Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

TPJCian Magazine would like to wish all Muslim TPJCians Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, maaf zahir dan batin. We hope all of you enjoy the holiday as it marks our achievement after a month of fasting.

Why TPJC.net Needs Ami Yousoff

Our college website, or to be more specific our online forum, is in a mess. A huge one. It has turned into a 'playground' for students to attack each other online. The battle parameters have extended beyond personal threads and have leaked into general feedback threads.

Nonetheless, hidden below the dark cloud is one man who is working hard, although subtly, to clean up the mess. He is none other that TPJC.net's most friendly user, Ami Yousoff. Ami is concerned with the recent development of events. For one, he is certainly displeased with how certain parties are 'politicizing' the forum.

Our forum is almost synonymous to Ami. He was the one who popularized the phrase 'well said', which eventually began an online cult among TPJCians almost everywhere - in the forum, Photoshare as well as podcast. He brings humour in our lives, sharing hilarious jokes and pictures in our college website occasionally.

Ami has been instrumental in keeping almost every thread in our forum alive. It is almost impossible to not find his name in any of the forum threads, except for the CCA threads of course.

Referring to Ami's latest forum post which read, 'you know you are from tp when u see ppl being super mean to someone on a certain thread. :(', it is pretty clear that he is not contented with the recent spate of personal attacks lying all over the forum. We believe he is not the only one; there are many 'lurkers' out there who are viewing the updates with a capsized smile.

We are on Ami's side and we hope peace returns to our forum. We miss the old forum whereby we share funny, informative and fresh posts among users. It is very mean to insult your fellow schoolmates online, in front of the God-knows-how-many viewers. If you are unhappy with a user, you should inform him or her politely, via online message.

It is just not right to perceive personal attacks on almost every thread everyday. We need a friendly environment in TPJC.net. We need a fun space for students. In other words, we need Ami.

What I Really Think Of The JC1 Promotional Examinations

Written by Guest Blogger.

The Promotional examinations had ended two weeks ago. While TPJCians are either celebrating their good results or worrying whether they get promoted to JC2 next year, other colleges such as Meridian Junior College (MJC) are just starting their Promos this week. The question arises, why start that early for us?

In my opinion, it may be good to start the Promos earlier. One simple argument is that we may have fewer topics to study for the exams. However, this is not always true because students in different Junior Colleges (JCs) study different topics for their respective Promos.

It is a good idea to start the Promos right after the term break as the break will provide a solid week that can be spent on studying. A lot of things can be during the week, as in my case, I studied throughout the seven days and thus can afford to rest a little in the week of the exams. The much-needed rest is especially useful after the Economics and General Paper (GP) paper on Monday, where the day only ends at 3.30pm.

Observing your friends in other JCs - looking stressed and still studying hard for their ongoing Promos - make me think 'phew what a relief, I’ve completed my promos already!'

As for the promotional criteria, it was one H1 and two H2 passes, with all subjects getting at least 30%. We knew this from the beginning of the year, but now, news are spreading around the college, about whether there is a need to pass GP before promotion is guaranteed or whether Mathematics grades will be moderated and whether Mother Tongue can be taken as the one H1 pass needed for promotion.

I am not sure about them either, but if it is a change of the criteria by the college, it would be unfair as the Promos are already over. Worst of all, different teachers gave different criteria for promotion, making students confused.

Hopefully the college can give the student population the confirmed criteria as soon as possible. Good luck to everyone!

No Post-Prom Party For JC2s This Year

This year's post-Prom party was 'crashed' even before it began. The head of Student Welfare department, Mr Ong Wee Hong, had announced to the JC2 students last Friday indicating that there will be no such events taking place on the 1st of December this year.

Details of the party were sent to the former JC2 councillors early this week via SMS. The message read:

"Hello class reps! Please please please help spread the word to your class that there will be a post prom part at Zouk after prom on the first of Dec. Pre-sales are going at 20 whereas ticket at the door is 25. Tickets are limited to 600 and tpjcians are allowed to bring their friends along(16 and above). Doors will be opened at 10 and the first 300 will receive a goodie bag. Every ticket is entitled to one free drink(alcoholic). There will be 2 house band performances. A booth will be set up in front of the council room for the sales of tickets. It will be open from 29th Sept to 10 Oct."

Nonetheless, it turned out that the event was not approved or endorsed by the college. TPJCians are also not encouraged to attend the party. The JC2 councillors have responded by retracting the original information from their fellow classmates.

It is not known who organized or sent details of the event. There are rumours that it was a councillor since the booth was to be set up in front of the council room. However, many former JC2 councillors told us that they had no idea who sent the message.

