from 1.0 to 4.0 as of the tallies calculated tonight, which for North American time zones will mean starting with the award shares dated 2010-12-15 in the "horserace" pages.

I'll monitor the results, and if they seem good then I'll recommend a similar change for UBC.

Your comments invited!

Spreading the wealth among competing blogs

2010-12-10T17:49:00.000-08:00

Thinking some more about the votermedia award algorithm change I made on November 22, I think we should make a more sweeping change to further enhance competition among blogs. Changing the interpolation range from 5% to 10% does encourage the top blogs to compete with each other more, but it still leaves the maximum vote ceiling as an overly firm limit.

In the last few days, I built the capability for the votermedia.org voting platform to have different tally model parameters for different communities. Parameters can be changed at any time, and an archive of past changes is stored. So we can now test the effects of different parameters like the interpolation range, vote decay period etc.

So far only one community has been funding their votermedia blog contest – UBC AMS. My policy is to check with the funder before changing their contest parameters. So the changes I will describe next are not being applied to the UBC AMS ballot. I plan to test them on all the unfunded ballots first, and then propose them for UBC AMS.

The competition problem we are trying to solve is that, in our experience with votermedia so far, there seems to be a tendency for voters to gravitate to just one or two popular blogs. Most observers I have discussed this with agree that it is usually in the interest of the community to spread the awards across four blogs or more. There has been widespread support for limiting award shares to some maximum, so we have implemented that from the beginning of votermedia in 2007.

In its simplest form, the main votermedia algorithm would let each voter vote any share (0% to 100%) to any blog. (See our FAQs for how votes are aggregated to determine awards. It's not a simple average.) So if voters want to spread the awards across four blogs or more, they have the power to do so. A good argument can be made on general principles that we shouldn't limit the power of voters; if they want to fund only one or two blogs, then so be it.

One justification for limiting award shares may be that in these early days of votermedia, many of the voters are friends of the bloggers, and may not represent well the broad interests of the entire community that provides the funding. Thus limiting shares provides a kind of training wheels that help keep things more balanced until votermedia gets rolling well enough not to need this restriction.

However, like most share-the-wealth policies, capping the votable share menus, e.g. at 30% as we are doing for UBC, has the unintended consequence of reducing incentives. Once the top few blogs hit the 30% ceiling, there's not much incentive to keep improving. Bloggers may keep at it for other reasons, but the whole idea of votermedia is to provide financial motivation.

Our current 30% cap with a 10% interpolation range has no effect until a blog's share reaches 25%. Above 25%, the votes for a 30% share get shrunk by one-tenth for each 1% rise in share. For example, a blog with a 27% share would have their votes shrunk by two tenths, so only 8/10 of their votes would be counting. This spreads out across a 10% range what would otherwise be a hard cap at 30%.

It may help intuition to think of the reduction in votes as an income tax. A simple cap at 30% would be like having no taxes until you reach a 30% share, but above 30% everything is taxed away. A voter that wanted to vote you 40% has that vote reduced to 30%. You have no incentive to make anyone want to vote you 40% rather than 30%.

A 10% interpolation range phases in the tax. No tax up to 25%. Tax rate gradually rises from there. By a 27% share, the tax rate is two tenths. By a 35% share, tax rate has become 100% -- all incentive is now taxed away.

Instead of capping the votable share menus, we can get a similar spread-the-wealth effect without so much disincentive effect, by phasing in the "tax" much more gradually across the entire range of shares from 0% through 100%. For our first trial run, I've chosen this exponential function for the tax schedule:

after-tax vote count = (pre-tax vote count) / ( spread ** share)

** means exponent, to the power of

"share" is scaled between 0 and 1, so an award share of 27% means share = 0.27

"spread" is a parameter chosen to give the desired amount of spread-the-wealth effect. spread = 1 means no effect. I plan to try using spread = 4. To reach 100% share, ¾ of votes would be taxed away, so a blogger would need to have 4 times as many votes for 100% as any other competitor has for any positive shares. For example, suppose your strongest competitor has only 60 votes, perhaps only for a 20% share. If you get over 240 votes for 100%, then you would be awarded 100%. So it's still possible to get there, but a lot of voters have to want you to get there.

At a 50% share and spread = 4, we get 1 / (spread ** share) = 0.5, so half your votes are taxed away. At 25% share, about 3/10 of your votes are taxed away.

The idea is that this tax system would take the place of putting a cap on votable share amounts. In addition to improving incentives for the top blogs, this solves other problems caused by caps:

Interpolation can cause a blog's share to go above the top votable amount (e.g. AMS Confidential's share is now 31% at votermedia.org/ubc). Voters may be uncertain whether voting 30% actually helps or hurts that blog's award. (It helps.)
We've been adjusting the cap according to the number of blogs on the ballot. A 30% cap makes no sense if there are only 2 or 3 blogs. But then the adjustment when new blogs enter can be somewhat arbitrary and discontinuous.
Some blogs become dormant at times. Some seasons (e.g. summer at a university) are very quiet, and may only deserve active coverage from 1 or 2 blogs. A cap system would require adjustment, whereas the above "spread" system would respond more smoothly and automatically.

To phase in this test, I have started by eliminating caps in the following sense: I have programmed votermedia.org to always set the maximum votable share at least 5% above the top blog's share:

Share of Top Blog	Menu Max
up to 34%	40%
35% - 44%	50%
45% - 54%	60%
55% - 74%	80%
75% - 100%	100%

So a blog could theoretically make its way up to 100%. The cap keeps rising as the blog's share rises. Voters would have to vote again at each higher cap, to signal that they really want that blog's share to keep rising. I plan to monitor this for a few days, and then implement spread = 4 as discussed above, which will have a moderating effect on the rise of the top blog(s).

Only UBC is still at a 30% cap, and will stay at spread = 1, until I consult with the sponsor.

Feel free to add questions or comments below, or email me (mark[at]votermedia.org).

Locust or Bumblebee raises votermedia design issues

2010-11-29T16:14:00.000-08:00

This morning I received an application for the blog Locust or Bumblebee to enter the UBC AMS votermedia contest. This raises some big issues about the design and administration of votermedia – hence the long post below.

Locust or Bumblebee is an impressive blog promoting sustainability, created by UBC students Anthony Stal and Sam Wempe:

"Through this gateway we hope to inform Vancouver’s populations of the decisions and activities occurring around them that negatively affect them, the environment, or even some distant population. ... Once we gain a larger readership in Vancouver, we hope to spread to other cities around the world."

This entry poses a challenge for votermedia.org, because we have not yet built a login system that identifies whether a voter is a member of the community they are voting on. The lack of login is not a serious problem as long as the blogs listed on a community's ballot appeal primarily to members of that community. But if a blog attracts many voters from outside the community, then award funds may be directed in ways that the funding community may not want.

At this stage in the development of votermedia.org, attracting voters (from the UBC AMS community) is a bigger challenge than keeping voters out (who are outside the community). Having no login helps us attract more voters (from the community), because voting is so easy. Our award allocation system actually worked better than a system with a login, when we ran a test of two parallel contests in January 2010:

"...continuous VFM kind of yielded results that people thought were more accurate, given the amount of effort the VFM had been putting in, and the amount of contribution they give to that dialog. Whereas one-time VFM was a bit more... there was a lot more noise in the results." -- Alex Lougheed, AMS VP Academic 2008-2009 – in votermedia.org/videos/3

Many factors affected the continuous versus one-time comparison, but my point here is that our (continuous) system without a login actually works pretty well. It does, however, have this potential weakness with blogs that attract voters from outside the community, so we need to guard against that until we build an effective login system.

