Ticket Line "disassembles"

[dodger916]

A line already began forming for ticket sales, but quickly "disassembled".  Students cited a concern about getting "cut off" by line cutters as happened last year.  An Athletics representative informed the students that because the line is presently unsupervised by university officials, that they are still vulnerable to being cut off.  Athletics does not have the resources to hire people this early in the process; nor does the university want the risk.  The students understood the risks they were assuming and soon dispersed.

[Greg Berge]

They couldn't self-police?

Thirty people line up.  Five minutes before the university numbering guy shows up, 8 frat boys cut them.  It's 30-8.  Not a problem.

[Jim Hyla]

Greg, you are so right. Back in the "good OLD days" we never had any U help. You got in line and the first few there started a list, and gave the rules for line maintenance till the U openned up the ticket office. Eventually, the U started coming early and taking our list for line maintenance, but it was still student driven.

I think all you need are some aggressive, but reasonable students, and it works. Oh, for the good old days.;-)

[Scott Kominkiewicz \'84]

Believe me.  They're making different kids these days.  I teach freshmen in high school, and you wouldn't believe how reluctant these kids are to stick up for themselves.  There are a handful of kids who cut the lunch line and walk around the cafeteria asking for change.  The offenders aren't aggressive nor intimidating (at least compared to the kids I went to school with), but the masses yield without protest almost every time.

I think we can credit the zero-tolerance non-violence policies that exist in public education.  If there's a conflict of any type, typically all kids involved are punished no matter who provoked the incident.  This starts in kindergarten and continues through grade 12.  The good kids don't want to get suspended, so they avoid the conflict.  I don't want all the kids in my school to walk around toothless, but I hate seeing a generation of wusses letting people walk all over them.  

I teach in a high school with a great academic reputation -- the kind of school that sends about a half dozen kids to Cornell each year.  These are the line dissassemblers.

[Greg Berge]

I understand the instinct to not rock the boat.  #1, you could get kicked out of the line yourself, and #2 the kind of Joe Rockhead morons who cut are the kind of morons who don't resolve conflicts rationally.  This is the way bullies generally get their way -- it's too much of a pain in the ass to deal with them.

[dodger916]

I think a proposal could be discussed between Athletics, Day Hall and students to have STUDENTS create the line numbering process.  This would be one topic the student assembly would love to own, and could generate all sorts of positive fallout.  "Students, after you've figured out how you want to do it, consider the department resources at your disposal."  (within reason, of course!).  "Of course, we'll handle the money!".  It seems to reason that students MIGHT be less willing to intrude upon or violate a student-driven process, whereas with Athletics in charge, they feel less restrained from trampling the rules.  Admittedly this does not address the question of student screwing-over fellow student.  That harkens to some of the earlier, very valid observations about "kids these days".  Respect for anything "decent", like manners or our ubiquitous elders, seems a foreign concept these days.  When did we as a society stop endorsing these values and mores, or is it just that I'm more jaded than originally suspected?

[DeltaOne81]

[Q]Greg, you are so right. Back in the "good OLD days" we never had any U help. You got in line and the first few there started a list, and gave the rules for line maintenance till the U openned up the ticket office. Eventually, the U started coming early and taking our list for line maintenance, but it was still student driven.[/Q]
I plan on trying to recreate this tradition if at all possible when I get there tomorrow evening/night. I'll let you know how it goes when I return to life near a computer, sometime on Saturday.

-Fred

[Greg Berge]

To be fair, "kids these days" are no worse than kids in any age.   I've seen "kids these days" complaints dating back to impassioned speeches to the SPQR, and they're all bunk.  As one of the most decrepit elders on the forum, I can tell you that during my generation's student days of artificially-extended adolescence, we were every bit as impolite, crude, and stupid as today's undergrads.  It's nothing fifteen years, two kids and a mortgage won't fix.

[Nate Oaks-Lee]

I think the Cornell Athletic Department called it wrong on this one.  They have kids wait in line, because they want the most rabid hockey fans.  But when it all boils down they kick the most rabid fans out.  I don't know if it's true or not, but a kid I talked to said that there was a group waiting on Wednesday night that was kicked out and came back Thursday night only to be kicked out again and had their names and ID numbers taken and won't be able to buy tickets now.  If the story is true, Schafer just lost his most rabid fans at games.

