el_M: In the moonlight...

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Yah this is quite a stale issue... has been days since CORS bidding ended but y do i have to crap on it? Well, u may be surprised tt ppl r still harping on it... so i my as well put in my share of the pie...

Dis yr has been particularly bad for bidding... 1st, the ABNORMALLY HIGH traffic not seen in previous years; and 2nd, server crashes... Such an event has brought about frustrations from students all across NUS, in wadever faculties or schools... Some went on to put the blame on the system and the CORS task force --> "Yes its all CORS fault!... Down with CORS!... CORS is corruption!... CORS is poisonous!... CORS is Satanic!..." Rite... But has anyone or anywho has thought deeply about it and realise that u might have been part of the increasing entropy of de system? (Yah cheem cheem stuff here... for those whu dunno... entropy is a measure of randomness or irregularity...)

Till now, 2 good weeks after tutorial balloting, ppl r still heating up the forums on HOOKED, directly sending the flame onto CORS... hey, theres no point in anymore "arrow pushing" now, wads the use of BBQ-ing the CORS system? u cant eat CORS rite? we all had a part to play in it and we do have lots to learn from it... the task force shd be reviewing the problems to improve the system in future sems, and we shd be evaluating ourselves to check wad n wad not to do in future bidding n balloting rounds...

Many many replies in thr still saddens me... makes me wonder r we as young adults able to evaluate maturely b4 making any rational judgements...

irrational behaviour of students? more like incompetence n inefficiency of the cors team
--> so u see wad i m saying?

it is inevitable to have students sharing the same free time and thus logging in at the same time i feel. How about students who do not have free day time on the day of balloting? they have to sit in the lecture halls with their mind worrying if they could get their timeslots. i think NUS should be prepared for such situations to arise. its a world class university afterall!
--> personally i m one of those worrying in classes... so much so tt i had my lappie with me trying to login during TUTORIALS! well, cant blame anyone... just tt its unlucky tt server had to break down then... also, wolrd class university may have some glitches here n thr... no man is infallible...

If NUS really rents expensive machine that are meant to cope with humogous server loads and yet cannot handle the simulataneous log ins, clearly they are not doing enough
--> well tts very very high expectations... being in the CORS task force muz have been very stressful... esp when students can get so cranky...

dun tell me that server cannot take it.. admin noes that there will be a rush, it's human nature, can't stop..n i'm curious about the "high-end servers", if those are the best in sg, we really have something to worry about..
--> well, even the best arent omnipotent... we can expect lots out of them, but if they cant take it, they cant take it... wad more can we say?

Well, I feel that one option of solving the problem is to do away with the bidding system. Not all universities do that, and they cope quite well so far. I would prefer balloting for the modules than bidding for them.
--> how bout standing outside some deans office for hours in order to secure de core modules u HAVE to take but not given to u? sounds fun rite? NOOOOO!!!!!!

finally theres dis penned my urs truly... haha makes me feel like a saint...

I believe everyone has a part to play in this fiasco. It may be true that the servers were inadequate to meet the "rush hour" needs during bidding and balloting, which should not have been the case after a few years of CORS. But well, we still should give them a break and not vent our frustrations unnecessarily. It does not solve problems. We also have a part to play too. Hogging while connected, repeated logging in and out... all these are but our faults and we have to acknowledge rather than conveniently push them aside.

I myself had been frantically attempting to log in when I couldn't, not realising I was myself an additional burden. Now that I learnt this I will try my best not to do this again next time.

I believe that this event has been a learning process for everyone, be it the CORS task force or the students themselves. Give CORS time to improve. I believe it will be better in subsequent semesters. It may be that doing away with CORS completely is an option, but I seriously don't want to end up queueing outside some office for my modules!

With tt, I do hope all these issues will end once n for all... with those areas in nid of improvement done swiftly... for a better CORS nxt time!

Dennis ~ 2:25 pm