Blog Analysis: Richness of Conversation Online: The Factors

In his blog post, Because Reading is Fundamental, Jeff Attwood argues that the quality of online conversation goes down significantly because people are not incentivized to read. They are instead incentivized to comment and contribute to the conversation bellow the article, even if they have not read the entire article and do not know what they are talking about.

The piece draws you in with the picture of the name bar at the top, with the question “what message does this send?” below the screenshot. This is an effective way to draw the reader in because it is vague, yet intriguing, and entices them to read further.

Overall, the blog is very effective in conveying its message. The reader feels engaged throughout, and the hook is strong. By using other sources such as The Ars Banana Experiment, and The Slate Experiment Attwood makes his argument all the more compelling. The fact that he uses outside sources coupled with the fact that the language is elevated suggests that this post, and the blog at large is intended for an educated audience, possibly in the communications or psychology fields. It is also meant for a younger audience with a significant online presence, because of the content of what it is talking about. The fact that it is posted on a blog also indicates that it is for a younger audience maybe late high school age to 40- or 50-year old’s with a focus on people in their 20’s and 30’s.

The research he uses compliments his points well and further proves his thesis that the best and most productive conversations have very little to do with the amount that people are talking and everything to do with how well people are listening, or in this case reading. The fact that in the Ars experiment, the 93d comment was the first to comment “bananas” shows how chronic this problem really is. Over 90% of people didn’t read to the 7^th paragraph of the article.

The suggestions made by Attwood are to remove interruptions from reading, primarily pagination, measure read times and display them, give rewards for reading and lastly, update in real-time. All of these are good techniques for keeping the reading problem in check. The internet and social media need to shift their focus from a comment incentivized system to a reading incentivized system.

News Release: Victoria Based Widget Company is Rehiring 200 Employees

NEWS RELEASE

DATE: January 16, 2020

Victoria Based Widget Company is Rehiring 200 Employees  

The National Widget Company is thrilled to announce that we are rehiring 200 employees across 3 of our plants throughout Canada, 50 of which are being rehired to our main plant located here, in Victoria BC.  “We have sent recall notices to all employees who were laid off in June. As a family-owned company, it was heartbreaking to lay off so many loyal people, so we are thrilled to be offering employment to people we consider part of the family” said National Widget Company President Andrew Bryce in his statement today.

Originally, the reason we had to lay off so many of our valued employees was that the traditional middle eastern widget markets were no longer viable. However, the reason we are able to rehire all of the employees’ back is that we have found a viable market in China. The National Widget Company was the first to approach China about widget sales, and we were able to establish a deal with them. Every new building in the country needs widgets installed. As a result, widget sales are rising exponentially.  

As a family owned business, we value our employees greatly, and many of them have been working with us for a long time. We are welcoming them back gradually over the next few weeks and expect our Victoria plant to be operating at full capacity within 6 weeks.

Bike Lanes Need to be Fixed: One pager one

Bike lanes encourage greener forms of transportation as well as healthier living, help the local economy by allowing people easier access to local shops and provide safety to pedestrians.  

That, however, is where the good attributes end, as they are good in theory, but in practice, they are a logistical nightmare due to being too narrow in some portions, road safety and improper regulation.

Some portions of the bike lanes are too narrow for people with disabilities to safely ride their three-wheeled and four-wheeled vehicles. In fact, many sections of the bike lane system only meet the bare minimum standards imposed by the Transportation Association of Canada. To make matters worse, these bottleneck areas are located in areas with high congestion such as downtown Victoria, which is usually where people are going to commute to and from work from. This makes it very difficult if not impossible for disabled commuters to bike to and from downtown. 

Perhaps the most sizable concern about bike lanes relates to road safety. Specifically, to the lack of regulation and training of cyclists on proper road etiquette. This lack of clarity and training can be very dangerous when dealing with vehicles with such significant size differences. There should be stricter regulation of the laws that do exist, and more laws put into place outlining exactly what cyclists are and are not allowed to do on the road.

The ICBC website has general guidelines about helmet safety and whatnot and the BC government website has some laws in regard to cyclists on the road. Clearly however, not enough people are checking these laws before they start riding.

Victoria recently released a plan to expand the bike lanes in 2020. This would definitely benefit the community at large, however, the City of Victoria have to fix the problems with them first. This way, when the new bike lanes do come in Victoria will have stayed true to their promise to have bike lanes that are accessible to all and not just some.

The Yes Man

Chris Palliser may be the only former Camosun student to have ever gotten detention. With his easy-going and talkative manner, it is easy to see how he would have gotten in trouble when he was younger. It is this sociable personality however that landed him a job in radio in the first place. “I talk for a living and I like to talk” Palliser says, “I get my battery recharged around people”. This outgoing and extroverted personality is especially useful since, as a radio personality, you are trying to convince the listener that you are just a group of friends having fun, Palliser says. So basically, you have to be able to get along with everyone.  

Chris went to school at Camosun in the Applied Communications program in 2001 and graduated with a full-time radio job. He has worked in multiple different radio stations across BC and Alberta over the past 19 years and has acquired a wealth of knowledge. He says to never say no to an opportunity, because every opportunity that comes your way was a new experience from which you either learned something or something cool happens. Palliser recalled a time when he was in Vancouver and the Canucks needed someone to emcee one of their parties. No one else wanted to take the gig because it was unpaid, but when Palliser took it, they ended up inviting him back. The next year though, they gave him a ticket to one game and then the next year, they gave him two free tickets until finally, in 2011, they invited him back and gave him two tickets to every home game of the Stanley Cup play offs. So, just by being a yes man, Palliser opened doors to amazing opportunities both in his professional and personal life. Currently, he is working at Virgin radio on the morning show. He got there by always keeping an open mind, learning, saying yes and never developing an ego. For anyone looking to go into the radio industry, this is advice to live by. 

