Shorter URLs like votermedia.org/ubc

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

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"

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

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]

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]

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

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

• Awards comparison -- Continuous vs 1-time VFM
• Correlating media votes with President votes

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.