For that reason, I am recommending to the AMS Elections Administrator that he not accept Locust or Bumblebee's contest entry. Funding is from the AMS, so it will be an AMS decision. From the contest Terms: "The Sponsor may direct the Administrator regarding... adding, editing, rejecting or removing any website/blog listings;"

We are also planning a one-time votermedia contest on the January 2011 election ballot which requires a UBC student login. So there would be no problem with letting Locust or Bumblebee enter that.

Of course there are dangers in allowing the government to decide which media are eligible for funding. So building our login system is a priority for votermedia.org in the coming year (see our funding application). Meanwhile, media contestants seem quite willing and able to critique the government, e.g. these posts from UBC Insiders and AMS Confidential.

I applaud the dedication of Locust or Bumblebee to the cause of global sustainability. As votermedia proves its value to smaller communities, we aim to spread it to larger communities so that it can help us better to address such pressing global issues.

I welcome your comments on all this!

VoterMedia enters $5 million funding competition

2010-11-23T11:10:00.000-08:00

The Knight News Challenge is a media innovation contest that aims to advance the future of news by funding new ways to digitally inform communities. As much as $5 million will be given away this year.

I just submitted an entry for VoterMedia.org, requesting $200,000.

You can:

1. See the VoterMedia entry, vote on its rating, and participate in its comment discussion.

2. Enter the contest yourself! Deadline is December 1.

Planning to tweak the votermedia award algorithm

2010-11-22T12:17:00.000-08:00

As I've been watching how the contest is working at votermedia.org/ubc, it seems to me we can tweak one of the model's parameters to make it work a little better. This parameter affects the trade-off between two things we'd like to achieve, both of which encourage competition but in different ways:

1. Limit the maximum share each blog can win. Currently with 5 or more competitors, the maximum votable amount is 30%. This ensures that at least 4 blogs can get funding, thus enhancing competition that way.

2. Even though their shares are at or near the 30% cap, we'd still like the top blogs to feel some incentive to keep making an effort. If the top 3 are all up against a hard ceiling at 30%, they may have little or no incentive to keep working at their blogs.

A parameter that affects this is what I call the "interpolation range". We originally created it because voting is multiple-choice. If the choices are 5% apart, then a non-interpolated algorithm would have awards that jump suddenly from one choice to the next -- e.g. stuck at 20% for a while, then suddenly the next day 25%. So instead we interpret each vote as spread evenly across a 5% range, e.g. a vote for 20% is spread from 17.5% to 22.5%. This smoothes out the award response to changing support levels in a reasonable way.

It also has the nice side effect of leaving a little wiggle room for competition around the 30% ceiling. Getting more votes at 30% will gradually push a blog's award up from 28% to 29, 30, 31 and max 32, although it's very hard to reach 32%, since only one-tenth of each vote would count. AMS Confidential is at 32% now mainly because their older votes at 40% (the maximum vote when there were only 4 competitors) haven't fully decayed yet.

Looking at the shares now at votermedia.org/ubc, and the recent share changes that we can see at votermedia.org/ubc/horserace, I think we can manage this trade-off better by changing the interpolation range from 5% to 10%. Reasons:

- A 4-point range isn't much incentive for the top 3 blogs to compete. 10% range would result in about an 8% effective range of likely award shares -- more incentive to compete.
- The fourth blog would still have an easy opportunity to get some funding, but would have to work for it a little more than now -- not necessarily a bad thing.
- 10% range would take out the "air pocket" that AMS Confidential dropped through on November 18 (see votermedia.org/ubc/horserace) -- the drop would start earlier and end later, becoming more gradual, which seems to me more realistic, and less an artifact of the algorithm.

I tested the calculation yesterday. It would have changed yesterday's awards as follows:
- AMS Confidential up 2% from 32% to 34%
- 11' Eleven" up 1% from 30% to 31%
- Tyler's Blog down 3% from 9% to 6%

I wouldn't focus too much on these specific numbers. At other times in future it's likely to play out differently. Again, AMS Confidential's lead is mostly from old 40% votes that are decaying away anyway. I've been happy to see a fourth challenger (Tyler) moving up, and I'm not eager to slow him down. But I think as a general long-term principle of competition, this change would be healthy.

I phoned Tyler and explained all this to him. He said he doesn't have a problem with it. (Thanks Tyler!) I've also briefed the AMS Elections Administrator, Erik MacKinnon (email elections[at]ams.ubc.ca).

Your comments welcomed here or by email to mark[at]votermedia.org. I plan to phase this in tonight unless I hear some compelling objections. Since this is an experimental contest, we've reserved the right to make changes as we go along -- see Terms.

New video: VoterMedia Should Be Continuous

2010-11-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

We released our third video today at votermedia.org: "VoterMedia Should Be Continuous"

In it, students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) talk about changing VoterMedia from a once-a-year system to a continuous year-round system for funding blogs about their student union, the Alma Mater Society (AMS).

"I think it’s something that I hope will only grow and prosper, you know, not just during the season where people elect their AMS executives, but the entire year." (Justin McElroy, Coordinating Editor, The Ubyssey)

It's the third video down at votermedia.org.

Media Democracy Day: tomorrow at VPL

2010-11-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

Media Democracy Day is on Saturday November 6 from noon to 5pm at the Vancouver Public Library main branch. It's free, fascinating and important -- see you there! Info at www.mediademocracyday.org/vancouver

Revised Terms for votermedia.org

2010-10-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

Occasionally we revise the terms of use for our website votermedia.org, and notify users via this blog. Yesterday I posted revisions primarily to support the upcoming UBC AMS Continuous VoterMedia contest at votermedia.org/ubc, but which should also serve for similar sponsored contests in the future.

So there's a new section at the bottom entitled "Contest Sponsor Discretion". There are also two new references to our security measures in the section headed "Administrator Discretion".

Launching UBC Continuous VoterMedia Contest

2010-10-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

The University of British Columbia Alma Mater Society seems ready to start funding the Continuous VoterMedia competition hosted at votermedia.org/ubc. Watch for official confirmation from AMS Elections Administrator Erik MacKinnon, hopefully via a comment on this post.

Erik and I have discussed contest plans with AMS council, executives and staff. Like last year, we are aiming to run two contests:

Continuous VoterMedia (CVM): This year with $6,000 of AMS funds, starting at [revised: $20/day] from November 1, with varying amounts through August 31, 2011 -- see [revised] planned award schedule. Continuous voting year-round at votermedia.org/ubc is already underway.
1-Time VoterMedia (1VM): This year with $2,000 of AMS funds. Voting on the same ballot as the AMS elections in January 2011.

To make it easier for new blogs to get started, we're planning no entry fee for CVM, and free entry into 1VM for the top ten CVM blogs as of January 15, 2011. Enter now -- see CVM entry form and rules. All blogs currently on the ballot must submit a new entry form by this Saturday October 30 if they want to stay in the contest.

Please note that all these plans may evolve and change through time!

Your comments & advice are welcomed.

Our 2nd video: How VoterMedia Affects Election Campaigns

2010-09-11T17:55:00.000-07:00

Transcript available here. The video is also on our home page at votermedia.org.

Your feedback welcomed!

New VoterMedia.org feature: See more blog text

2010-09-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I released a new feature on the VoterMedia ballot pages: You can now read more text from each blog by pausing your mouse over each post link. E.g. see ballots for UBC AMS and U Vic Student Society.

Is this useful? Distracting? Too much?

I welcome your feedback by email to mark[at]votermedia.org, or comments here or on the ballots.

Lowered maximum vote from 40% to 30%

2010-08-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

We've now had many months of testing and feedback on the votermedia.org ballot (e.g. UBC), in particular the menu options for blog funding shares. To increase competition among blogs, we've decided to reduce the maximum share you can vote when there are 5 or more blogs competing, from 40% to 30%.