TPJC had a post-Prom party last year. The event took place at Phuture(Zouk) and attracted quite a number of students. According to a source from whosgoing.sg, the party drew more than 300 party goers. Now, that's a lot!














So please, if your class chairman had shared details of the event to you and you were not present last Friday, do remember that the party will not take place this coming December.

Anyway, below are the details for this year's Prom Night:

Venue: Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel (Havelock Road)
Date: 1st December 2008
Time: Doors will probably open at 7pm or 730pm
Run Time: Approximately 4 Hours
THEME: MIDNIGHT MASQUERADE

See you there!

Is Our Student Forum Underused?

Written by Aw Jia Hao Willie (08S06).

Our forum is equipped with the basic and sophisticated functions which may not be available in forums elsewhere. What we lack however, is the vibrant community where everyone can share their opinions freely in the forum. Our forum is thus being underused. Now, the majority of TPJC forum regulars are just reading threads. We need them to come out and volunteer their views and comments.

For example, those who are good in art or photoshop can help out in setting up signature stands in the respective sub-forums. It would be a good chance for them to hone their photoshop/mspaint skills. This in turn will allow forum regulars to have their very own cool and customized signatures.

















The report function in our forum is abused too easily. I feel that this function should be disabled first as threads created by newbies are easily shot down by the veterans there. We should try to promote a cohesive community where we all help one another out, post suggestive comments with the occasional smart remarks.

The post count function should also be disabled as it is not a well representation of how well we post, rather on how much we spam. The reputation function, which has not been included for obvious abuse reasons can be given by the would-be student forum moderators, giving credit to contributors who truly deserve it.

TPJC should also try promoting the forum as it is a good place to chill, to read up on recent news that concerns us and to comment on any college issues. As the forum slowly opens up, it will no doubt be one of the next big thing where all TPJCians would be talking about in college. Our forum has no doubt great potential. It just lack belonging and popularity.

Is Our TPJC EconBlog08 Dead?

Most likely. TPJC's very own Economics blog, TPJC EconBlog08, which features news articles and posts by JC2 Alpha students has been inactive for more than three months. It was last updated in May. It seems the the commitment put in for the blog has drained, ceteris paribus.

It is not known what really happened to it. However, if you ask me what may cause its early death, then my finger points at the low interest shown by TPJCians. I think TPJCians are more interested to participate in our online forum than to read the blog. It may not be the student's fault though, as it is the owner's duty to update the blog with interesting articles that appeals to TPJCians in general.










Source

The contributors should also take the blame for the blog's failure to stay alive. Perhaps, the passion to further develop or expand the blog is not there (most probably due to low readership). It could also be due to the contributors' busy schedule. The latter, to me, is a weak excuse as they could have attempted to update it at least once or twice per month.

The Economics blog is not the only birth child of the college Economics Department - Coffee Shop Econs Talk is another initiative introduced by them to make learning Economics fun. Coffee Shop Econs Talk is a free newsletter produced by the JC2 Alpha students. So far, they have only managed to produce one issue of the newsletter.

Are TPJCians less interested in such innovative study resources?

My Thoughts On The Inter-House Games

Written by Chin Wei Hao (08S10).

The first time being in the college’s inter-house games was actually quite a nervous experience for me, knowing that every person from the other groups would be competing against each other to emerge as the top House. Nevertheless, my team-mates and I persevered in our game of soccer before finally winning the final match. My House (Falcon) also won the basketball and handball games in the boys’ category, eventually allowing Falcon to emerge as the champion House for the day.

I had a lot of fun and shared the joy of being victorious and it was really a memorable event for me. I would hope that TPJC would continue to organize the inter-house games for the future batches of students so that they will in turn, share the same fruitful experiences as I had, and build team spirit within the Houses. I’m also very grateful to everyone from each House and the teachers from the PE department for making this event such a success!

Reader Writes About Spamming

Note: This post is written by one of our readers. TPJCian Magazine does not represent the opinions stated below.

I would like to share what I think, no matter how absurd or offensive it may be.

Firstly, I find that some of Joshua's posts, are spam. Topics like 'fruits' could be argued as to serve as a discussion about the ethics of spamming, but ironically, I find that it's just another post to boost the fruit level.

Having said that, there are other threads that serve the spamming purpose. Posts like 'spammer's corner' definitely encourage spamming, and sometimes I, myself, find guilty of doing. Sometimes one just lose control and try to attain a better 'status' and the expense of the welfare of the community. Perhaps common forum practices like locking/deleting threads be in place, thus allowing bygones be bygones.

