Linus Torvalds did not commit this • Hacker News Board

Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this

#161

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Aug 05, 2015, 12:03 AM UTC

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #150

WalterBright wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should professors really be spending their time locking down all the ways students may try to cheat? At Caltech, proctoring exams (for example) is not allowed by institute policy. A student's honor that he didn't cheat is considered good enough.

At my school many, many students cheat. This devalues the education that I'm getting and is frustrating to students who actually put in the time to study.

It devalues your degree, but not your education. Having the confidence that you actually mastered the material is worth a great deal. Stay strong, dude.

Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this

#162

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Aug 05, 2015, 12:06 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #157

dragonwriter wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Individual students certainly can have this integrity, but the demographic as a whole is demonstrably susceptible to cheating. Certainly demonstrably true of a significant portion of the demographic of "college students". Caltech would probably argue that Caltech students are not a representative sample of college students, and that generalization from the more general class to the more specific here is a textbook…

That's a 'begging the question' fallacy, where the conclusion ('Caltech students are more honourable than that') is used as the premise (ditto). Even if we all agree that Caltech students are not representative of college students in general, it doesn't automatically follow that there is no significant degree of cheating.

> That's a 'begging the question' fallacy, where the conclusion ('Caltech students are more honourable than that') is used as the premise (ditto).

No, its not. Rejecting the validity of an argument for p is not the same as making an argument for not-p.

Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this

#163

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Aug 05, 2015, 12:08 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #148

tgb wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't you proctor exams? The time spent is small, less than 10 hours a semester, and the proctors can answer student questions or make corrections and clarifications to test questions. That it's a small disincentive to cheat is nice too, though in my experience only the most blatant of cheating would be caught. I say all this as someone who proctors exams.

> Why wouldn't you proctor exams? The time spent is small, less than 10 hours a semester, and the proctors can answer student questions or make corrections and clarifications to test questions. Because Caltech faculty (and, for undergraduate student exams, grad students) have better things to do with their time than proctor exams (and, perhaps more to the point, because Caltech wants to attract faculty and grad stude…

There's more to it than that. For example, I didn't feel any need to lock my dorm room door when going down the hall to the bathroom, and often never bothered to even close it. I never had anything stolen, nor did anyone else. (Not totally true, there were a couple instances where an outsider came in the unlocked dormitory doors and tried to boost something, but the other students gave chase and caught them.)

It's just nicer to live that way.

A friend of mine at UT had his room sacked the first week.

Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this

#164

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Aug 05, 2015, 12:08 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #158

dragonwriter wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Individual students certainly can have this integrity, but the demographic as a whole is demonstrably susceptible to cheating. Certainly demonstrably true of a significant portion of the demographic of "college students". Caltech would probably argue that Caltech students are not a representative sample of college students, and that generalization from the more general class to the more specific here is a textbook…

An interesting question is does Caltech's admissions process select (unwittingly or otherwise) people who are likely to follow the honor system, or do people tend to rise to an expectation of integrity? I suspect the latter is more likely. I also suspect that a university with strong anti-cheating measures is expecting students to cheat, and students will naturally fulfill that expectation.

> An interesting question is does Caltech's admissions process select (unwittingly or otherwise) people who are likely to follow the honor system, or do people tend to rise to an expectation of integrity?

I think the latter is definitely true, the former is probably true, and perhaps more importantly, Caltech's admissions process selects for people who are likely to view a system where rules are enforced primarily by monitoring as a challenge, making the alternative to trust being an arms race that consumes resources on both sides that could be more productively employed.

Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this

#165

Post by chrisfosterelli » Wed, Aug 05, 2015, 12:09 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #161

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my school many, many students cheat. This devalues the education that I'm getting and is frustrating to students who actually put in the time to study.

It devalues your degree, but not your education. Having the confidence that you actually mastered the material is worth a great deal. Stay strong, dude.

True. You're right, it only devalues the degree but that's a huge part of the reason that I go to school at all.

Much of my education is self taught, and hour-for-hour knowledge-wise I believe my time could be better spent in self-directed learning, but that degree does have value and people who cheat make it worth less to employers and myself. I think it makes sense to try and catch people who abuse that.

Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this

#166

Post by cegev » Wed, Aug 05, 2015, 12:16 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #71

ultramancool wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this. Had a project in college that was supposed to be time limited... based on repository times. Oops. Big mistake prof. We rolled back the times on our repo and laughed maniacally about our free 6 hour extension.