Before long, we plan to enhance our system so as to allow different communities to use different voting parameters, including this maximum setting. But for now it's "one size fits all" -- same model for every community. However, at least we adapt to the number of blogs competing, with a higher maximum vote share when there are fewer blogs.

We welcome your comments & advice!

Shorter URLs like votermedia.org/ubc

2010-08-14T16:40:00.000-07:00

Today we implemented a system of shorter web addresses for VoterMedia community ballot pages. For example, the page for the University of British Columbia Alma Mater Society is now:

votermedia.org/ubc

instead of votermedia.org/communities/82-ubc-ams. Sweet!

The old longer URLs still work too, but we'll probably phase them out after a while, so please update your links.

Our first video: VoterMedia at UBC

2010-08-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

We recently uploaded our first video to Youtube:

Transcript available here. The video is also on our home page at votermedia.org.

We're learning as we go along, so please comment, email or phone me with advice on how to improve our AV techniques -- editing, composition etc. More videos in production!

Rebranding "VFM" as "VoterMedia"

2010-07-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

I think it's a good long term plan to call it "VoterMedia" instead of "VFM". This is for both meanings -- the VoterMedia system, and the voter media.

E.g.:
"VoterMedia increases engagement in a democracy."
"Voter media tend to be more issues-oriented than mainstream media."

Main reasons:

1. As we expand the movement beyond UBC, "VoterMedia" is immediately meaningful to people who have never heard of it, whereas "VFM" is not.

2. If you google for "votermedia", all hits are relevant to this project. If you google for "vfm", most hits are about other things.

3. We have the web domains votermedia.org, votermedia.com, votermedia.net, votermedia.ca, votermedia.us, voterfundedmedia.org, and voter-media.org. We have none of the vfm.anything domains -- all are taken.

4. As a domain name, voterfundedmedia.org is too long; votermedia.org is short enough. VFM is a handy abbreviation of voter funded media, but VoterMedia (which could sometimes be spelled "voter media" or "voter-media") is short enough to be handy too.

5. One name, less confusion.

I'm not saying we should be obnoxious about it, trying to stop people from saying VFM. But we can gradually move toward "votermedia".

What do you think?

(BTW I'm giving a brief talk on VoterMedia at the UBC AMS Council meeting tomorrow evening.)

VoterMedia.org tally & archive system revamped

2010-07-12T17:50:00.000-07:00

Today I released a significant overhaul of the votermedia.org tally & archive routines. The main tally algorithm (that calculates award shares based on votes) has not significantly changed, but:

Time zones: We now use a midnight cutoff in each community's time zone. However, a community spanning multiple time zones may use a midnight cutoff in its latest (western-most) well-populated time zone, so many communities use Pacific time.
If our server is down when it tries to tally, instead of leaving a gap it will automatically fill that in, an hour later.
We now have fairer tie-breaking routines for cases when there are few votes.
It's now easier to recalculate awards for many past days. We've recalculated from 2010-04-01 to the present.

Please send me any questions or advice, to mark[at]votermedia.org. Thanks!

Discuss VFM in our video shoot at UBC AMS Council Chambers this Friday 6:30pm-8:30pm [#ubcvotes]

2010-04-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

UBC AMS is letting us use their Council Chambers (Student Union Bldg room 206) to shoot a video of students talking about voter funded media. We'll edit it to show at votermedia.org.

So join us there this Friday April 30, any time from about 6:30pm to 8:30pm, and share your thoughts!

You could talk about:

VFM -- what is it? [for newcomers to the website]
Your experiences with VFM
How does it affect UBC students? What difference does VFM make?
Pros, cons, how to improve it
Future of VFM at UBC and elsewhere -- other student unions, municipal politics etc.

Ideally, please email me (mark[at]votermedia.org) to say you'll be there; or you can just show up. (Also, we'll probably do another shoot elsewhere at UBC the next day around 5pm.)

Interview you at UBC this week for video on VFM? [#ubcvotes]

2010-04-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

What do you think of VFM at UBC? We're shooting some videos for our website votermedia.org. How about sharing your views with the world?

We plan to get out to UBC to interview people this week. Possible days/times are tomorrow (Tuesday) evening from 6:30 pm on, or this Friday from 6:30 pm on, or Saturday any time.

Outside of that, most weekday evenings or weekends are possible if you can drop by my place in Coal Harbour (near Burrard skytrain station).

Let me know by email to mark[at]votermedia.org -- thanks!

BTW voting on blogs continues at votermedia.org/communities/82-ubc-ams

Analyzing 1-time vs Continuous VFM results

2010-04-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

Here are two spreadsheets showing some analyses of the results of UBC's two voter funded media competitions that we ran in January 2010:

Sorry I haven't taken the time to explain them in detail. Feel free to ask questions in your comments, or email them to me -- mark[at]votermedia.org.

VFM horserace page shows history of funding shares [#ubcvotes]

2010-03-22T18:14:00.000-07:00

You can now see the history of all funded media for one community on a "horserace" page -- enjoy!

E.g. votermedia.org/horserace/82-ubc-ams

UBC VFM Awards [#ubcvotes]

2010-03-21T09:05:00.000-07:00

This morning we calculated the last of 10 daily awards ($1500 total; info here) in the current UBC voter funded media competition. Winners are:

AMS Confidential -- $567
UBC Insiders -- $559.50
The UBC Spectator -- $216
The Radical Beer Tribune -- $157.50

Congratulations! Thank you to all participants -- media, voters, elections administrators, electoral candidates, and especially to the Arts Undergrad Society for sponsoring this competition. AUS will be paying the awards, so I guess the contact is arts.ubc.elections[at]gmail.com.

Voting continues on the VFM ballot. Hopefully awards will be funded again some time. You can see the daily history of shares by clicking on any share% number.

[Twitter #ubcvotes]

VFM for B.C. Municipal Elections

2010-03-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

Today I submitted this comment letter to the British Columbia Local Government Elections Task Force, advocating voter funded media for municipal elections. The task force will recommend legislation to improve local government electoral processes. (Pdf file available at votermedia.org/publications.)

VoterMedia.org

Media for voters, funded by voters

March 19, 2010

Local Government Elections Task Force

c/o Ministry of Community and Rural Development

PO Box 9839 Stn Prov Govt

Victoria, B.C. V8W 9T1

Submitted by email to localelectionstaskforce@gov.bc.ca

Re: Public financing for local government election campaigns

Dear Task Force members:

Thank you for seeking comments on our local government elections systems. My comments relate mainly to public financing for election campaigns.

I am a financial economist specializing in voter information systems. My résumé is on the web at votermedia.org/mlresume. I represent individual investors on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee. There my advice focuses on how to better inform us retail investors, so that we can vote our proxies more effectively, e.g. in corporate director elections.

Voter information is a public good, so it makes sense to pay for it with public funds. This principle applies both in democracies and in corporations. Each voting community (citizens in a democracy; shareowners of a corporation) should use some of its community funds to pay for informing its voters. The challenge is to design the most effective way of doing that.

One way to fund voter information is by public financing of election campaigns. As your discussion paper explains, this helps a wider range of political candidates get their messages to voters, with less dependence on special-interest donors.

I would like to tell you about another way to fund voter information, which may create greater public benefit per dollar than public financing of election campaigns. We have been developing and testing this system at the University of British Columbia for four years now, in student union (Alma Mater Society) elections. We call it “voter funded media” or VFM. Political science Professor Fred Cutler has been advising us.