Now, this might get rather personal. I find that Joshua compares TPJC with his school too much. I mean, we understand that his school might be better, but how he puts it seem to imply the omnipotence of his school, chucking our resentments aside. I find that rather inconsiderate. But he is doing less of that now, so it's a job well done!

Having said that, let's be objective. Treads tend to side track, it's inevitable. Though most would argue that it's a major taboo, I find that sidetracking, instead, helps us to understand the other party. (see sidetrack xD) An irrelevant report could be something as small as personal bias, difference in judgment or even be amplified by a social thing (can't remember the term). It's like a form of pressure to follow suite when you see someone doing it (and i think this is the cause of littering =\)

I think a solution would be to, allowing the fruits to remain, but removing the post counter, ranking (definitely promotes immature acts)...and I've just realized I'm talking about the spamming problem o.O

My Thoughts On TPJC's 23rd Student Council

I have been an open critic to the 23rd Student Council, sniping at them in this blog. The most recent one was concerning the Teachers' Day, whereby I lamented about the lack of updates about the concert and went further to criticize their concert programme after the celebrations ended. What amazes me till now is how well they handled my sharp comments - they replied nicely and professionally.

Recently, the 23rd Student Council launched their first forum thread. It was the first time I get to witness how the councillors were like. Some TPJCians often accuse the Student Council to be a sort of 'exclusive' group which is different or superior to the rest. The council is ostensibly on a higher platform above the rest, or some would describe as elitist. I barely know the current councillors since they adopt a rather low-profile working life - plan events, execute and leave. Starting the forum gave me (and the rest) the opportunity to see for ourselves what kind of individuals our student leaders are. And yeah, they are a funny bunch.







Being a good role model is crucial to our councillors. This is one of the ways they can gain the respect from their peers. I have heard many rumours regarding the council president being sloppy. Apparently, many students are commenting about the picture of Nathan Daniel which was published in TPJC Link, a quarterly magazine of the college. A further 'investigation' showed that students preferred the senior Daniel, the president of the 22nd Student Council, who is popular with his neat and clean-cut hairstyle.

I think the 23rd Student Council is facing an image crisis. We do not know what defines them. And this could very well override the councillors as being positive role models for the rest of the student population. If the canoeing team is known to be strong, the ODAC team recognized as a crazy group of people, and the 22nd Student Council as an epitome of creativity, then what is the 23rd Student Council well-known for?



















Source

I tried to search for an identity that best describes the current team of student leaders. And guess what - I may have found one. Personally, I do not believe Nathan Daniel's 'sloppy' image represents the entire council. In fact, I think some students are just merely comparing the looks between the past and present Daniels. After months observing their actions and behaviour, we all have to agree that the 23rd Student Council is indeed a gracious team. Most importantly, they represent the college values well.

In a nutshell, I hope the 23rd Student Council continue to reach out to the rest of the student population as a council and not as separate individuals. I am rather sceptical if being low-profile as a group is good or beneficial for the council. I just worry if that may affect the bond between the council and other TPJCians. How will the councillors lead in the college cheer if TPJCians barely know who they are? Councillors are key in strengthening and lifting the college spirit.

It's like how the 22nd Student Council president, Daniel Lim, took the effort to blend in with the rest of the TPJCians. We all know he is loud and charismatic. And whenever he started the college cheer, the rest echoed.

When Reporting Posts Becomes A Joke In Our Forum

Our online forum was hit by a new wave of spam attacks late last month. Irresponsible students are abusing the 'Report Post' function which enables users to effectively hide any irrelevant posts in the thread. Instead of reporting truly irrelevant comments, the immature spammers are reporting posts which genuinely adds to the thread discussion.



The proliferation of such childish habit should not be tolerated as it can be pernicious to our forums in the future. The credibility of our online forums will be lost. Students may not participate in the forums anymore as they know their opinions are buried almost immediately after they posted them. Furthermore, the forums may even be a battleground between the responsible users and spammers. Quality discussions are compromised.

Nevertheless, several forum regulars such as Chua Wei Qing and Chuah Meng Jinn had suggested a solution for this problem. They suggested that the anonymity privilege of users who reported posts should be removed. This could effectively deter potential spammers from irresponsibly reporting meaningful comments which adds to the discussion.

It is a good idea, but I think it may be unfriendly to other more responsible users who prefer their names to be hidden. Some of the reports are justifiable, that is made to bury genuine irrelevant posts. Those who reported the spam posts may prefer to remain anonymous. It is a privacy issue.

