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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

#421

Post by jccalhoun »

cvoss wrote: post #272

The comments here are almost entirely of one voice: UW bad. Student innocent. It is not hard to find the policy in question. I quote from the UW Registrar's website, their policy on tampering and abuse of the registration system, as cited in the subject of the email the student received: > The registration system is provided for the sole express purpose for students to register themselves into sections. Any use of th…

I am a college professor so I am biased but I am extremely skeptical of the poster's version of events.

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

#422

Post by pcthrowaway »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #315
nayuki wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see examples of your sassy writings. Maybe I could learn a thing or two about responding to people. Note that I've become more cynical in these 10 years that passed. I was, let's say, more charitable with people in the past.

Well, here's the post that made Paul Graham block me on X: https://x.com/LewisCTech/status/1778912158404997494 Also briefly made me popular on Nigerian Twitter, which was fun :)

Well, I guess there's no point to applying to YC for whoever is working on delve.io

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

#423

Post by zifpanachr23 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #222
giancarlostoro wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of compensation sounds like extortion. Definitely consult a lawyer.

Most universities seem now to include IP rights grabs in the matriculation documents you have to agree to when starting your course. If you squint, and apply a dose of salt, the OPs side of things sounds like a compromise offer to move forward allowing the student not to give over current IP but to develop something new. Depending on contracts, and local laws, that might be almost legal...

Realistically, and obviously I'm not a lawyer, but if it was developed as part of a course, I can see how that might (not saying I agree with it) make the IP rights assignment more complicated and maybe the university would have a leg to stand on?

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

#424

Post by bluGill »

jostmey wrote: post #32
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…

Sounds like you are being blackmailed into working for them for free

Right, if he does work for them, he is worth a full time salary for a new software engineer. That is at minimum, he can argue that he is worth a company founder salary.

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

#425

Post by tiahura »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #265
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. An officious word for lawyer is counsel , because that’s what they’re for: they offer legal counsel. You don’t technically “talk” to a lawyer , instead you ask them questions. They answer. That’s why client-attorney privilege exists at all: so you can feel free to seek counsel, ie ask questions , without fea…

As a lawyer, your post is almost entirely incorrect. Privilege in no way depends on whether the communication involves questions.

It cracks me up. As a lawyer, I would never post on HN to argue about pointer arithmetic or inference optimization, yet the law seems to be fair game for amateur hour.

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

#426

Post by zifpanachr23 »

singron wrote: post #247
OtomotO wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems insane that you need campus security guards at all oO

A lot of campuses have actual police. In some ways campuses are similar to a municipality and have many of the services that entails (fire, trash, water, power, snow removal, parks, and security/law enforcement). You could similarly ask why a town of 50,000 people needs a police department.

When you put it in terms of total number of people...it does make sense. A lot of universities down here in Texas have a small town+ amount of students and faculty and they tend to have their own police departments and other services.

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

#427

Post by zifpanachr23 »

turbojet1321 wrote: post #139
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…

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.

Very common at larger state universities that have been around a long enough time to have a significant sports following.

It makes sense if you do the math.

Newer schools and smaller schools, typically not so much.

A lot of what we do in the US probably sounds batshit insane to outsiders so no worries about that and thanks for asking!

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

#428

Post by pc86 »

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 for one would absolutely donate to your legal defense (offense?) fund. This isn't right and whoever decided to approach this in this manner should lose their job and never have an authoritative position in higher ed ever again.

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

#429

Post by zifpanachr23 »

turbojet1321 wrote: post #244
sf_rob wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting outsider perspective is this clip of Steven Fry going to an Auburn game: https://youtu.be/FuPeGPwGKe8 Regarding the latter, it’s weird and certainly was exploitative when college athletes weren’t allowed to monetize through sponsorships and frankly still is exploitative.

I was more thinking that there's not a particularly natural overlap between sports and academic ability. You'd think that by tying the two together, you'd get both worse sporting and academic performance than if they were unrelated.

The US has a decidedly liberal viewpoint on education. Sports ability is in some sense an educational endeavor. The ancient Greeks called it "athletics".

So US educational institutions don't really have any hangup against treating sports any differently than they might treat a CS class.

They are a subject you have to study and train at...and sometimes sit in a theatre and have a class time about (watching scout footage or deconstructing plays, etc).

Sports are probably just as rigorous as anything else academically once you get to something approaching a division 1 level of play. The reason we don't recognize it is because we suck and are mostly casual about it on a forum like this (filled with sports failures like myself or sports non-participants). The people actually in these programs with D1 scholarships and whatnot I guarantee take it as seriously as you or I would take calculus.

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

#430

Post by firefax »

eykanal wrote: post #140
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…

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…

Student legal services usually can't help you with disputes with the uni -- I remember reading this when speaking to them about a (unfair IMO) traffic ticket when I was a student at a different institution.
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