VFM lets voters allocate public funds to competing media. There are many possible designs for implementing this concept. Our latest design is on the web at votermedia.org/communities/82-ubc-ams. Competition has determined that blogging is the most effective medium for this community. Some previous competitors have also used print, but at the moment all are exclusively on the web. Bloggers rule!

I’m attaching a paper Global Voter Media Platform which explains the economic rationale for the voting systems we use, and the evolution of our test implementations. Please note in particular section 4 (pages 7-9), “Why voter funded media differ from private sector media.”

Here’s a thought experiment supporting my belief that VFM creates more public benefit per dollar than financing political campaigns. Suppose you are an undecided voter with the choice of allocating some public funds to political campaigns or to competing media organizations. If you allocate funds to political campaigns, you already know most of what they are going to say: “Our candidate is best!” But the competing media might actually teach you something. (The VFM system could allow political candidates to compete with the media for a share of funding, although so far the students haven’t permitted this.)

The most convincing argument, however, is to talk with UBC students who have experienced VFM. When I first proposed this unknown system in 2006, I sponsored it, paying the media awards myself. But now the students have decided to continue it using their union fees. At a mere $8,000 to $10,000 annually, it is usually covered by their existing budgets for elections administration. (None of these funds goes to VoterMedia.org, which is a nonprofit project run by volunteers.)

Re municipalities: With 45,000 members and a multi-million-dollar annual budget, the UBC student union has the scale of a small town. We also tested VFM in conjunction with the Vancouver city election in 2008 (see votermedia.org/van/) and are currently hosting an unfunded ballot for Vancouver media at votermedia.org/communities/51-vancouver.

For British Columbia, I would suggest a pilot program to test VFM in several municipalities during their 2011 elections. Given the low cost of blogging, a small to mid-sized town can expect significant improvement in election coverage for only $10,000 to $20,000 of voter funded competition. The province could offer to pay half of that for municipalities willing to match-fund the other half. By limiting the number of test locations, much can be learned on a small budget.

I have not patented any of these ideas. The voting system design is explained on the votermedia.org website. We are willing to help administer VFM competitions on a low-cost or no-cost basis. While a town could administer its own competition, an organization independent from the municipal government may be more cost effective (by serving multiple towns) and less subject to concerns about local political bias.

Further information on this project to reform the governance of democracies and corporations is linked from votermedia.org/publications.

Sincerely,

Mark Latham, Ph.D.

Founder, VoterMedia.org

#469 – 1755 Robson Street

Vancouver, B.C. V6G 3B7

Tel: (604) 608-9779

Email: mark[at]votermedia.org

UBC elections hack update

2010-03-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

The team investigating the voter fraud in January's UBC AMS elections gave another report at last night's AMS Council meeting. Details: UBC Insiders has posted an informative summary, and The Ubyssey has published an article.

UBC VFM blitz!

2010-03-10T15:52:00.000-08:00

The UBC Arts Undergraduate Society Elections Committee has generously decided to sponsor voter funded media during the upcoming constituency elections. They will award a total of $1500, at a rate of $150 per day for 10 days from Friday March 12 through Sunday March 21.

This is designed to benefit all the UBC constituency elections happening during that period, including Arts, Science, Engineering and Human Kinetics. Thank you AUS! See the multi-election info website ubcvotes.ca

Media voting will be on the same Continuous VFM ballot we have been using for the UBC AMS: votermedia.org/communities/82-ubc-ams with same media continuing, unless any let me know they want to drop out.

NOTE: Only votes cast after noon tomorrow (Thursday March 11) will count! So the rankings will start afresh on the daily tally early Friday morning. (I'll probably trigger an interim tally Thursday afternoon so everyone can see how it's going.) This creates a big incentive for the media to get your readers voting ASAP, ideally by Thursday night.

It's also a great opportunity for new media to enter the fray. Please follow the entry instructions at votermedia.org/ubc2010. For fastest upload, email entry to me (mark[at]votermedia.org). If you emailed an entry to Taylor Lukacin that's OK too -- she's forwarding them to me.

There's no entry fee. Usual CVFM terms apply: votermedia.org/terms

Our plan is for the AUS to pay the awards directly to media winners. We at VoterMedia.org will just be managing the ballot, tallying votes, calculating and displaying the awards on a best efforts basis, with no money paid to, from or via us.

Have fun!

UBC AMS elections got hacked!

2010-03-06T16:15:00.000-08:00

Someone figured out how to vote over 700 times in the recent University of British Columbia student union (AMS) elections (January 25 - 29). It's still being investigated, but Elections Administrator Isabel Ferreras presented a preliminary report to AMS Council on March 3.

I was involved because I helped the Elections Committee calculate the voter funded media (VFM) awards. We were running two VFM competitions simultaneously -- 1-time VFM and Continuous VFM -- see comparison table. 1-time VFM was on the AMS elections ballot, which required a UBC login to vote. Continuous VFM was on this votermedia.org page, where anyone could vote without logging in.

Surprisingly, it was the login-protected ballot that got hacked. That's why the Elections Committee didn't spot it, and why it took me 2 weeks to spot it -- no one expected such a thing. Now we're all older & wiser.

Check out the light-hearted coverage from AMS Confidential. UBC Spectator live-blogged the AMS Council meeting with Isabel's report:

TO: AMS COUNCIL
FROM: ISABEL FERRERAS, ELECTIONS ADMINISTRATOR
RE: PRELIMINARY REPORT TO COUNCIL ON INVESTIGATION INTO VOTER IRREGULARITIES

Introduction
As you know, the AMS has been investigating a voter irregularity which came to light after submission of the Elections Report to Council on February 10, 2010.
The Elections Committee has obtained preliminary findings from its external forensic investigator which indicate that the voter irregularity in question had no effect on any of the AMS Executive positions.
We have directed the investigator to continue with its investigation as there are certain other issues which came to light which warrant further attention.
As a result, I am only able to provide this preliminary report to Council.

Background

As you know, on February 10, 2010, I submitted my Report to Council on the 2010 Elections Results (in accordance with Section IX, Article 7, Section 10 of the Code of Procedure).
On February 17, 2010, I was contacted by Mark Latham, the sponsor of the voter funded media contest, concerning an irregularity in the pattern of the votes. Mark noted that, with respect to the voter funded media contest, there had been a significant number of votes occurring at the end of the election and that numerous votes had been cast from the same IP address. I reviewed the elections results and confirmed that a significant number of votes had been cast from the same IP address immediately before the ending of the election.
On February 19, 2010 I notified the AMS’ General Manager, Ross Horton, as well as Chris Eaton, UBC’s Academic Governance Officer & Triennial Returning Officer, given that two sets of UBC posit
ions had been filled as a result of this electoral process.
The AMS retained FDR Forensic Data Recovery Inc. to provide forensic preservation and analysis of the AMS’ 2010 Elections Results. FDR is a recognized industry leader in computer forensics, data preservation and data recovery with a reputation for prompt and responsive service.
On February 25, 2010, Mr. Horton advised the Executive that AMS was investigating a voter irregularity. To avoid any potential conflict of interest of elected Executive members, it was agreed that Mr. Horton would continue to be responsible for directing the FDR investigation, in consultation with the Elections Committee and AMS’ legal counsel.
On February 26, 2010, the AMS released a communication to its membership indicating that we were investigating this voting irregularity.

