Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India • Hacker News Board

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#51

Post by rbecker » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 2:26 AM UTC

compscistd wrote: post #49

Waterluvian wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does cheating work or are there a bunch of horrible doctors out there? How did they not get filtered out during residency?

Highly anecdotal, but my ex at the time (white), bio major, had a real tough time studying for midterms and finals in undergrad. Meanwhile, my cousin (Indian) in the same class was breezing through the exams, partying more than me (a liberal arts major!), generally screwing around and somehow consistently ended up with a better score. My ex couldn’t parse this and just assumed my cousin was smarter or more qualified…

> He got them [old exams] through his campus Indian student group.

Only shared with fellow Indians?

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#52

Post by erdos4d » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 2:35 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #46

gautamcgoel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about cheating in high school. It worked in terms of college admissions (presumably these students cheated in college to get into med school, but I can't speak to that with certainty).

This is an American high school, right? I don’t think I’ve seen anyone blatantly cheat their way through it (though I’m well aware of “volunteering” and “science projects”); where did you attend?

I tutored math in university, had many freshmen who straight up couldn't plug a number into a function and evaluate. They cheated the whole way through and nobody did anything to stop them. I'm sorry to say this, but US high school is a real joke in a lot of places.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#53

Post by whitenoice » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 2:36 AM UTC

gautamcgoel wrote: post #20

I am Indian-American, and while I cannot comment much about the culture of Indians in India, I can comment a bit about the culture of Indian-Americans, especially second-gen Indian Americans like myself. Many of my Indian-American classmates exhibit the behaviors described in this article. For example, in my high school (a magnet program for gifted students), there were several Indian-American students, many of whom…

Please. Being a doctor is boring? It is challenging to be a doctor, and it is almost impossible to cheat through the USMLE (US Medical Licensing Exam) process. It is a 3 step process, which includes four tough exams taken at registered centers, which are actively monitored. I'm saying this as a spouse of a physician who has gone through the journey, and the amount of work they put in through their med school, USMLE, and then residency is unfathomable. Seeing someone put 14 hours of work every day to achieve their goal is not boring, rather a representation of their desire to drive, achieve, and excel. Also, with so many Indian doctors, it says a lot about their grit and hard work.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#54

Post by respondo2134 » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 2:41 AM UTC

ladberg wrote: post #44

nine_zeros wrote: post #34

The poster is being too harsh. It's just a t-shirt. Clearly they haven't met art majors in America attending tech talks for free pizza.

I'd bet most companies are incredibly happy to get an otherwise uninterested art student to listen to their presentation for $1 worth of pizza.

An early post on HN highlighted how it's the open source projects that get flooded with dummy PRs in the process of DO handing out all those t-shirts that is the problem. For DO it's just a minor marketing expense; for your OS project with several hundred PRs it's a giant problem

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#55

Post by compscistd » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 2:43 AM UTC

rbecker wrote: post #51

compscistd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly anecdotal, but my ex at the time (white), bio major, had a real tough time studying for midterms and finals in undergrad. Meanwhile, my cousin (Indian) in the same class was breezing through the exams, partying more than me (a liberal arts major!), generally screwing around and somehow consistently ended up with a better score. My ex couldn’t parse this and just assumed my cousin was smarter or more qualified…

> He got them [old exams] through his campus Indian student group. Only shared with fellow Indians?

Yep, it was the official Indian student group registered on campus. Nothing wrong with the association itself, but a large subset of it were Bio majors so I’d imagine that’s how many were involved.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#56

Post by ladberg » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 2:44 AM UTC

respondo2134 wrote: post #54

ladberg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet most companies are incredibly happy to get an otherwise uninterested art student to listen to their presentation for $1 worth of pizza.

An early post on HN highlighted how it's the open source projects that get flooded with dummy PRs in the process of DO handing out all those t-shirts that is the problem. For DO it's just a minor marketing expense; for your OS project with several hundred PRs it's a giant problem

Yep I totally agree with you on that, I was just commenting on the free pizza thing :)

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#57

Post by numpad0 » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 2:52 AM UTC

compscistd wrote: post #49

Waterluvian wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does cheating work or are there a bunch of horrible doctors out there? How did they not get filtered out during residency?

Highly anecdotal, but my ex at the time (white), bio major, had a real tough time studying for midterms and finals in undergrad. Meanwhile, my cousin (Indian) in the same class was breezing through the exams, partying more than me (a liberal arts major!), generally screwing around and somehow consistently ended up with a better score. My ex couldn’t parse this and just assumed my cousin was smarter or more qualified…

Isn’t that normal? I thought studying past exams is how it works, but the questions improve so you still have to understand the topics.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#58

Post by arebhaibhai » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 2:57 AM UTC

didibus wrote: post #38

A lot of places have societies where culturally the game is about getting ahead of others. You're all together in a society competing for the top spots. Whereas certain other cultures are more about working together to create an ideal environment for all to be emancipated and enjoy life to its fullest. Personally, I prefer the latter, as it just seems much more enjoyable and fun to live in such a culture. The former…

There sure is a difference about always working on own happiness and family/parents happiness. Both are stressful at times and both are rewarding at times. One might feel like foolish and other one just selfish but there is lot more overlap than you think. But then you don't see so many old age home types of things in the latter. It's just culture where people care more for others happiness than their own.

One example of such culture you may find interesting: Since most of the India lives in rural areas and journalist live in cities, you may never hear it. When in a village someone makes a lot of money, he will give a feast to the entire village, sometimes even 7 or 11 villages. You can say how foolish he is.. He can roam entire Europe with that kind of hard earned money, meet new people, be happy. Right? But for him, seeing so many of his fellow villagers having one delicious meal is far more fulfilling. And this keeps happening often here. Earlier they used to make wells for water for all, etc.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#59

Post by wyclif » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 3:01 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #23

IMHO calling it "Hacktoberfest" and not expecting a Jugaad flood seems rather naive of DO. That said, a very similar culture exists in China and the Asian subcontinent (with the exception of Japan and possibly the Koreas), in particular SE Asia, so I wouldn't say it's specific to India.

That was also my initial thought: isn't there anyone in DO management who understands the concept of perverse incentives? "Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome", says Charlie Munger.

Re: Why most Hacktoberfest PRs are from India

#60

Post by rtx » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 3:06 AM UTC

gautamcgoel wrote: post #30

aviraldg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so quick to blame "backwards attitudes" when this behaviour is simply to meant to compensate for discrimination against Asians in college admissions? ( https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-many-sins-... ) Asians with far better scores are deemed to be less worthy due to "uninteresting personalities" than others far less qualified. I don't think it's difficult to understand why the children of…

I think it's backwards to believe that the measure of your life is how prestigious a college you went to, or how much money you make, especially if these goals lead you to cheat and lie to advance.

How is that any different than what Facebook and Google do. Or infact many of the American companies. Will you call stealing people data American? Or profitng by bombing poor nations.

Is being war criminal an American culture?