punditry.ca — uncovering DSU elections

Blah blah blah word clouds.

I should note that while Richter and Wolf have platforms in the 450-500 word range, Phillips’ platform weighs in at 1,650 words.  The length of text influences word clouds fairly heavily – in particular, words that would otherwise be prominent are more likely to fade.  Also, Richter has been updating her platform throughout the campaign, I used the latest version.

• You see campus, campuses, and Sexton in Phillips’; she also mentions Carleton and the not-yet-present agricultural college in the full platform.  Sexton and campus appear for Wolf.  Richter mentions none of the other campuses which is mildly surprising given the position.
• Communication and community appear for both Richter and Wolf.  Communication appears for Phillips but not as prevalent as you might expect given the role of the VP Internal.  That said, if you check the platform you see she uses the word briefly and then goes on for 300 words or so, so this appears to be nothing more than an illustration of the shortcomings of using word clouds alone.
• All three show a healthy mix of action words and relevant keywords
• If you are wondering why well shows up so much for Wolf, it’s because of the very regrettable overuse of “As well”.
• Really, none of these are interesting as former candidate Hutton’s word cloud; the top words included “possible president  food activism  union actions”.

Phillips

Richter

Wolf

I possess all the ingenuity of a wharf crane, so please excuse me while I once again trot out these tired old visualizations.  A brief description and a few caveats have been covered before, so I’ll spare you that much at least.

• Sykes is a Comp Sci student, so you should know he’s 10 points ahead right out of the gate in my books.  Not only because of Faculty loyalty: his experience and blog and Q&A pages all tell me he’s a person who gets shit done.  He has all the hallmarks of a type of person I am familiar with, a type who can move from thought to execution almost automatically.  His platform is perhaps the most straightforward of the three: here’s the stuff I’m going to do, plus a bit tacked on at the end about sustainability which he may have thought was just a basic requirement.  The word cloud makes the same suggestion: the top verb is “ensure“.  (compare to “want” for both Hallink and Jardine)  The top nouns are “Events” and “Programming“, which is the stuff he’ll ensure (compare to “year” for both Hallink and Jardine).
• Sykes list-driven platform means words not normally common show up: i.e., etc.  (If we pardon him for joining most of the rest of the world and not italicizing them, i.e. is even used correctly once.)
• I was amused to see “programming” show up so frequently in the platform of a C.S. student, albeit in an entirely different context.
• Hallink is the only one where you see Sexton in the word cloud, and in fact is the only one of the three to use it at all.  Sykes mentions the T-Room and of course starts out with a minor amount of Sexton credibility for being a CS student.  Jardine mentions neither.
• Hallink and Jardine both have “week” as a top word, mostly due to O-Week (oddly Hallink continues to call it Frosh week).  Sykes doesn’t mention this very important week at all, though.
• Jardine and Sykes talk about the Grawood; Hallink avoids the word entirely.
• Sykes and Hallink talk about residence; Jardine doesn’t even mention it.
• Jardine is the only one where province comes up, and it’s in reference to what I think is a really interesting set of ideas, ones that Tourism Nova Scotia should fund in their entirety.
• Hallink has a monopoly on discussions of university athletics.
• There’s more in there; take a few minutes to play Find Your Own Context-Free Generalization!

Hallink

Jardine

Sykes

CKDU managed to interview almost every candidate and referendum spokesperson.  The results are posted on their website.  Very impressive.

There’s a new section on the Gazette website for the DSU Elections.  There’s a handful of candidate profiles up already, presumably more to come.

2012 posters are up for your viewing and commenting convenience.

A handful of candidates have different posters depending on where you see them (more specifically, whether you are seeing the 8.5×11 or 8.5×14).  Both versions are here.

There appears to be an almost-consensus that the twitter tag to use is #DSUelxn; @punditry also has a curated list of known candidates.

[12:45] … will be appearing in the sidebar to the right as we can assemble it.  Comments with links and corrections are welcomed.

[12:53] Profiles are up at dsuelections.ca

[13:00] VP I and VP A E information is there, but at the moment only Clark, Hutton, and Phillips have anything up at the given domains.

[13:09] VP SL posted.  This is much faster when the candidates actually have websites.  Thanks guys!

[13:26] And done. As some of these websites go live, we’ll update the links.

Now that all the candidates know, we can share with you an unofficial candidates list… we kind of dropped the ball on putting out a guessing game for our various speculations and tips.  Whoops.

The list features two current executives seeking the President’s seat (presumably because Saulnier made it look easy), a 5-way race for VP SL, a 4-way race for VPI, two well-prepared candidates for VPAE, and a senate  race that will actually be contested!  Glory be.  Also it features Curtis Johnson running unopposed for one of two BoG seats.  (I feature him by name because that could very well be the first, last, and only time his name appears on this site.)  No word on official referendum campaigns, obviously there will be 5 Yes campaigns with varying vigor.  There are rumours of at least one No campaign, but unclear if they will be official or not.

Please be assured that further analysis will follow.

[Edit 9:50pm: official list now at dsuelections.ca.]

President

• Jamie Arron
• Sarah Bouchard

VPI

• JD Hutton
• Alyssa Phillips
• Becky Richter
• Aaron Wolf

VP AE

• Aaron Beale
• Richard Clark

VP SL

• Gavin Jardine
• Alexandria Hallink
• Sasha Hamilton-Miller
• Kyle Nadler
• Andrew Sykes

Senate

• Jonathan Magill
• Martin Miller
• Navid Rahemtulla
• Zainab Shahtaj

BoG

• Curtis Johnson