Role of Elections Committee and Elections Administrator
In keeping with my role as Elections Administrator, I have been involved in the investigation.
The Code states that it is my responsibility to provide a report to Council on the election, including the results.
However, in this case, where the previous report that I submitted may have been wrong on the basis of a fraud or error not earlier brought to my attention, I am advised by legal counsel that it is my obligation to consider the information concerning the voter irregularity and to take all reasonable steps to provide a revised report to Council as soon as possible.
I also understand from AMS’ legal counsel that the law does not require a standard of perfection. In other words, the Elections Committee is not obliged to guarantee that the elections results are perfect. Rather, an election result may only be rejected where a substantial irregularity is shown to have occurred and there is a determinable and material effect on the elections results.
As discussed below, the preliminary information suggests the voter irregularities identified to date did not affect the outcome for any of the AMS Executive positions.

Preliminary Results of Forensic Analysis
In its preliminary analysis, FDR has determined the following:

There is a security vulnerability in the voting system such that an eligible student could submit an unlimited number of votes on behalf of any student number including ineligible student numbers.
731 votes were cast from one IP address between 12:44:33 and 16:00:00 (the “Suspect Voters”)
18 of the Suspect Voters contain ineligible student numbers which is indicative of fraudulent activity.
In the University Board of Governors ballot section there are 4 hidden fields which are not displayed: board1, board2, board4 and board8. Within the Suspect Votes, there were 58 votes cast for board2 and 75 votes for board8. This data anomaly is not possible through the normal voting process.
FDR has therefore concluded that the 731 Suspect Voters are not legitimate.
The AMS has no information (from FDR or any other source) indicating any connection between any persons who ran for election or participated in the voter funded media contest and the Suspect Voters.
By “backing out” the 731 Suspect Voters from the election results, the Elections Committee has determined that there has been no effect on the election results with respect to any AMS positions.
However, there is an effect on the voter funded media contest. For referendum questions, only the successful question was affected. This will be addressed in my revised report.
The only race which is effected by the removal of the Suspect Voters is the UBC Senate race. The AMS has shared the results of its preliminary investigation with UBC.
FDR’s preliminary analysis identifies a number of other instances of multiple votes submitted from one or more IP addresses. FDR has noted that such instances may not be suspicious as the IP address(es) may be routers, gateways or a public terminals. These instances of ‘Clump Voting’ are being investigated and will be reported upon in FDR’s report.

Continuing Investigation
We have directed FDR to continue to investigate whether there are other voter irregularities including:

analyzing material Clump Voting coming from the same IP addresses;
whether votes saved, but not submitted, were over-written by the 731 Suspect Voters.
Upon receipt of FDR’s report, the Elections Committee will present the results to Council and likely present a revised elections report.

Next Steps
We have asked FDR to make recommendations in their final report regarding steps which may be taken to avoid the repetition of the security breaches and irregularities identified in the AMS Electronic Elections process.

UBC Continuous VFM Award Winners

2010-02-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

This morning we calculated the last day's award allocation in the continuous voter funded media competition for the University of British Columbia's Alma Mater Society. Cumulative awards from January 4 through February 12 are:

1. UBC Insiders: $724
2. UBC Spectator: $665.50
3. AMS Confidential: $314
4. The Radical Beer Tribune: $207
5. Social Capital: $88.50
6. Geoff's Place: $1
(Total: $2,000)

Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to all participating media and voters!

Voting will continue indefinitely, and if any individual or organization would like to fund this competition in future, we at VoterMedia.org will be happy to help administer it. We can manage the website ballot and award calculations. We can also manage payments, or a sponsor could pay the winners directly.

What do you think of continuous VFM so far? How could we improve it? Please comment here or on the ballot or email mark[at]votermedia.org.

Comments to FCC on the Future of Media

2010-01-25T16:11:00.000-08:00

Four days ago, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission announced their request for comments on "the future of media and the information needs of communities in a digital age", along with 42 specific questions. I submitted my comments this morning, which are already linked on the FCC website page for "Proceeding 10-25". I've also posted these links at votermedia.org/publications.

Mainly I pitched the benefits of voter funded media, with the UBC Continuous VFM competition as an example.

Now is the best time to check out the UBC VFM ballot

2010-01-24T11:29:00.001-08:00

The University of British Columbia Alma Mater Society's annual election vote is this week, January 25 - 29. So the voter funded media are in full swing, interviewing candidates, analyzing platforms and referendum questions, and making vote recommendations.

Now in our 4th year of UBC VFM implementations, we are running two competitions at once. Check out the Continuous VFM ballot!

$8000 UBC One-Time VFM entry form available

2010-01-05T21:40:00.000-08:00

This year's University of British Columbia Alma Mater Society Voter Funded Media Administrator, Will Davis, has sent me the entry form to post at votermedia.org/ubc2010. You can enter now to compete for a piece of the $8000 award pool in the One-Time VFM competition -- go for it!

UBC Continuous VFM: Enter now for $2000 award pool

2010-01-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

This competition will award $50 per day starting Monday January 4, for 40 days. There's no entry fee, just send me an email -- info at votermedia.org/ubc2010.

So far four blogs have entered: UBC Insiders, UBC Spectator, Radical Beer Tribune and Social Capital.

I've listed several other UBC blogs on the ballot. They will only be eligible for awards if & when they enter. But you can vote for them now, and your votes will be saved and counted if they enter. These include Geoffs Place, AMS Gossip Guy. Foxtrot UBC, Fair Vote UBC and UBC Student Media.

I hope to see some newly created blogs entering too!

BTW you can now see the latest post title & date from each blog.

2 VFMs launching at UBC

2009-12-15T14:09:00.000-08:00

Two voter funded media competitions are launching at the University of British Columbia: Continuous-Time VFM and One-Time VFM -- see info at votermedia.org/ubc2010.

I'm administering the Continuous-Time VFM. Please email me if you'd like to enter: mark[at]votermedia.org.

Vote early and often at votermedia.org/communities/82-ubc-ams !

Giving talks at Stanford & Berkeley

2009-11-06T20:13:00.001-08:00

I've recently scheduled to give these three talks:

Nov. 16 at Stanford Law School's Rock Center for Corporate Governance, mainly on the paper "Proxy Voting Brand Competition", my work on the SEC Investor Advisory Committee, and ProxyDemocracy.

Nov. 17 at U C Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies, mainly on the paper "Global Voter Media Platform" and VoterMedia.org.

Dec. 10 at the 2009 British Columbia Pension Forum, mainly on the paper "Proxy Voting Brand Competition", my work on the SEC Investor Advisory Committee, and ProxyDemocracy.

More info on the talks at votermedia.org/presentations. The papers are available at votermedia.org/publications.

Media Democracy Day this Saturday at VPL

2009-11-04T22:50:00.000-08:00

Media Democracy Day 2009 will be this Saturday November 7 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Vancouver Public Library, 350 West Georgia Street. Info at www.mediademocracyday.org/vancouver.

See you there!

Vote to allocate media funding percentages

2009-08-07T18:48:00.000-07:00

We have implemented a new feature empowering voters to allocate percentages of a budget to competing websites/blogs at votermedia.org.

For some interesting examples, see these community pages:

Vancouver

UBC AMS (student union)

USA Investor Education

You can now vote at new Global Voter Media Platform

2009-07-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

We've just released the first beta version of votermedia.org, where you can now vote on media that cover Vancouver, B.C., Canada, Iran, Microsoft, CBC etc etc. It's designed to have a page of voter-ranked media (blogs and others) for each voter community in the world. You can add new communities and new media to this voting system.

There's more explanation on the site's FAQ page, and in the paper "Global Voter Media Platform" at votermedia.org/publications.

Come and help reform our governments, corporations and other large organizations!

http://votermedia.org

May 27 event: Where's the Money in Media?

