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Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement

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Re: Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement

#81

Post by Gracana »

lionhearted wrote: post #12

When I first left America, I disliked and felt disillusioned with the country. I've now spent more of my adult life outside the States than in the U.S., and I've also come to the opinion that the U.S. is one of the most amazing places in the world. Sometimes it's hard to point to exactly why America is so amazing. And the answer, maybe, is on display here. An undergraduate student at an elite university just innovati…

> It's just standard being-an-American stuff. [...] it's really cool that it's a regular, run of the mill occurrence for people to push back against norms and restrictions in American society without any fear of long-term repercussions.

It's standard privileged American stuff. It's great that this guy can push back, but try being a Spanish-speaking factory temp trying to push back and get proper training and safety equipment, or try being a waitress at a bar trying to push back against harassing customers and mistreatment from management. Some people's lives depend on buckling under; they don't get to do the pushing because they will lose their jobs.

Re: Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement

#82

Post by ghshephard »

pliny wrote: post #69
thisiswrong wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've now spent more of my adult life outside the States than in the U.S., and I've also come to the opinion that the U.S. is one of the most amazing places in the world. Yes. The American backed/sponsored slaughter of innocent men, women, and children across the Middle East and Africa in the name of profit, power, and greed doesn't seem to cross your mind. Also, it's clear that as an American you have free speech,…

When comparing things (the US is one of the most amazing places in the world -> the US is amazing in comparison to most places) it's usually more important to focus on differences rather than similarities. State-sponsored slaughter of innocent people in the Middle East and Africa is a pastime enthusiastically practiced by Canada and all of the "important" European nations (UK, Germany, France, and to a lesser extent…

Could I get a Citation on Canada slaughtering innocent people in both the Middle East and Africa? I wasn't aware they had a deployed army large enough to be involved in "slaughtering" - and I know they declined to support the United States Incursion into Iraq - So I'm wondering where you are going with this...

Re: Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement

#83

Post by triplesec »

Sprint wrote: post #58
lionhearted wrote: post #12

When I first left America, I disliked and felt disillusioned with the country. I've now spent more of my adult life outside the States than in the U.S., and I've also come to the opinion that the U.S. is one of the most amazing places in the world. Sometimes it's hard to point to exactly why America is so amazing. And the answer, maybe, is on display here. An undergraduate student at an elite university just innovati…

Yeah, no one else could ever think of doing something like this. Imagine someone in Europe, LOL! They just don't have the same standards for freedom or patriotism (as in standing up to defend our constitution) overseas! Oh America, the land of the free and the home of the brave! edit: Of course let's make it clear that America means the United States of America here. In Brazil or Chile people just would not care!

just in case some people read that straight up

good work, sir!

Re: Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement

#84

Post by johnohara »

Recent discussions seem to indicate that 14-21 y/o are reducing their participation in social media, becoming more discerning over how they use brain bandwidth, and generally simplifying their lives overall.

I know this is a bit OT, and I apologize, but his website (and others from his age group) reflects this thinking. Straight, simple, and to the point. On to the next thing.

It rejects a great many things about how we experience the web today and seems to confirm a trend that his group wants clutter-free access to correct information using tools and technology they are familiar with.

They don't want to be told by Yale that this is how "your" course catalog works, or by WP that this is how "your" blog works, or by FB that this is how "your" profile works, etc.

They are saying, "we'll show you how we want it to work."

You'd think the administration at Yale would recognize a "sit-in" when they saw one.

Re: Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement

#85

Post by jahewson »

> Yale also told Harry and Peter that the CourseTable website infringed upon the school’s copyrighted course data. It appears to be true; CourseTable hosted Yale’s course descriptions and student evaluations, or, if not the exact evaluations, they at least hosted derivations of them.

It doesn't appear to be true at all! I'd argue very strongly that these are not creative works, and have zero commercial value, I don't believe they are eligale for copyright protection in the first place. This kind of muddled thinking that anything anyone writes down is magically covered by copyright needs to be resisted.

Re: Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement

#86

Post by voyou »

blibble wrote: post #30
ZoFreX wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm British and I did things like this constantly throughout school and university. Then again, people do keep asking if I am American...

here in the UK the Education Act 1986 makes it a duty of a University to safeguard its members freedom of speech (within the law), and makes it unlawful for a University to do what Yale did here. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/61/section/43

Yale seems to be claiming that this website uses Yale's data in violation of their terms of service or their copyrights, that is to say, that such use was not within the law. I don't see how this law would prevent a UK university from acting in exactly the same way.

(This section of the 1986 act, BTW, was introduced in response to anti-apartheid protesters disrupting speeches by members of the South African government, in order to require universities to stop such protests. It's not at all a pro-free-speech law.)

Re: Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement

#87

Post by trop »

ricardobeat wrote: post #74

I partially agree with the university's reasoning on this; displaying course ratings like it's a food menu is disencouraging thought, not something you expect from an academic environment, and it can't have a good outcome regarding course selection. They just should have found a better way to combat that instead of brute force.

This is key to say: this is more than a freedom of speech (or freedom of entrepreneurship) issue. It's a question of whether college classes should become commodities distinguished only by convenience of access (e.g. scheduling) and a rating from prior consumers of the class/professor. It probably doesn't help that the period during which students check out classes is called "shopping"...

There's something deeply conservative (in a grumpy old-school sense of the word) about trying to preserve a non-metrics based view of an education... Facebook's early days is, of course, also a subtext to this. FB was, of course, built by a comp-sci undergrad at an elite college who became fabulously wealthy by hacking friendships into data structures. Are we rooting for similar hacks going straight into the pedagogy?

Re: Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement

#88

Post by jcc80 »

Gracana wrote: post #81
lionhearted wrote: post #12

When I first left America, I disliked and felt disillusioned with the country. I've now spent more of my adult life outside the States than in the U.S., and I've also come to the opinion that the U.S. is one of the most amazing places in the world. Sometimes it's hard to point to exactly why America is so amazing. And the answer, maybe, is on display here. An undergraduate student at an elite university just innovati…

> It's just standard being-an-American stuff. [...] it's really cool that it's a regular, run of the mill occurrence for people to push back against norms and restrictions in American society without any fear of long-term repercussions. It's standard privileged American stuff. It's great that this guy can push back, but try being a Spanish-speaking factory temp trying to push back and get proper training and safety e…

Please don't pollute this thread with the social justice warrior stuff. The student could be punished and people that don't speak English or want a different waitressing job aren't helpless.

Re: Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement

#89

Post by room271 »

How did this make it onto Hacker News? Squabbles like this happen at every university (or at least the ones I have been to). Universities are often quite conservative places with a tendency to restrict student activity beyond what is sensible and students often fight back.

This is a run of the mill occurrence.

Re: Yale censored a student's course catalog site. I made an unblockable replacement

#90

Post by aianus »

cpwright wrote: post #32
ritchiea wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the meaningful difference between a Yale degree and 7 semesters of a Yale education? If your answer is "some employers wouldn't consider you as an applicant without the proper degree" do you want to work for that sort of employer?

The meaningful difference is that you have 7 semesters of sunk cost, and can't write that you graduated on your resume. In other words, you are a drop-out. A BS is a filter that you'll find for lots of jobs (or graduate school); and although there are places that will hire you, it makes things harder than they would have been otherwise. If you want to get a bachelors degree from another school (1) it is likely to be…

Sunk costs are sunk. Unless the marginal utility of that piece of paper is worth compromising your ideals and dropping another $20k in tuition, the sensible thing to do would be to drop out.

Given that he's already got the brand, the majority of the education, and the network of going to Yale, I'm not sure it is.

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