The Plumbline
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The Plumbline is a humor publication of the McMaster Engineering Society(MES) of McMaster University. Popular among the students of McMaster Engineering, The Plumbline is famous for publishing everything from obscene sexual innuendos to informative articles. The Plumbline was started by a group of engineering students in 1969, and began as a single sheet of 8.5x11 paper. In 1971, the editors decided to turn the newsletter into an 8 page tabloid format newspaper.
By the early 1990s, it was clear that student and administration acceptance of sexist and xenophobic content was reduced. In this climate, The Plumbline reformatted, dropping the drooping penis from its masthead, developing the satirical and parody genres of humour and abandoning misogyny as fodder for comedy.
Some in the McMaster Engineering community feel that the Plumbline is unfairly targeted by the remainder of the campus for its controversial content and potentially offensive subject matter, and that it is subjected to a harsher, more restrictive standard than other on-campus events (such as the misogynistic lyrics of Choclair who performed on campus) and publications organized by other groups (like the campus wide newspaper The Silhouette).
It is important to note that although The Plumbline is a publication of the MES, the material contained within it is not in any way affiliated with McMaster University, and does not express views or opinions shared by all, if any, students at the University.
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[edit] Recent Controversy
Early 2006, The Plumbline began to face a large degree of criticism for its unconventional content. The recent opposition was attributed to being a form of moral panic in response to an alleged rape of a McMaster student. While the exact origin or reasoning behind the conflict is somewhat blurred, the widely accepted view was that it was just another incident of the on-going faculty wars typical of most post-secondary institutions. Regardless, its satirical nature made it an easy target for the Women's Studies side. Students opposing the paper made a huge error in assuming that the MES obtains major funding from the Faculty of Engineering - based on tuition fees - and thus, the provincial government. The MES is an entirely student-run and student-funded organization, and has been since its origin in the early 1950s.
After a brief period of debates and arguments, the group of students opposing The Plumbline eventually stopped after consultations with the Executive of the McMaster Engineering Society and the Dean of Engineering. Currently, the paper enjoys the regular rotation and distribution it had before.
[edit] Current status
- Volume 36
- Monthly 1000 issue circuit exclusively to engineering students
- Production team of 10 engineering students (including editors)
- Distributed from the McMaster Engineering Society's Bob Loree Undergraduate Engineering Lounge, room 121, John Hodgins Engineering Building at McMaster University
[edit] Editors
- 2006-2007 James Spackman, James Morris (current)
- 2005-2006 Ash Eshaghbeigi, Mike Everson
- 2004-2005 Emery Finkelstein, Cam Farrell
- 2004 Jackson Wiegman, Andrew Tataj (two issues)
- 2003-2004 Peter Kostanski, Andrew Tataj
- 2002-2003 Matthew Bigness, Chris Ness
- 2001-2002 Andrew Hill
- 2000-2001 Cam Hodgkins
- 1999-2000 Cam Hodgkins
- 1998-1999 Duncan Forster