2009-05-25T22:29:00.000-07:00

Panel Discussion: CBC cuts, corporate media bailouts, exciting alternative models

Host:	Media Democracy Day Vancouver
Type:	Education - Workshop
Network:	Global

Date:	Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Time:	6:45pm - 9:00pm
Location:	VIVO Media Arts Centre
Street:	1965 Main St. near 3rd, close to Main Street/Science World Skytrain
City/Town:	Vancouver, BC

Phone:	6048758455
Email:	naava.smolash [at] gmail.com

Description

At this critical time when the new media environment is being molded and the traditional news industry is in a state of decline, creative approaches to journalism are urgently needed.

Yet politicians and policy makers are poised to further support the big conglomerates that got us into this mess in the first place. Canwest and other corporate media may even get a government bailout. At the same time, CBC is slashing jobs and programming under unprecedented cuts, and there is no end in sight.

-If news financed by big business is failing, what alternatives do we have?

-What role could/should CBC play?

-What other models for media are available?

-What can we do?

Vancouver's leading independent media makers lead a panel and discussion about proposed government bailouts of corporate media, the impacts of cuts to the public broadcaster, and exciting alternative models for media.

Featuring:
Charlie Smith, Editor, The Georgia Straight
Marika Swan, Interim Manager, Redwire Native Youth Media
Colin Preston, Library Coordinator & Canadian Media Guild Secretary for CBC Vancouver
Linda Solomon, Founder and Editor, Vancouver Observer

tune in to the live webstream at 7 pm Pacific Time, 10 PM Eastern: http://www.cjsf.ca:9010

Suggested Donation $7 in advance, $12 at the door
no one turned away for lack of funds.

Snacks will be served thanks to donations by the East Van Food Coop and Theresa's Cafe

bus tickets available thanks to the Bus Driver's Union (CAW local 111)

Free childcare available onsite with advance request

Seating is limited! To save your spot, please R.S.V.P. by net, phone, or email:

to register online: http://moneymedia.eventbrite.com/
by email: naava.smolash [at] gmail.com
by phone: (604) 875-8455 (please leave a message)

B.C. Politics Blog Ranking update

2009-04-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

March voting results are now shown on the British Columbia Politics Blog Ranking. Top three ranks unchanged -- #1 Stephen Rees, #2 The Tyee, #3 Frances Bula.

Public Eye moved up from #9 to #4; Bill Tieleman from #8 to #5; Vancouver Observer from #10 to #6. Way to go!

Do you agree? See all rankings & media links, then vote.

B.C. Politics Blog Ranking update

2009-03-01T12:18:00.000-08:00

Today I did the monthly vote tally for the British Columbia Politics Blog Ranking. Stephen Rees moved up to #1, Paul Hillsdon up to #5, and Gordon Price up to #7 -- congrats all!

You can now vote for the March period. Thank you voters for helping us find insightful media/blogs!

UBC AMS VFM voting results

2009-02-10T10:39:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday (Feb 4) we counted the votes in the third annual University of British Columbia Alma Mater Society Voter Funded Media competition. As in 2007 and 2008, UBC students voted on VFM as part of the AMS council election. The competing media concentrated mainly on covering the election candidates. In 2007 and 2008, I donated $8000 for the awards; in 2009, the $8000 came from AMS funds, i.e. student fees.

It's interesting to compare the results, summarized here:

- 2009

- 2008

- 2007

Last year I posted this discussion comparing 2008 and 2007 results. Here's my update for 2009:

(BTW I don't consider myself an expert on UBC student politics, so these are just my opinions -- please add your comments! Also keep in mind that our analysis is only based on a limited sample of experience with VFM so far.)

Now that the media-to-voters-to-media feedback loop has gone through another year's iteration, it seems to be homing in on the serious electoral campaign coverage that we designed VFM for. Media name recognition and reputation are rewarded less than before; current content is rewarded more.

For example The Underground and The 432, known more for their years of newspaper publication than for depth of election coverage, dropped from combined winnings of $2,600 in 2007 to $1,200 in 2008, then did not even enter VFM in 2009. Long term VFM heavyweights The Knoll and UBC Insiders, which I expected to dominate again in 2009, instead fell to 4th and 5th place behind two new media (Spectator and Student Media) plus the resurgent Radical Beer Tribune, all with plenty of serious info on the election campaign.

This is all consistent with a trend of voters using the competing media more and more to help inform their voting decision process. Not only was the election turnout the highest in 22 years, but also participation in the VFM vote itself was almost double its previous peak -- 3,820 in 2009 versus an estimated 2,000 in 2007.

The apparent success of UBC's annual VFM comes in spite of its perennially late launch -- opened for entry about January 15 in 2009, January 7 in 2008, and early January in 2007, instead of about September as I and the VFM Committee have advocated. The VFM administrators get hired too late, but fortunately have been capable and energetic in implementing this complex new process. (BTW Condorcet voting for the 2009 AMS exec election was another great innovation.)

Is VFM worth $8000 to UBC students? Of course I'm biased toward "yes". Not only does it help voting decisions, but media coverage doesn't end with the election. E.g. as I write this, VFM blogs are the venue for a vigorous cross-linked debate on the Elections Committee's decision to disqualify the winning presidential candidate.

Our experiments, designs, plans and implementations continue toward a Global Voter Media Platform to support pubic interest media in all voting communities year-round.

Thank you all VFM participants: AMS council, planners, administrators, media and voters! And congratulations to the media award winners...

B.C. Politics blog ranking updated

2009-02-01T17:21:00.000-08:00

Today I did the monthly update of the British Columbia Politics Blog Ranking ballot. The top three -- The Tyee, Stephen Rees and Frances Bula -- held their positions, but after that it was a free-for-all.

Thanks you all participants -- media, voters and commenters. I haven't added any new blogs because we're building an automated website to replace this ballot, and expand it to many more voting communities -- see Global Voter Media Platform.

Last UBC VoterMedia Awards; $8000 voting

2009-01-29T22:25:00.000-08:00

Today I tallied the votes for the last weekly $200 pool of UBC VoterMedia Awards -- see results at http://votermedia.org/ubc. Thank you all participants!

Meanwhile, voting is underway for the $8000 AMS-sponsored VFM awards, with 10 contestants listed.

Bad news & good news for news

2009-01-26T21:10:00.000-08:00

The bad news:

2008-12-28 Buy a newspaper for democracy

2009-01-07 Eric Schmidt wishes Google could save newspapers

2009-01-11 NY Times' financial woes

The good news:

We're solving these problems with Global Voter Media Platform.

UBC VoterMedia Awards tallied

2009-01-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

Today I tallied the votes for the $200 weekly University of British Columbia VoterMedia Awards -- see results at http://votermedia.org/ubc. Welcome new blog The UBC Spectator! There will be one more tally on January 29.

Meanwhile the UBC AMS election campaign is in full swing -- see blog coverage linked from http://votermedia.org/ubc.

There's also an $8000 voter funded media competition running in parallel with the above -- info in my post last week.

Join us to build Global Voter Media Platform

2009-01-19T14:18:00.000-08:00

We are a group of volunteers creating a website and nonprofit organization for the next generation voter funded media system – automated and scalable to all voting communities in the world. Skills we especially need at this stage: Ruby on Rails; Ajax; website graphic design.

More info at votermedia.org/about-contact.html.

To join us, please email mark[at]votermedia.org.

$8000 for UBC VFM

2009-01-15T17:23:00.000-08:00

I just learned that UBC AMS will give $8000 in cash awards in a Voter Funded Media contest concurrent with their election two weeks from now. Entry deadline January 27; entry fee $150; voting January 29 - February 4. Info will soon be posted on the AMS VFM page; or contact the VFM Administrator Mitch Wright by email to vfm[at]ams.ubc.ca or phone (604) 345-8489.