Opinion 2: How the USA’s COVID 19 response effects Canada

          

 The uncertainty of the COVID 19 situation weighs heavily on the minds of families and individuals across Canada and the US. The good news though, at least for Canada, is that help is on the way. The US, however, is implementing little in the way of support for their citizens, which in turn affects people’s ability to stay home and therefore, the ability to stop the spread of COVID 19. The fact that the US has done this not only affects the world at large, but it has also had some profound impacts for Canada.         

The United state’s response has been appallingly slow and inadequate. While they are donating to non-profits for the crisis, they have failed to put any kind of emergency monetary assistance plan in place for their citizens. While Canada has implemented CERB (Canada Emergency Response Benefit) in order to allow citizens who need to stay home to do so, the US has done little to help its citizens.

 Because most services are privatized in the states, it is up to you to get the sick leave you require from your work and insurance. The system of capitalism is failing the states very badly, in this time of crisis. The US is one of the largest economies in the world, and so if their economy crashes, the economies of other countries will follow.

As a result of their inadequate response to the crisis, the United States is now scrambling. President Donald Trump issued a statement that attempted to stop shipping 3M masks oversees. This is a ridiculous response since world leaders should be coming together right now and working together to compile resources instead of doubling down on measures that will not help anyone in the long run. Countries need to work together in order to get through this crisis, instead of pulling away from each other and shying away from helping one and other.      

Currently, there are over 400,000 cases of COVID 19  in the USA and about 17000 cases in Canada. This massive difference can be attributed for the most part to Canada’s relatively quick response and the US’s lack thereof. In the short history of this virus’ existence, countries such as Taiwan and Singapore who have responded quickly and effectively and have targeted the problem proactively have not only suffered the least loss of life but have been able to keep afloat economically.

There also seems to be much confusion in both the US and Canada about who is responsible for regulating things such as social distancing and where you can get tested. The federal governments and the states and provinces of both countries keep going back and forth on who is responsible for placing regulations on what. It just goes to show how much new information is coming out each day now, and furthers people’s anxiety about the uncertainty of things. It also goes to show just how unprepared both countries were to face a crisis of this type and magnitude.     

While Canada has not been the quickest to respond and still has to be vigilant, the government is taking steps in the right direction to prevent further complications. The states, however, absolutely needs to do more to stop the spread of the virus to try to avoid the catastrophe that is already unfolding. If the states does not act quickly, it will see it’s economy crash and many more dead.       

https://globalnews.ca/news/6770564/coronavirus-ei-beneficiaries-federal-emergency-benefit/

https://www.schoolfinder.com/Discover/Article/1/5188/Government-of-Canada-Announces-Moratorium-on-Student-Loan-Payments

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23F4tzGo0Gs&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1iEVkAJP6-_TNclzxEYBdfRCm4waIsd35pwe6lw3JhFWLPBNMLjXWn2gY

https://nationalpost.com/health/how-taiwan-and-singapore-managed-to-contain-covid-19-while-letting-normal-life-go-on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5oeg9JZ2-w

https://www.state.gov/u-s-support-for-asean-in-fighting-covid-19/

Free tuition means a better Canada

Free tuition has been a hotly debated topic for some time now in many countries, including Canada. It is in the best interest of millions of people to provide free tuition as it means more equal access to education for all.  It also promotes education and fixes a broken system of teaching which focuses more on research than producing well rounded alumni.

Free tuition promotes education by making it so that everyone can have more equal access to opportunities that were previously accessible only to the very privileged. Charging tuition fees perpetuates the divide between the rich and the poor by creating the barrier of student debt. Families with lower household incomes automatically spend more of their household incomes on tuition then rich families because the cost of tuition is the same for both, but household income is not. By removing this barrier for low income families, it would mean that the next generations of children from this background would have a better chance at lifting themselves up over the poverty line. Making it so that all students had to worry about were living expenses would take a lot of the stress and deterrence out of getting a post-secondary education. Generally speaking, people who get a higher education can also contribute more to the economy.

One argument against free tuition is that we would be supporting a broken system instead of fixing it. This is based off of the premise that universities where created for the purpose of research instead of teaching which means that many universities allocate a lot more of their money and resources towards research then towards teaching. While this is true, the system tends to fix itself when we introduce free tuition.

German universities for example, used to be some of the top universities in the world. However, they have dropped in their ranking significantly since they have been offering free tuition. This is because there has been a shift in focus from research to teaching, and the ranking system is based on research and does not take into account other factors such as teaching. So, by providing free tuition, the system starts to repair itself. Universities begin to shift their priorities from producing quality research to producing quality alumni.

It would benefit a huge portion of the population to offer free tuition for everyone because it would make education more widely available and would fix aspects of the post-secondary education system. In addition, people who have some form of post-secondary education generally get higher paying jobs, so they contribute more to the economy in the long run. Canada should consider this making short-term investment in order to accrue the long-term gain of educating its citizens.        

 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2019/07/16/five-reasons-why-free-college-doesnt-make-the-grade/#3fa195aca6c1

https://cfsontario.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Factsheet-FreeEducation.pdf