Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

linkedin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 737 posts

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

#201

Post by bb88 »

sitkack wrote: post #187
GrantMoyer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Get a lawyer. Holding your degree hostage unless you work for them for free is off the charts ridiculous. They might have just paid for your entire education. When I went to the UW I used Arexx and my 2400 baud modem to turbo register for classes the moment the system went live.

> Arexx and my 2400 baud modem

Arexx was fun back in the day. A nice scripting language for the time.

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

#202

Post by j45 »

move-on-by wrote: post #163
eykanal wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 do…

It’s a funny thought, but looks like a nonstarter: > SLS cannot represent a student when the opposing party is another UW-Seattle, Tacoma, or Bothell student or UW entity.

An example of the difference between being independent vs third party.

Who mostly pays them sets the rules.

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

#203

Post by nosefurhairdo »

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…

> Unless, that is, I agree to work on a comparable solution for the university focused on solving the underlying problem I was building HuskySwap for. They would presumably own the IP and were clear that I wouldn’t be compensated. But it was implied that they would then remove the hold, allowing me to graduate.

This is extortion.

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

#204

Post by j45 »

NBJack wrote: post #9
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 consult with a lawyer. This is starting to sound like extortion.

Definitely doesn’t hurt to get opinions when the other side has hundreds of resources and billions of dollars.

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

#206

Post by scotty79 »

simonbw wrote: post #91

I went to UW a decade ago, and back then it was pretty common knowledge that you don't fuck with software and the class registration system. Registering for classes was really competitive and they were really strict about making sure that no one had an edge over anyone else by being able to write code. There were plenty of rumors of people being expelled for using scripts to try to get the classes they wanted right w…

This is so bizarre to me that I'm not sure if I understand it correctly. They soft lock him out of UW system which will get him expelled for having an idea for an app for trading spots in classes and implementing a demo with fake data and using the token they provided him with to download data that is public already? And then they try to blackmail him with a promise of restoring system access to do unpaid compelled work for them?

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

#207

Post by hirvi74 »

MostlyStable wrote: post #68
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…

Not to mention the fact that if it were so egregious, then why does the university want the creator's work or some modification of it?

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

#208

Post by [deleted] »

ok_dad wrote: post #18
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…

Call a lawyer, there has to be some who specialize in educational rights violations. I can’t believe the state of education in this country that your own university would harm your life in such a way for an honesty effort to improve things. Fuck whomever at UW pulled this trigger, they need to be fired.

[deleted]

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

#209

Post by simonh »

int_19h wrote: post #184
impendia wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is extremely common. On the one hand, yes, this is absolutely batshit insane. On the other hand, college sports are enormously popular; football games regularly play to sold out crowds of over 50,000, and during football season there will be games on TV all weekend (not just local ones). They bring in a lot of revenue and publicity for the university -- and the latter (debatably?) helps attract students to…

It's batshit insane either way in the grand scheme of things. It just goes to show how market forces don't necessarily incentivize the things we actually want or need.

It seems like crowds of 50,000 people want this enough to regularly pay for it, subsidising other people’s education in the process.

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

#210

Post by eru »

dylan604 wrote: post #179
eru wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think so?

Because even if you "win", you now have all of those lovely legal bills that the lawyer sends you. If you loose, you now have all of those lovely legal bills that the lawyer sends you. So the lawyer wins either way.

Involving lawyers doesn't automatically mean you are going to court. Going to court is expensive, yes.

Most issues can be settled out of court for much cheaper. A good lawyer can help you make that happen.

Post reply on HN