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Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

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Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#271

Post by bena »

This would be a facepalm moment for me if I were these guys.

Because while they used GitHub in the most common manner, to host a code repository. Not only did they violate the rules technically, they also inadvertently violated them practically.

README.md is a markdown file. GitHub parses this into that little blurb you see below the repo. This is technically a violation of the rules. Part of your project is technically generated by GitHub.

Yes, it is dumb. Yes, I would have done the same in your position. Because I also would not have read the rules that deep. Or just forgot that they counted GitHub among the template generators.

Ultimately, I would have just been kicking myself because I would have felt that this could have been avoided.

I'd also ignore the statement from peterkelly that you're probably smarter than those running the competition or who made the rules.

Also, consider that even if you were selected for consideration, you still may not have won. They didn't disqualify you because they were scared of your prowess. They disqualified you for violating a rule. I'm not sure how many entries they get per year, but it's likely they're looking more for reasons to drop than to add.

Remember, there can be only one winner. And that winner will be the team that made the fewest mistakes.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#272

Post by abracadaniel »

pksebben wrote: post #257
synunlimited wrote: post #19

As a former student that competed in both National and State TSA events from 2006 to 2012 (and won multiple trophies across events including the "webmaster" competition) I'm not really surprised by this outcome. That doesn't mean that its the right outcome but just a result of how these competitions are run. The judges are all volunteers that may or may not have a background in the actual event they are there to grad…

my understanding was that they were DQed for using github, not hosting there. Which is just bananas. I can't think of a single decent piece of software that doesn't use Version Control, and 99.9999% of the software I know uses git for VC. We need a new format. This institutional nonsense is for the birds.

I think the judge saw them being hosted on github and assumed github was something akin to squarespace.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#273

Post by peterkelly »

908B64B197 wrote: post #259
Bean0_0 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a super good idea, some of our posts have taken off and we have even been contacted by the vp of developer relations for github. I'll contact the rest of the group and see what they think. Although, I do happen to know that fbla has a similar type contest to TSA so we might just move to that next year.

>> The best thing to do is to find some sort of constructive way to channel your experience. One path I would suggest is to consider launching your own rival competition, where the judges are volunteers from industry, and the prize is an internship at a company or something like that. This would not only provide your peers with a great opportunity to get quality feedback, but also serve as a really useful experience…

> Reading the replies to this comment saying "rules are rules" is honestly heart breaking

Yeah that was sad to see :(

I like the attitude that if you don't like the rules, go and make your own thing where you can choose your own rules and not be constrained by those of other people. That's basically the origin story for a lot of successful entrepreneurs.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#275

Post by LocalH »

paulluuk wrote: post #103
Dalewyn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good that students learn this lesson now than later. Right now they get to learn these lessons with no skin off their backs. They're kids, most of the stuff they do is of no consequence one way or another. Once they enter the real world and the workforce, they get to learn these lessons with prices ranging from reprimands to terminations. Hardly a fun thing to go through.

People have been using this argument against me since I was a child: "this is good for you because the big bad world will crush you", but frankly I thought it was nonsense back then and I still do. The world is not filled with teacher-type people who will crush you for breaking rules. The world is filled with people who want to get things done, and know that the rules are only there to facilitate getting things done.…

The world is filled with both types of people. There are absolutely people who will crush you for breaking rules, for the sake of enforcing the rules, regardless of validity.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#276

Post by qup »

dusted wrote: post #201

> Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files That basically covers every tool.. I don't know what "generate HTML from text" means, HTML _IS_ text.. so.. notepad is disqualified too I guess? Since that generates HTML files from text if you save the file with the .html extension ?

If it's not obvious, they just don't want you to generate HTML, they want you to write it.

The key word you're ignoring is "generate."

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#277

Post by bena »

richbell wrote: post #216
Dalewyn wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inclusion of Github is not a mistake, because Github[1] cites Jekyll[2] (another named example) as a feature and provides features (web hosting and design tools) similar to another example named: Webs[3]. Would it be more prudent to list "Github Pages" as the named example instead of Github? Possibly, being more specific is never a bad thing. However, the organizers deemed it appropriate to just prohibit all of G…

> The inclusion of Github is not a mistake, because Github[1] cites Jekyll[2] (another named example) as a feature and provides features (web hosting and design tools) similar to another example named: Webs[3]. > Would it be more prudent to list "Github Pages" as the named example instead of Github? It is a mistake because GitHub is first and foremost a platform for hosting code and collaborating. Jekyll is an option…

It's broader than you think. It's "sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files".

Which GitHub does. Hell, even their project right now does it. Because README.md gets translated by GitHub.

But that's cool, because that's just the readme. It won't be on the site site. So GitHub only if you use the repository part. No GitHub pages. Well, no GitHub pages, or if you do, .nojekyll, and README.md is ok, but only if it's not actually part of the site site.

The question is do you start carving out all of these exceptions for GitHub or do you just cut it out entirely. I don't want to deal with that for every single fucking entry. No. This is a high school design competition, I'm not dedicating that kind of time to it. No hosting on GitHub, end of story.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#278

Post by noirscape »

toastal wrote: post #46
peterkelly wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The skills you have to learn in order to use github effectively are pretty generic in nature and easily transferable to other platforms.

Is that why most people don't know stack-based Git flows or how to using send-email? GitHub only really works on the pull request model which is not the only way to use Git. There are pros and cons to these workflows, but if skills are generic, then you can just say "Git" or "Git forge" without needing to specify a platform.

send-email/stack is very niche in use from my experience. Only the Linux kernel and SourceHut really make heavy use of it (and from what I've heard, SourceHut is also looking into at least giving developers the option to not need to use send-email, but no clue how far that is).

The reality is that tools like send-email just... don't really work under the current email oligopoly (since the big providers both heavily filter emails and generally consider IMAP to be insecure). That entire model dates back to the days where email accounts mostly were tied to universities and as a result an emails name had a lot more meaning.

Heck, even for the kernel, send-mail is starting to fall out of practice because it just renders like shit in most email clients. It's a rather dated model.

The pull request flow is the de-facto industry standard, basically all but the oldest git-based projects use it. Not all are on GitHub (since it's proprietary or just straight up issues with GitHub as a company), but even when they aren't, self-hosted git servers like gitea and gitlab are both still using that exact flow.

The examples where this isn't the case are generally rare enough that they're worth more learning as a procedure for that project than as an easily transferrable skill.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#279

Post by bena »

alpaca128 wrote: post #138
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m just going to eat the down votes because I know teachers in real life. And they have plenty of things to do besides running a competition. As a group they don’t deserve the flak. You can’t be so reductive. This is a competition. This is not a startup. Competitions have rules. There is no evidence that the rules were withheld from these students. There is no evidence that the other kids were judged by different st…

> Competitions have rules Yes, but blind application of rules without context isn't the way. Even courts have to take the original intent behind laws into account. > I know teachers in real life. And they have plenty of things to do besides running a competition How does that prevent them from knowing what Github is, as the "person in charge of tech education" at that school? Nobody demands they keep up with every tr…

Because they don't have the time to evaluate if the use of GitHub was legit or not for every single entry.

Re: Disqualified from a National Web Design Competition for Using GitHub

#280

Post by richbell »

some_random wrote: post #269
jame-se wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no reasonable people in law enforcement, they’re there to enforce the rules. Sometimes, you have to deal with unreasonable people and unreasonable rules, even if they’re wrong.

Yup, you're a natural born cop

One of my close friends became a cop because he enjoyed helping people, resolving disputes, and building a rapport and sense of community. He thought that the job of a police officer was to protect and serve the community.

Needless to say, he did not fit in.

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