If the athletic department can't watch the process early on, then they shouldn't.  If the department can only staff someone after a certain, start providing staff then and take things from there.  Let the kids who are already there stay.  Kids know the risks of lining up early.  Most of us are atleast 18.  I'm not saying that we are all knowing, but we have seen some of the world and for once maybe Cornell can treat us like the capable kids they thought we were when they accepted us here.  Let us line up when we feel we are ready to.  If we skip class, so be it.  No one comes calling when we don't go on other days, why start when we go wait for hockey tickets.

All in all, I think it would be hard for them to make the line process any worse than last year.  The problem isn't people cutting in line the night before so much as it is people who cut in line 10 minutes before line numbers are handed out.

Well, that's my rant for the day.  I'll save the fact that they are charging to listen to games online now for another day.

[dodger916]

Despite posted signs indicating lines will be dispersed, students lined-up overnight only to be sent home this morning.  The administration can not condone a process that encourages student to cut classesl, so they can't provide any supervision for the line.  And those that have no school will have an unfair advantage over students who do not.  The students understood the reasoning and dispersed in an orderly and mature manner.

It seems the university will provide some "authority" this evening after classes end - seems reasonable.  Prior to that, any assembly will be dispersed.  Anyone excercising their right to assemble may encounter Athletics' right to NOT sell tickets to them.

Today's weather looks questionable.....

[Josh \'03]

Last year, I was the 36th person on the line, from my count, and stayed up all night patroling the best I could against cutters.  I ended up with line number 111.

The main problem wasn't egregious line cutters.  For them, we all did stand up for ourselves and got them to leave when we caught them.  The problem was the "self-policing" policies set by the first few people in the line.  They decided that at the early stages, 1 person could hold a spot for 4 other people in the line at least at the early stages, which people held onto all night, so you'ld have people poping back in the line that thoguht they had a legit right to be there and wouldn't leave.  And there was no staff authority to turn to and back us up, even though we'd been sitting their all night.
It's not fair for the first person in line to make the policies. It's fair for everyone to know what the policies are.

And dispersing the line is great too.  Starting to wait on Wednesday night may be a way to express your love of CU hockey, but it puts pressure on everyone else to start waiting, which cant be contolled or patrolled, and thus cutting and cahos is bound to pursue.  Doing it the right way, coming early enough on Friday afternoon, only helps those people to night wast time they don't need to, and help everyone get a fairer line number.

[DeltaOne81]

An email from a friend:

1)The line starts at 6pm - anyone in line before that will be kicked
out.  Also, should you refuse to leave, your name will be taken down and
you won't be sold tickets.

2) Absolutely no cutting - they will be patrolling this weekend and
kicking people out who do this.

Apparently a last minute decision by the Athetics people, bc the initial page said nothing bout 6 pm and nothing about patrolling (in fact, it specifically called it the 'unsupervised line'). Nonetheless, I think they're good changes.

We (or at least Cornell) don't want people skipping classes and we don't want cutters.

-Fred

[jtwcornell91]

DeltaOne81 '03 wrote:

An email from a friend:

1)The line starts at 6pm - anyone in line before that will be kicked
out.  Also, should you refuse to leave, your name will be taken down and
you won't be sold tickets.

So, how do they propose to prevent a mad scramble at 6pm sharp when the line will be allowed to form?  How far away can you be standing at 5:59 and not be dispersed?  It seems to me like the easiest way to prevent chaos at the front of a line is to allow the first person to line up earlier than anyone else is willing to.

Also, doesn't dispersing lines that form before 6pm Friday count as a part of the procedure which was not announced ahead of time, and wasn't that the biggest complaint people had?  I seem to have accidentally voted for "bumblefuck" in this poll, but it sounds like that's not far off...

[CowbellGuy]

You didn't vote for anything. Performance caching wasn't allowing for proper domain name resolution. If you care enough you can delete the elf.hockey.cornell.edu AdvancedPoll29 cookie and vote again. That goes for everyone else who might have voted.

EDIT: I just made a new poll to replace the last one, so no need to worry about cookies. Should be able to vote now.

[Greg Berge]

Since nobody wants to encourage cutting class, why don't we have the actual number assignment on Sunday evening, rather than Saturday morning?  It's been Saturday morning as long as I can remember, and I don't see that it makes any sense.