Chua Wei Qing went further by explaining that only the forum administrator can view who reported the posts. However, there seem to no rules and regulations regarding irresponsible reporting of posts. Yes, the forum administrator can catch the culprits but are there rules which highlights that such behaviour is not tolerated?

Forum Discussion - Dos & Don'ts
Please Do...

* Take a position on the question/issue.
* Make a relevant comment.
* Present evidence to support your position.
* Draw friends into the discussion.
* Make an analogy, illustrate your point.
* Ask a clarifying question if you spot contradictions or irrelevant comments.
* Accept criticism gracefully, agree to disagree.

Try Not To...

* Make inane or irrelevant comments.
* Express opinions without supporting them.
* Monopolize the discussion.
* Make personal attacks.
* Piggyback on another's response, without contributing your own ideas.

There should be another line under Don'ts which can go something like, 'Try Not To...Report posts irresponsibly.' Aw Jia Hao Willie when starting his Student Forum wrote in his forum guidelines warning users not to abuse the report function. You can view it HERE. I suggest stiffer rules and regulations for our forums. If anyone commits a crime, he or she should be banned for lets say, a week.

And oh, forum moderators may also be useful in the long run.

PhotoShare Woes And How To Solve It

A spate of criticisms circulated the PhotoShare early this month. It seems that there is a clash in opinions regarding what and how the PhotoShare should be like. Raja Muhammad Jibrail had openly expressed his contempt towards photo spammers and felt that the photos uploaded by the culprits were vapid, thus bringing down the quality of the PhotoShare itself.

Jibrail was not the first to openly criticize photo spamming; fellow TPJCian, Shawn Wee, started a thread in late April to tackle the problem of 'photo-whoring'. His introductory statement include, "Nobody wants to see such nonsense. PhotoShare is not a place to dump all the crap you took. You wanna show your friends a whole bunch of subjectless photos? There's always Photobucket, Flicker, and even Friendster!"

Most forum regulars are behind Shawn, but some are still sceptical if the idea of photo spamming really exist in PhotoShare. The purpose of having the PhotoShare is to share photos with your schoolmates. There are no rules regarding what kind of photo you can upload. Pictures of CCA events, your favourite sports stars and even nature are occasionally uploaded in PhotoShare. Some users tend to share a bulk of photos which can cover at least two to three pages in the photo sharing system at one go. Each student is allowed up to 5000 photo uploads.

Nonetheless, veteran PhotoShare users such as Jibrail and even Ami Yousoff do not condone such actions, lamenting that PhotoShare is not what it was used to be. My personal favourite artist, Muhammad Noor Iskandar, jumped on the bandwagon to fight photo spamming. He wrote, "Haha true. Sometimes the flooding of photos are very very annoying here. Ehhe sometimes I have to remove my picture and repost them at a later time when this spammers post their photos."

Ami, on the other hand, appeared wretched that his photo did not made it to the Hottest List, allegedly due to photo spamming by another user. However, the photo finally made it in the Hottest List with 375 views and counting after a second attempt. This was the photo:

In my opinion, I believe labelling users who shared their 'uninteresting' photos in PhotoShare as photo spammers is not justified. From what I observe, it is just merely a difference in opinion from the two parties regarding what and how PhotoShare should be. In my opinion, there is no such thing as an irrelevant photo in PhotoShare, thus proving unequivocally that the term spammer is not valid. Obviously, the so-called photo spammers are all about their rights to share as many photos as possible in PhotoShare. And they have all the right to do so since PhotoShare does not specifically set rules which highlights that only original and humorous photos can be uploaded. Furthermore, humour itself is a subjective viewpoint - what you perceive as funny may be dull or even insulting to another.

On the other side of the table, another group of TPJCians suggests that a sudden upload of more than fifty pictures by a photo spammer will mean that other students are unable to view their very own photos. Critics are fast at attacking this group of people, stating that they are selfish and only want to get their photos in the Hottest List, thus stating photo spamming as an excuse when some of their photos failed to make it. I disagree with the critics. All this group of TPJCians want to do is to entertain us with their photos. They have taken time to produce their original pictures or searching for hilarious photos to be shared with the other students, and thus their photos deserve to be rewarded in the Hottest List.

So is there a solution for this? Yes, definitely. I suggest a category/tag selection system which allows users to choose which photos they wish to see. Students will also have choose a category for their photos upon uploading. Let this picture do the explaining:



From here, photos will be ranked in each category. However, there will also be a page which shows the list of photos that are top in all categories. It should look something like this:



It is important that we retain the objective to why PhotoShare was set up, that is to allow students to share their photos freely. I hope the solution above will bring about a win-win situation to both parties involved in the debate.

