When asked about the creation of the rating website, Cas Ebbers responded: ‘There was a running gag in a Whatsapp group, where we thought of a stamp system for constitution drinks. Then, someone made the joke that it might be fun to create an app for it, so it took me about half an hour on one evening to fix it.’ Ebbers however adds that ‘there seems to be a bug in the code, which makes sure that study association Inter-Actief is always the study association at the top of the table.’
Constitution drinks are rated in two ways. Firstly, the general atmosphere of the constitution drink is rated. Secondly, there is a rating for what might be the most important aspect of a constitution drink: the beer. Both of these aspects are rated on a scale from 1 to 5 stars and based on those stars, a leaderboard is made.
Looking at the leaderboard, the concept of rating constitution drinks does not only have winners. Since Scintilla, who are all the way down at the bottom, got a retry later, we consider study association Dimensie to be the lowest rated association. They responded with the following quote by Dan Rather. ‘Ratings do not last, good journalism does.’
With all the traditions that constitution drinks already have, the rating might be a new one. A new way to decide the everlasting battle between study associations over who has the best beer and the best atmosphere. First, the bug in the code should be fixed to make the rating legitimate, of course.
A small constitution drinks dictionary
Constitution drink: a drink where the new board of an association is inaugurated and congratulated by members of the association, family, acquaintances and board members of other study associations. Most of the time, drinks are free because of the inauguration.
Pedel: personal bodyguard who protects the board and the board’s items from ‘brassen’ (see ‘brassen’).
Main pedel: the main pedel controls other pedellen, checks the guest list and announces whose turn it is to congratulate the new board.
Brassen: brassen has two meanings, namely the safeguarding of objects or to ‘bras’ a person. In the first case, invited boards of other associations try to take away objects, like a guestbook or board pins of new board members. Also, a board member can be taken away. When this procedure is successful, the board that took away the object sends a letter within 24 hours, with a specific task to fulfill before the board gets their object back. In the second case, two people, both wearing jackets, grab each other by the lapels of their jackets to push the other person to the ground.
Constitution present: it is traditional for a board to bring a present for the new board they are going to visit. Mostly, but not always, the presents are very impractical items, like a new bench or a huge broken printer.
