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I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

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Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#61

Post by charlieyu1 »

gowld wrote: post #29

He wasn't disciplined for building an app or fetching data. He was disciplined for blatantly trying to "hack" (in the YC sense, in UW's view) the registration process: https://registrar.washington.edu/winter-2025-registration-ch... "Know that trading, selling, or buying open spots is a breach of the Registration Tampering Abuse Policy. Consequences include referral to the Student Code of Conduct process, a Registrar’…

Why is trading considered bad? It is solving some problems for both students and administrators.

In my old days we did the same, only by finding someone who want to swap manually

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#62

Post by ericmcer »

impendia wrote: post #41
jdkaim wrote: post #7

Update: I immediately took down my class project site after receiving yesterday’s ultimatum. I still don’t think the simple demo site violated the letter or spirit of the registration rules, but I took it down because I always want to operate in good faith. They followed up today to thank me for doing it, but also indicated that they were putting a hold on my account anyway. As a result, I am not going to be able to…

I'm a university professor, and this is batshit crazy. Who ? As in not "they" or "the university", but who within the university? Can you tell where the directive is coming from? If this comes from, say, the Provost's Office then this probably can't be handled internally. (The position of Provost is the #2 position at a university, and the provost usually runs the show while the President or Chancellor goes schmoozin…

Are those numbers a sum of the total benefits or something? It seems insane that a campus security guard is making 170k.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#63

Post by uwthrowaway »

gowld wrote: post #29

He wasn't disciplined for building an app or fetching data. He was disciplined for blatantly trying to "hack" (in the YC sense, in UW's view) the registration process: https://registrar.washington.edu/winter-2025-registration-ch... "Know that trading, selling, or buying open spots is a breach of the Registration Tampering Abuse Policy. Consequences include referral to the Student Code of Conduct process, a Registrar’…

I'm a uw cs student, it is made pretty clear that you're not supposed to trade spots or otherwise automate any part of the registration. Students typically know not to talk about this stuff.

While well-intentioned, if this was commonly used it would mess registration up even more by making the "constrained" classes valuable and would be filled up quickly by people who wouldn't take them.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#64

Post by dustyventure »

jdkaim wrote: post #7

Update: I immediately took down my class project site after receiving yesterday’s ultimatum. I still don’t think the simple demo site violated the letter or spirit of the registration rules, but I took it down because I always want to operate in good faith. They followed up today to thank me for doing it, but also indicated that they were putting a hold on my account anyway. As a result, I am not going to be able to…

You may want to check what the conditions are on transferring credit from other schools.. In some schools you only need a limited portion of credit from your own school and a sign off from an appropriate professor for equivalences.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#65

Post by agluszak »

Interesting. I graduated from the _other_ UW (University of Warsaw) and our uni has course-swapping capability built into the University Study Service System (USOS)[1].

FYI public university education is fully government-funded in Poland (i.e. it is free for students).

1 - https://usosweb.mimuw.edu.pl/kontroler.php?_action=news%2Fde...

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#66

Post by impendia »

ericmcer wrote: post #62
impendia wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a university professor, and this is batshit crazy. Who ? As in not "they" or "the university", but who within the university? Can you tell where the directive is coming from? If this comes from, say, the Provost's Office then this probably can't be handled internally. (The position of Provost is the #2 position at a university, and the provost usually runs the show while the President or Chancellor goes schmoozin…

Are those numbers a sum of the total benefits or something? It seems insane that a campus security guard is making 170k.

I don't know.

I knew that salaries at public universities are public in many states, so thought to google it -- but the details can vary.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#67

Post by sneak »

jdkaim wrote: post #7

Update: I immediately took down my class project site after receiving yesterday’s ultimatum. I still don’t think the simple demo site violated the letter or spirit of the registration rules, but I took it down because I always want to operate in good faith. They followed up today to thank me for doing it, but also indicated that they were putting a hold on my account anyway. As a result, I am not going to be able to…

The way that the leadership will make it right in the end is VIA YOUR LAWYER.

Without a lawyer they have no reason to do anything. You paid a lot to graduate, it is nothing short of foolish to squander that investment by forgoing legal representation while they try to extort you.

Don’t have any more unrecorded conversations with them. They are playing hardball and you are pretending that everything is a-ok, when it clearly isn’t.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#68

Post by MostlyStable »

gowld wrote: post #29

He wasn't disciplined for building an app or fetching data. He was disciplined for blatantly trying to "hack" (in the YC sense, in UW's view) the registration process: https://registrar.washington.edu/winter-2025-registration-ch... "Know that trading, selling, or buying open spots is a breach of the Registration Tampering Abuse Policy. Consequences include referral to the Student Code of Conduct process, a Registrar’…

It sounds like the actual demo site didn't actually interact with the registration system at all. He mentions "fake" classes. That's what he wanted the API token for; that would have allowed him to actually make the site function, and he (falsely) assumed that the documentation meant the university was open to the idea.

So while it sounds like his site would almost certainly wound up violating policy had it gone live _it never did so_. That's a pretty good reason for them to deny the API request (which seems like may have not been intended for the public anyway?) But it does not in any way seem to merit the threat of expulsion, or, even worse, the fact that (according to the student in an update), even though he immediately complied they still put a hold on his account anyways.

There is some nuance here for sure, but I do not see in any way that the universities response is proportional to what actually happened.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#69

Post by userbinator »

unethical_ban wrote: post #50
nayuki wrote: post #43

As a non-student, I received an overzealous takedown request from the University of Washington a decade ago. https://github.com/nayuki/Reference-Huffman-coding/issues/1 Also related: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/295420/how-to-cope-...

That is hilariously naive. Particularly in the age of AI, professors might have to go back to the practice of oral exams to have people demonstrate their understanding of an issue. The problem for universities is that means you have to have a lower student:teacher ratio.

Or just any exam where the only thing you're allowed to use is "the mass of cells between your ears", as one instructor I know liked to put it.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#70

Post by uwthrowaway »

jjmarr wrote: post #60
gowld wrote: post #29

He wasn't disciplined for building an app or fetching data. He was disciplined for blatantly trying to "hack" (in the YC sense, in UW's view) the registration process: https://registrar.washington.edu/winter-2025-registration-ch... "Know that trading, selling, or buying open spots is a breach of the Registration Tampering Abuse Policy. Consequences include referral to the Student Code of Conduct process, a Registrar’…

If you look at the GitHub commit history, the repo was created before the blog post from UW, and also never contained actual courses. This is important, because it's the only explicit reference to "trading open spots" they've made. The Registration Abuse policy covers access to the registration system for: * buying or selling one’s seat in a class, * holding seats for another student, * or otherwise registering for a…

UW student - see the "Tampering and Abuse" section of (https://registrar.washington.edu/registration/policies-proce...) which has been around for much longer and is well communicated with students.
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