This annual contest is the successor to the two I sponsored in the January 2007 and January 2008 AMS elections, but this time it's funded by the AMS. I hadn't heard anything definite until today, so wasn't sure it was going to happen.

As I've been saying in this blog and on my website, I will continue to administer and sponsor the $200 a week UBC VoterMedia Awards for two more weekly vote tallies, January 22 and 29. No doubt we'll have several of the same media/blogs in both competitions. Today's results are now posted at http://votermedia.org/ubc.

Looking forward to some great election coverage!

UBC blog awards; AMS elections

2009-01-08T15:25:00.000-08:00

I tallied the votes today for UBC media/blog awards -- see results at http://votermedia.org/ubc. Three more weekly tallies January 15, 22 and 29 until the AMS elections -- info on that from the AMS website:

AMS Elections

Nomination Forms are available at the front desk of the AMS Executive offices, SUB 238A, and are due Friday, January 9, 2009 at 4:00 pm. Completed forms must be returned to SUB Room 238. Up to date version of Electoral Code is now available. If you have any questions, please contact the Elections Administrator at elections[at]ams.ubc.ca.

Important Dates

All Candidates Meeting: Friday, January 9 6:00 – 8:00 pm in SUB Council Chambers, on the second floor.
NOTE: Any Candidates who cannot make this meeting must send a representative OR meet with the Elections Administrator at another time
Official Campaign Period Begins: Friday, January 16
Online Voting Begins: Thursday, January 29
On Campus Poll Station Voting: Wednesday, February 4

B.C. politics blog ranking updated

2009-01-01T13:21:00.000-08:00

Happy 2009!

Today I tallied the votes and updated the British Columbia Politics Blog Ranking ballot. Top three this month are The Tyee, Stephen Rees, and Frances Bula.

Thank you all participants! Looking forward to a great year of political insights...

UBC VFM status & future

2008-12-12T10:43:00.000-08:00

I sent this email to the AMS execs this morning:

from Mark Latham

to Michael Duncan ,
Stefanie Ratjen ,
Tristan Markle ,
Alex Lougheed ,
Chris Diplock

cc Bruce Krayenhoff, Matt Naylor, Kyle Warwick

date Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:42 AM

subject VFM status & future

TO: AMS Executive Committee

I'm grateful to the AMS for working with me on voter funded media test implementations for the past two years. I've learned a lot about what works and what doesn't, and am now designing the next-generation VFM platform. It'll probably take a few months before we roll out the first release of that – I'll let you know.

Meanwhile I plan to continue sponsoring and administering VFM at UBC, at least until the next AMS election, which I guess will be about the end of January 2009. During January, I'll sponsor $200 per week of awards. You (or the AMS Elections Committee) may want to consider funding an increase in those awards, to give UBC media more incentive.

You may also want to consider funding VFM beyond January 2009. If you fund it, I'm willing to administer it. But even without awards, I might continue with a monthly vote on UBC media ranking.

UBC VFM info page: http://votermedia.org/ubc

VoterMedia Democracy Blog: http://votermedia.blogspot.com

-- Mark

=====================================
Mark Latham - Founder, VoterMedia.org
"Media for voters, funded by voters."
Email: mark[at]votermedia.org
=====================================

UBC awards update

2008-12-11T16:07:00.000-08:00

Today I tallied the votes for the UBC media/blog awards -- results & other info at http://votermedia.org/ubc.

Heart of Eden won $10 today for a total of $190 since 2008-09-25, but has now dropped out of the UBC VoterMedia Awards.

Future UBC vote tally dates will be January 8, 15, 22 and 29.

First B.C. Politics Blog Ranking

2008-12-01T10:37:00.000-08:00

Today I tallied the votes in the new British Columbia Politics Blog Ranking (successor to the Vancouver Election Blog Awards as described here).

Congratulations to The Vancouver Observer for its dramatic rise into first place! And please welcome seven blogs added to the ballot.

Next monthly tally and reranking will be on January 1. Please vote about once a month; we'll count your latest vote.

While we are developing the next generation web platform for this ranking, we may hold off on adding more blogs to the list. Possible funding of future awards is also on hold pending release of the new platform and development of funding sources and infrastructure. Developments will be announced on this blog...

UBC awards update

2008-11-27T15:04:00.000-08:00

Today I tallied the votes for the UBC media/blog awards -- results & other info at http://votermedia.org/ubc.

We welcome (back) new entrant the Knoll!

Future UBC vote tally dates will be December 11, January 8, 15, 22 and 29.

Vancouver awards morphing to BC ranking

2008-11-17T15:25:00.000-08:00

With the municipal elections behind us, the Vancouver Election Blog Awards will now become the British Columbia Politics Blog Ranking. Provincial election and referendum are are only 6 months away!

Check out the total awards won by each Vancouver blog from May through November 2008.

We are building a new scalable website platform for media/blog voting. To conserve time and funds for that, the B.C. blog ranking will not have awards for now, and will be updated monthly instead of weekly. The UBC blog awards will continue, at least through their election in late January 2009.

UBC Blog Awards Update

2008-11-13T14:51:00.000-08:00

Today I tallied the votes for the UBC media/blog competition -- awards & other info at http://votermedia.org/ubc.

The next three voting periods will be longer than one week each, because of Christmas, my travel plans, and trying to get more votes per period. This will also save time & money for weekly awards in the January 2009 run-up to the AMS election, and for building the next generation voter media web platform (now in design phase).

So future UBC vote tally dates will be November 27, December 11, January 8, 15, 22 and 29.

Langara Blog Contest on hold

2008-11-12T16:35:00.000-08:00

Thank you to everyone involved with the Langara Blog Contest! Unfortunately it hasn't caught on with Langara students. But the good news is that I've learned enough from the successes and failures of contests at Langara, UBC, SFU, city of Vancouver and elsewhere, that I'm planning a new web platform for future competitions.

So I'm putting the Langara Blog Contest on hold until sometime in 2009, when I plan to have a new system rolling out. Meanwhile you can still see the Vancouver (soon to be B.C.) contest at http://votermedia.org/van, and the UBC contest at http://votermedia.org/ubc. I'll keep the Langara blog links at http://votermedia.org/langara.

Vancouver awards update

2008-11-10T14:17:00.000-08:00

I did the weekly tally update today -- see new ballot & blog links.

Vancouver election is this Saturday Nov 15! Be sure to vote.

After next Monday Nov 17, the Vancouver Election Blog Awards will change dramatically. I'll blog about it then.

So I'll accumulate this week's awards through next week, and pay them all out after that.

BTW I couldn't revive my PC that crashed a week ago, so last Tuesday I bought a Mac. Now learning how to set up and use this new hardware & software system...

Stopped publishing UBC voters' names

2008-11-09T22:40:00.000-08:00

I'm no longer publishing the names of voters in the UBC media/blog awards competition. I was publishing them for reasons described in this earlier post. But the data organization required is cumbersome, many voters opt out (i.e. publishing is not popular), and I'm not sure how much benefit there is.

I welcome comments on either side of this question, and any other ideas for increasing voter turnout!

UBC update

2008-11-06T16:10:00.000-08:00

I've just tallied the votes for the UBC Weekly VoterMedia Awards. Voters awarded $100 to newcomer FairVote UBC, $40 to UBC Insiders, $30 to Devil's Advocate, $20 to Global Ink, and $10 to Heart of Eden.

We welcome new blog entrant UBC Years!

I've updated the ballot -- see voting instructions at http://votermedia.org/ubc. But I haven't updated the website with this week's results yet -- coming soon...

Vancouver update

2008-11-03T13:59:00.000-08:00

I did the weekly tally update today -- see new ballot & blog links.