The Thing About TPJC's Canteen

An original content brought to you by TPJCian Magazine.







SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?



ANY SOLUTION?

What Happened To TPJC's Very Own "TV CAMPUS"?

It has been a year since the college Film And Photography Society (FAPS) produced its first episode of "TV CAMPUS". The project was undertaken to build a bridge or channel between students and teachers for them to communicate and erase any misunderstandings that lies between them regarding any college issues. Students would be able to view the episodes in the canteen during their breaks.

The demo episode invited students to voice out their opinions concerning the bird faeces issue in college. The video received a total of 1,627 views and was favourited 5 times up to date. A 3GP version of the video was also available in school and Tpjcians could obtain it by using their handphones via bluetooth. The video lured compliments from the student population; they found it humorous.



FAPS soon produced its first formal episode which was released during the Teachers' Day concert last year. I was there and the crowd enjoyed every minute of it. Nevertheless, the video fell short of the record 1,627 views set by its predecessor - it only managed to grab 1,213 views in Youtube. It was hosted by former Student Council president, Daniel Lim together with his co-host, Shawn Wee. The video served as a platform for Tpjcians to dedicate their Teachers' Day wishes to their respective tutors and lecturers.



One year later, and a much-awaited sequel never materialised. The Teachers' Day video this year was produced entirely by the 23rd Student Council. The video only featured dedications by the JC1 students, leaving out their seniors. I am not sure what happened to the "TV CAMPUS" proposal. However, if it was true that the proposal was rejected, I may have an answer to why it is so.

I think having a video played in the canteen may not be feasible as students will not be able to hear the audio quality of the video. This is due to the fact that the volume of the plasma televisions are set low to avoid disturbing any ongoing classes near the canteen. This explains why it is not practical to have videos broadcasted there.

Nonetheless, I believe "TV CAMPUS" is a good idea and hope that FAPS can continue the project.

Organic Chem Romance: Mr Ethene's Date Gone Wrong!

An original content brought to you by TPJCian Magazine.

Mr Ethene dating his human girlfriend...

Organic Chem War: King Ethane vs Chlorine Girl

An original content brought to you by TPJCian Magazine.

TPJC Live!

If you are available during the date and time stated above, please support this initiative. Students and teachers are welcomed to join in the 'LIVE' debate. This is the second online discussion organized by us.

Please write your name and class below if you wish to participate. We would like to gauge the number of participants for the event. We are expecting at least 10 participants. Thank you.

TPJCian Magazine: August Round-Up

August has been a hectic month for me as I have to juggle my revision and work on this online magazine. I spent an average of about an hour daily just to update new posts and/or make sure everything is going smoothly as planned. I have used up nearly all my scheduled posts this month as I had to use a large chunk of time to revise my work for my Preliminary examinations. I am not sure if my effort is adequate though - Prelims was very tough.

There are two more scheduled posts left; the 'Biography of Shawn Wee' and 'A TPJCian's Trip To New York'. Both will be scheduled for release very soon, most probably end of September. The scheduled posts system is devised so that the blog continues to live on despite my busy schedule. I have used up more than 10 scheduled posts in August, therefore creating a record of 32 posts in a month.

It was a strategic move as I know and comprehend that the JC1s are very busy this September while the JC2s will make use of the entire October to revise their work. The readership will plunge for the next two months and I don't see a burning need to blog or publish the scheduled posts. After all, only half of the readership base is going to read it.

Besides that, August also opened the door to the Olympics. I expected TPJCians to spend time online checking on news or updates regarding the sporting event. Thus, I decided to update TPJCian Magazine and post the links in the forum as a net to catch the online flies. Furthermore, I bombarded the blog with more posts during and after the E-learning day. I anticipated heavy online activities during this time.

My expectations were spot on and this was the result:













I calculate my readership statistics strictly on unique visitors per month. As you can observe from the graph, traffic has surged from 2,459 to 3,945 unique visitors. This illustrates a 1,486 jump or a 60.4% increase in readership.

I would like to thank my readers and contributors for your support. All this is not possible without each and every one of you.

TPJCian Magazine will cool down during this month of September. I am going to spend more time revising my work in preparation for my 'A' levels. I will also be writing new scheduled posts for release in the month of December this year. That said, we are going to focus more on providing you with useful educational resources this month. There will be interactive 'LIVE' discussions every Saturday, most probably from 10pm onwards. The discussions are very useful for your General Paper as it develops content for your essay.

I welcome feedback from you. If you're interested to be a blogger or contributor for this online magazine, do send me an online message.

Oh ya, enjoy these videos:








Best regards and many thanks,
azhar
07s16