Should professors really be spending their time locking down all the ways students may try to cheat? At Caltech, proctoring exams (for example) is not allowed by institute policy. A student's honor that he didn't cheat is considered good enough.

That's not the whole story. The student's honor is considered good enough that we shouldn't spend time locking things down, but at least when I interacted more with undergraduates here, Caltech had an investigation process for undergraduate academic dishonesty that was student-run and utterly dysfunctional, apparently involving scenes that would bring to mind the Spanish Inquisition, complete with 2am interrogations and insistence on confessions.

I was told of severe disciplinary actions for accusations that were ridiculous when students would not confess, and an administration that stood behind the decisions of students who judged other students more on their opinions than anything else. One student, for example, was apparently expelled for an instance of claimed cheating that would have involved him running back and forth on campus at the speed of a competitive athlete. He quietly returned a short time later, and was also admitted here as a graduate student; there were rumors of legal threats and a settlement.

At least when I was hearing more about such things, essentially, Caltech placed tremendous trust in students who were well-liked by particular people, and treated those who were disliked very poorly.

Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this

#167

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Aug 05, 2015, 12:17 AM UTC

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #165

WalterBright wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It devalues your degree, but not your education. Having the confidence that you actually mastered the material is worth a great deal. Stay strong, dude.

True. You're right, it only devalues the degree but that's a huge part of the reason that I go to school at all. Much of my education is self taught, and hour-for-hour knowledge-wise I believe my time could be better spent in self-directed learning, but that degree does have value and people who cheat make it worth less to employers and myself. I think it makes sense to try and catch people who abuse that.

I understand your feelings on this, but after you've been working for 3 years or so, nobody is going to give a damn about your degree or where you got it. They'll value what you can do, and that's where your education will pay off.

Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this

#168

Post by vacri » Wed, Aug 05, 2015, 12:18 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #164

WalterBright wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting question is does Caltech's admissions process select (unwittingly or otherwise) people who are likely to follow the honor system, or do people tend to rise to an expectation of integrity? I suspect the latter is more likely. I also suspect that a university with strong anti-cheating measures is expecting students to cheat, and students will naturally fulfill that expectation.

> An interesting question is does Caltech's admissions process select (unwittingly or otherwise) people who are likely to follow the honor system, or do people tend to rise to an expectation of integrity? I think the latter is definitely true, the former is probably true, and perhaps more importantly, Caltech's admissions process selects for people who are likely to view a system where rules are enforced primarily by…

Even if it selects for that trait, it doesn't mean that there isn't a significant level of cheating. You can reduce the incidence of X and still have problematic levels of X.

Edit: An example: the US homicide rate has fallen in recent years. That's good news. But the US still has a serious problem with homicide, as its homicide rate is an outlier at 4-5 times that of all other first-world nations. Americans are getting less murderous, but murder is still a serious problem there.

Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this

#169

Post by vacri » Wed, Aug 05, 2015, 12:22 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #162

vacri wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a 'begging the question' fallacy, where the conclusion ('Caltech students are more honourable than that') is used as the premise (ditto). Even if we all agree that Caltech students are not representative of college students in general, it doesn't automatically follow that there is no significant degree of cheating.

> That's a 'begging the question' fallacy, where the conclusion ('Caltech students are more honourable than that') is used as the premise (ditto). No, its not. Rejecting the validity of an argument for p is not the same as making an argument for not- p .

But that's exactly how you presented their supposed argument: "Caltech students don't cheat because they're not representative of the general student population", with the vague assumption that Caltech students are more honour-bound.

Not being representative of a population doesn't give any information about the makeup of the subsample, unless you have more information to add.

Re: Linus Torvalds did not commit this

#170

Post by chrisfosterelli » Wed, Aug 05, 2015, 12:31 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #167

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. You're right, it only devalues the degree but that's a huge part of the reason that I go to school at all. Much of my education is self taught, and hour-for-hour knowledge-wise I believe my time could be better spent in self-directed learning, but that degree does have value and people who cheat make it worth less to employers and myself. I think it makes sense to try and catch people who abuse that.

I understand your feelings on this, but after you've been working for 3 years or so, nobody is going to give a damn about your degree or where you got it. They'll value what you can do, and that's where your education will pay off.

I'm actually working, and for almost 3 years :)

I definitely agree with what you're saying, especially in startups it really isn't that relevant (part of why I like the startup community so much). But I do spend a lot of time outside startups as well, and that glass ceiling is definitely present in large companies and academia (especially academia).