I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled • Hacker News Board

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

#681

Post by maeil » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 5:05 AM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #544

maeil wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reckon most HNers in such a situation have made the same script, I know I did.

I didn't have to, my college provided fairly functional class scheduling systems. It had integrated wait lists, so you could just sign up and hope someone else drops if needed, and occasionally you could just have the professor add another slot (the college didn't mind the free extra money). I had this in a state school that isn't even our state's premier state school, and we are not a state known for computer scienc…

To be fair, in my case it wasn't in the US.

> It had integrated wait lists, so you could just sign up and hope someone else drops if needed

This just moves the scripting point to "signing up for the waiting list". I guess in that case it does mean that running it 24/7 wouldn't help.

> and occasionally you could just have the professor add another slot (the college didn't mind the free extra money).

You paid per course? In most of the world, you pay per semester and there are no per-course fees. So professors aren't particularly incentivized to take more students.

In our case, the number of professors and size of rooms was simply insufficient for the number of students. Especially if you wanted a good professor - where I was at the variability in quality of teaching was pretty high. Or for some people, if they wanted to schedule things so that all their courses were packed into 4 days of the week, or they didn't want to wake up early, or whatever reason for making a particular course be in high demand. This led to the necessity of such scripts.

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

#682

Post by silexia » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 5:06 AM UTC

johncessna wrote: post #96

silexia wrote: post #3

UW alum here, my alma mater is a disappointment.

Tell them that. Alumni support is critical for a university and if they feel their donation base is upset, change will happen.

Done, I emailed them this:

Hi,

I, and millions of others in the tech industry, saw how you handled a student's side project and are extremely disappointed in the hostile approach followed by an attempt to force him to work for free or be expelled.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42638626

This is the top tech site in the world and this is the #1 article on it currently with hundreds of concerned comments.

I founded a web design agency with 250 full time employees and due to this issue as well as the way the Sigma Chi chapter near campus and other fraternities have been treated, will be declining to provide any support in the future and will be lobbying Washington state and federal politicians to cut UW's funding.

Extremely disappointing.

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

#683

Post by duck » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 5:14 AM UTC

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #572

croemer wrote: post #556

His (presumed) dad commented this on LinkedIn: > I have seen all the emails now and it's as bad as described. I thought there might be some hyperbole but the "University Registrar and Chief Officer of Enrollment Information Services" is clearly saying "work with us to build this for free or you're not graduating". They even specify that he needs to set up the meeting "well before registration opens on February 13th f…

Until they post evidence, legal counsel comments on it, or its reported by a news agency its a bit moot. I personally would have gone full nuclear and posted all evidence to put pressure on the school already by now. If I'm already defacto expelled I'd have nothing to lose by putting this on blast. Its weird that he hasn't posted anything given the retaliation he is receiving, hence why its hard to take completely se…

It made the news this evening: https://www.king5.com/article/tech/university-of-washington-...

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

#684

Post by fakedang » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 6:25 AM UTC

dmurray wrote: post #361

fakedang wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers don't get paid more when a project gets further delayed.

You've obviously never worked in consulting.

I've never considered the run of the mill management consultants as engineers, and yeah, I haven't worked in/as a technical consultant.

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

#685

Post by hoppp » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 10:04 AM UTC

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…

They expell you unless you work for free? What?? That's extortion and slavery. Im pretty sure you could sue them.

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

#686

Post by nicky0 » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 11:02 AM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #548

phibz wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their response on face value doesn't make sense. But if I had to guess, you inadvertently made someone in the registrar's office look bad. They probably had to answer to "why didn't you think of this?" If that is the case then it makes a lot more sense and is retaliatory behavior. You can't undo their insecurity and loss of face. Therefore you should not expect a reasonable response. Act accordingly. Educate yourself…

Yeah, let me give some perspective here. There's somebody in the registrar's office whose job is to be responsible for the production process of registration. They are minimally staffed and given just enough resources to run that process. Likely at some point their leadership told them they had to make an API so that they could integrate with other systems. Due to poor funding and lack of skills, just doing that is a…

APIs are not scraped. Web sites are scraped. APIs are simply used.

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

#687

Post by derangedHorse » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 12:10 PM UTC

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 have faith that UW leadership will make it right in the end

As you will soon learn, having faith in any of these big institutions will lead to disappointment. Having faith in people you know personally is one thing, but this is a group of people you don't know who are missing incentives to do right by you. The best thing you can do is what you've already done, which is showing people the discrepancy from what they say and how they act. This will save others with similar misconceptions about UW being a reasonable organization from attending.

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

#688

Post by pc86 » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 2:11 PM UTC

gorgoiler wrote: post #557

pc86 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of transferring registration from one student to another without input from the university is bananas to me. But only slightly more stupid than not having waitlists which is the only reason that exists in the first place. My alma mater let people register in descending order of number of completed credits with a C or better (e.g. 2.0), and then GPA, in waves. Same with dorm sign ups which were required for e…

I really like the point you make about randomness being bad as well, albeit in different ways. I’m not sure if I agree on the prior-grade route, not for freshmen at least but that does make a lot of sense for the later years. Overall, randomness, like democracy, might be the least worst option.

IMO randomness removes accountability. Imagine needing a class to graduate and the gods of the PRNG don't allow you to register in time.

Better to have at least one aspect within your control (e.g. completed credits or GPA). I'd much rather have to go to school for another semester because I'm lazy and drank too much than just getting cursed by bad luck.

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

#689

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 3:08 PM UTC

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…

>This platform was never intended to be monetized, and I am not planning to get a lawyer involved as I have faith that UW leadership will make it right in the end.

So, they

- gave you an ultimatum for a project you personally worked on

- you complied

- they soft-expelled you anyway

- they coerced you under this expulsion to do free labor to improve their own site.

- heck, you are paying 10's of thousands to them to attend school. So you are paying them for the privilege to work on their site so you can be re-instated into school to out you into debt.

I've worked in the game industry for some 9 years now. Your talent is being exploited. I'm not going to tell you to sue, but you should definitely cut all ties immediately and find another school ID this is how they are treating their budding talent. They clearly have no respect for you. This happens all the time in my industry full of passionate talent. You gotta look out for yourself first before you dedicate yourself to others.

EDIT: Ahh, I see you're almost graduating. In that case just do what you can to get back in and get far away. But do NOT provide any free labor for them. I don't know the exact ideas but you may at least want a Lawyer to send a warning shot. This feels like coercion, but I can't say for sure.

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

#690

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Jan 10, 2025, 3:21 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #524

hn4352 wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living expenses have to come from somewhere. If you use the time to graduate faster, instead of working to generate weekly income, in some cases you can come out ahead overall. Details vary, but it's not obvious that it's a bad deal.

Essential expenses it certainly makes sense. But it seems some amount of it is treated as disposable income rather than liability.

Based on the breakdown, it sounds like she has $100 leftover per month. That pretty much sounds like "liability" money to me. Barely much to dispose of.