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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

#131

Post by ChrisClark »

uwthrowaway wrote: post #70
jjmarr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How does a fake site, with fake classes, that had nothing to do with actual registration, violate that?

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

#132

Post by charlieyu1 »

LPisGood wrote: post #98
charlieyu1 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It opens up for abuse by offering to sell a spot.

The downside is that you may be unable to sell it and actually have to take a course that you don’t want

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

#133

Post by spieswl »

GrantMoyer wrote: post #88
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 am not planning to get a lawyer involved as I have faith that UW leadership will make it right in the end. All evidence so far indicates they will not make it right, but instead they may make it even worse. Your faith is wildly misplaced. Seriously, talk to a lawyer. Keep in mind, just because you seek advice from a lawyer doesn't mean you need to take legal action against the school. Talking to a lawyer is not a…

Having seen what some other university administrations have done to darling students and innovators even just around such things as lab space, parent comment is right on the money.

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

#134

Post by Zak »

timewizard wrote: post #80
Aurornis wrote: post #21

I have several friends on the administrative side at Universities. The two things you have to realize is that there are an incredible number of administrative staff at Universities and they're extremely territorial. You rocked someone's boat and they got upset. They have a lot of time on their hands because there are so, so many people in administration. Now they're coming after you like it's their job. I think you'r…

> have a lot of time on their hands because there are so, so many people in administration It shouldn't be difficult to determine why education costs are so inflated, nor should it be difficult to see the obvious solution here.

This problem seems to be fairly well known, but insufficiently scandalous for anyone with power to do something about it.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinesimon/2017/09/05/bureau...

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

#135

Post by tehwebguy »

dgfitz wrote: post #99
LPisGood wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bonkers, and sort of smells. I’m not saying you have outright said anything untrue, but there is at least some ambiguity that my mind is filling in, potentially incorrectly. Can you clarify how you got the Swagger files? Were they publicly available? Could you share the exact verbiage they used to seemingly extort labor and intellectual property from you? Does the university have some previously existing (and…

I wouldn't answer this question if I were the OP.

https://webservices.washington.edu/sws/

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

#136

Post by userbinator »

loeg wrote: post #105
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-...

I would not call that overzealous? It's not couched in legal language / demands, it fully explains the rationale for the request . Intro CS students cheat all the time , they're very lazy about it, having posted answers as top Google results facilitates that and increases TA burden. (Full disclosure, I was personally acquainted with Whitaker long ago. He was a TA for the intro classes. I think he just sincerely wante…

It's definitely an overreach, and reflects badly on him and his employer.

If one of my open-source projects got hit with that sort of request, my response would be far less polite.

(Full disclosure: I have taught CS courses before.)

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

#137

Post by chillfox »

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…

Focus on graduating.

Accept that you have lost, take the offer.

It's unlikely that you will have to do more than attend a few meetings and write some emails, possibly provide some code samples. The goal is likely not a complete working solution but to punish you for unwittingly countering someone's reason for needing a large team (and therefor you are threatening their pay).

Quite possible the desired solution here might be you agreeing to say that a proper solution can't work safely with the university systems for some made up reason.

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

#138

Post by mingus88 »

mandibles wrote: post #78
crystal_revenge wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent quite a bit of time in academia and was going to post something similar. Universities, no matter how great, are filled to the brim with petty bureaucrats just itching to exert whatever meager power they wield over someone whenever they get the chance. > So be loud, but polite. Fully agree. In academia problems don't get fixed until it's more annoying to not fix it. The more attention this gets the more lik…

The conflict is so intense because the stakes are so low.

This is so true. My nephew worked at a Starbucks kiosk for a minute and had to deal with the most toxic territorial BS from the women who worked there before he started

I said basically the same thing to him. It’s amazing how bad it can get when you threaten someone’s small stake when that’s all they have.

Reminds me of when I suggested to a college admin that she could automate some scheduling chore. She gave me death stares as if I wanted to take all the food off her plate.

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

#139

Post by turbojet1321 »

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…

The head coach of football gets paid $4mil a year (4x the president) and is the highest payed employee. The top 7 staff are all sports related.

Is this, like, common in the US? It seems batshit insane to an outsider.

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

#140

Post by eykanal »

GrantMoyer wrote: post #88
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 am not planning to get a lawyer involved as I have faith that UW leadership will make it right in the end. All evidence so far indicates they will not make it right, but instead they may make it even worse. Your faith is wildly misplaced. Seriously, talk to a lawyer. Keep in mind, just because you seek advice from a lawyer doesn't mean you need to take legal action against the school. Talking to a lawyer is not a…

Just piling on here because upvotes are not visible. The one thing you can guarantee is that your good faith is not reciprocated by the university. Get a lawyer.

To make it easier: it sounds like you're still registered. University of Washington offers Student Legal Services ( https://depts.washington.edu/slsuw/ ). Set up a referral with one of them and talk to them. Even if they're employees of the university and don't want to work with you to sue the university itself they may be able to give you good advice about how to proceed.

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