With less than 2 weeks to the municipal elections, I'm preparing for the next stage of evolution of voter funded media system designs. The two-part ballot we used in the past week (funding vote for top ten, yes/no vote for the rest) was interesting, but difficult to tally and re-rank consistently.

So this week I'd like to try a very simple design: approval voting, much like at Digg.com.

My main computer crashed yesterday and is still down, so it's hard for me to update the votermedia website with today's tally results. I'll try to get to it soon.

Vancouver awards updated

2008-10-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

In today’s vote count, Vancity Buzz took over first place, and newcomer re:place Magazine is in second. We’re also trying out a new ballot format – see ballot and blog links.

See also:
- cumulative awards & other info
- vote tally details & history

UBC update

2008-10-26T16:17:00.000-07:00

As mentioned earlier, today only I’m deviating from the usual Thursday schedule for updating the UBC VoterMedia Awards. We’ll be back on Thursdays starting November 6.

Voters kept UBC Insiders in first place, and swapped the places of Devil’s Advocate and Heart of Eden.

Welcome new blog entrant FairVote UBC!

Info and links at http://votermedia.org/ubc.

Media Democracy Day at Vancouver Public Library Sat Oct 25

2008-10-17T17:24:00.000-07:00

Full programme & more info at http://mediademocracyday.org/vancouver.

Media Democracy Day 2008 festivities will take place at the Vancouver Public Library, 350 West Georgia Street(map), on Saturday October 25th 2008 from 12 noon to 6 pm. Admission is free and open to everyone.

MDD will include a series of exciting panels, workshops and speakers.

Confirmed speakers include:

*Rex Weyler - Co-founder of Green Peace
*Deborah Campbell - Award Winning Independent Journalist
*David Beers - Publisher – The Tyee
*Gurpreet Singh - Broadcaster on Radio India, freelance columnist for Surrey Now, freelance reporter for South Asian Post
*Michael Tippett - Co-founder of Nowpublic.com
*Robert Hackett - professor at SFU and author of “Remaking Media”
*Andrea Hayley - president of the Epoch Times Vancouver
*Robert Scales – CEO of RainCity Studios
*Matt Thompson - Campaign Strategist for FreePress, Co-Founder of SaveOurNet.ca
*Kate Milberry - Media and Technology Commentator (See her blog)

Our media democracy fair will provide the public the chance to meet local media makers civil society workers, including representatives from:

Campaign for Democratic Media
Community Media Education Society (CMES)
CJSF
ICTV
NowPublic
TheTyee
SFU CMNSU (Communication Student Union)

and many more...

[Too bad I'll be out of town that day! :-( ]

Again, full programme & more info at http://mediademocracyday.org/vancouver.

VoterMedia Finance Blog

2008-10-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

I've started a new blog on the financial crisis, at http://votermedia.wordpress.com. So I'm moving that topic (tagged "Financial System" here) over to there instead. Please take a look and make some comments!

UBC update; skipping a week

2008-10-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

Awards from today’s tally were similar to the previous week – see http://votermedia.org/ubc, which also links to the blogs and to voting detail spreadsheets, how-to-vote info etc.

Since I’ll be in New York all next week (Oct 18-25), I’m going to stretch the next two UBC blog award periods to a week and a half each. Next update will be Sunday Oct 26; after that we’ll be back on Thursdays from Nov 6.

Vancouver awards updated today

2008-10-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

As mentioned earlier, today only I’m deviating from the usual Monday weekly schedule for the Vancouver Election Blog Awards. We’ll be back on Mondays starting October 27.

Voters again rewarded five media/blog entrants, this time putting Vancity Buzz back in the money – see ballot for awards & links.

UBC awards weekly update

2008-10-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

I just tallied the votes for October 2 to 9. Students voted these blog awards:

UBC Insiders: $80

Heart of Eden: $60

The Devil’s Advocate: $40

Global Ink: $20

Thank you voters and media! More info and voting details here.

The ballot is now open for voting Oct 9 – Oct 16. If you’ve registered, click here to vote. If not, click here for how to register.

Vancouver awards update; skipping a week

2008-10-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

I just tallied the votes for this week’s Vancouver Election Blog Awards. Lowering the award cap from $150 to $100 has shared the wealth a little further – 5 winners this week instead of 4. Beyond Robson remains in the lead; Only Magazine won its first award. See ballot and blog links.

With Thanksgiving next Monday, and me on a trip to New York October 18 to 25, I’m going to stretch out the next two award voting periods to a week and a half each. So next two tally updates will be Thursday October 16 and Monday October 27. Then we’ll be back on a weekly Monday schedule.

I’ll be meeting some of my old Wall Street buddies. We should have plenty to talk about…

UBC VoterMedia Awards weekly update

2008-10-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

Today I counted the votes for the past week. Congrats to UBC Insiders for staying in 1st place, and welcome new entrant Heart of Eden – see blog links and info at http://votermedia.org/ubc.

So we now have 4 media/blog entrants and a weekly award pool of $200.

As discussed in earlier posts, I’ve started listing the names of those who voted.

Thanks to all participants!

Links to analyses of financial crisis

2008-10-01T21:42:00.000-07:00

Here are some links to expert analyses that I have found helpful for learning about the crisis – history, causes, and proposed policy responses. (Please let me know about other sources.)

1. Paul Krugman’s blog at the New York Times

2. RGE Monitor group blog by various economists

3. 2008-09-23 Princeton economists panel
(Hyun Shin, Markus Brennermeier, Harrison Hong, Paul Krugman, Alan Blinder)
To me, the highlight was Paul Krugman’s explanation (45 minutes into this video) of why the idea that “we need to take the troubled assets off the financial system’s balance sheets” misses the point.

4. 2008-09-25 Harvard law econ finance panel
(Jay Light, Robert Kaplan, Elizabeth Warren, Greg Mankiw, Ken Rogoff, Robert C. Merton)

5. 2008-09-24 ProxyDemocracy Blog post on corporate governance reforms
(Andy Eggers)

Financial crisis discussion kickoff

2008-10-01T11:37:00.001-07:00

The current U.S. financial crisis was caused in large part by poor corporate governance and poor democratic governance, so voter funded media reforms can help prevent such disasters in the future. Meanwhile we have to solve the immediate problem of how to achieve short-term and medium-term stability of the financial system. (“We” includes the U.S. government, U.S. voters and people who think about political/economic systems.)

Although my work for the past 12 years has focused on governance (corporate and democratic), before that my specialty was investments: financial economics, derivatives arbitrage, risk measurement and control etc. I worked for Salomon Brothers (now part of Citigroup) and Merrill Lynch (now part of Bank of America) in New York and Tokyo. Before that I was assistant professor of finance at U C Berkeley – see http://votermedia.org/mlresume.html.

Thanks to my interest in Japan, I have already spent some time thinking and writing about how a leveraged financial system can overcome the dislocations caused by falling real estate prices. Japan went through that in the 1990s, and took more than 10 years to recover. In 1998 I started writing a paper entitled “How To Transform a Failed Japanese Bank”. I only wrote 4 pages and never published it, but in 2000 I published a summary in section 6 of “Corporate Governance in Japan: A Future Scenario”. Both papers are available at http://votermedia.org/publications.

Rereading those ideas, I think they can be usefully adapted as proposals for solving the current U.S. crisis. So in the coming days and weeks, I plan to post my updated proposals in this blog. I’ll flag them with the tag “Financial System”. I hope you readers of this blog will contribute your ideas, links, questions etc.

Here’s a question for you: Do you know of anyone discussing the idea of eliminating the tax penalty on equity to encourage larger equity cushions in financial firms? This issue has been around for decades, but is anyone raising it as a cause and partial solution for the current crisis?