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Comment by mirkules | Hacker News Reader

"In fact, the blog post was in my folder of draft posts for a few months now, long before receiving my annual evaluation."

In a few months, there was plenty of time to reflect on the negative points of that post and how they could be taken out of proportion. There is a reason employers frown upon employees making public statements that involve the company they work for - not because they may say something stupid (that would also mean that they hired the wrong person) - but because the media tends to latch onto the smallest details and blow them WAY out of proportion. PR departments exist so that public statements are filtered, watered down, focused and devoid of any potentially negative connotations about the company.

Lesson learned, I guess, and I hope NYU's reputation was not damaged as a result.

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No, I could not really think of that. I do not filter my blog posts through any PR department, and I have written plenty of stories that received wide attention. And going through a PR department typically means that the resulting document lacks any punch and originality. (Been there, done that, for other types of communication.)

If I could think that people could leverage the post to post their negative preconceptions about business schools, NYU, Turnitin, academic, US, or whatever else they hate, I would have not posted the blog post to start with.

In most of my blog posts I try to propose and describe solutions, even when I "whine". (See, for example, http://behind-the-enemy-lines.blogspot.com/2010/10/plea-to-a... and http://behind-the-enemy-lines.blogspot.com/2010/12/mechanica...). The blog post about cheating was not an exception.

The reason that it was in my draft folder was because I did not want to put it out just to talk about cheating. The post felt incomplete. Yes, I could complain. But after that, what?

It took me a while to realize that people did not cheat in some of the assignments, but tried in others, was because some assignments were designed to withstand cheating. And that was a point worth talking about.

This may not be the best place to say this but, I found both your cheating article and this one interesting. Please continue posting.

Agreed. Sometimes people stop writing due to a minority of very loud people being rude dismissive shallow whiners. I think Steve Yegge stopped writing for a few years because of these people.

Don't stop writing, please.

I just wanted to say thanks for a great post. It helps focus the conversation on some of the most important themes of your earlier post. Nice job defending your point of view in the HN comments on your earlier post, too.

"...was because some assignments were designed to withstand cheating. And that was a point worth talking about."

Absolutely. And thank you for talking about it.

Do you think you can also come at it from another angle and teach the students why it's not a good idea to plagiarize or be dishonest in general? It's a good teaching moment. We need less Bernie Madoffs in the world, and part of the education system is not just teaching hard skills but how to use them in constructive and helpful ways in society.

But I can understand if that's not your passion or that sounds overwhelming. I've been a teacher myself and I know how difficult or overwhelming it can be.

I did this lecture in class. I had to do a quick Google search that day and I found two cases of plagiarism in the news.

* ArsTechnica, Oct 8, 2010, Copied pleadings show there's no honor among antipiracy lawyers http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/copied-plead...

* Associated Press, Sep 30, 2010, Arizona US Senate candidate denies plagiarismhttp://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jCoMCrHFbR...

Well, some students got the (subtle) point that cheating is often undetected but when detected is lethal for your career. But I believe these students would not cheat in any case.

> I hope NYU's reputation was not damaged as a result.

If 20% of students at NYU cheat (I can't access the original post to check the numbers it mentions, obviously, but I remember it being something like that), then NYU's reputation should be very damaged by that fact.

If you attribute the 20% rate to NYU, and not to my increased vigilance, then you may want to read again the latest blog post.

You believe that 20% of students everywhere cheat, then? Parables aren't exactly the best way to convey information; when I read through it, I interpreted the city as being NYU and the neighborhood as being your class, not the city as being an amalgamation of every university and college and the neighborhood as NYU.

Yes, I believe that there is a 1%-2% of blatant cheater everywhere, and a significantly bigger percentage of students that take liberties with their homework assignments. (Asking people for help, looking at solutions, collaborating in individual assignments, etc). There is no clear black and white separation of "cheaters" vs "honest" but a full spectrum of gray.

Regarding the parable, I see the point and how what I wrote could be interpreted in the way that you describe. My intention was to refer to the city as the whole academic system. The "Redwich Village" is a reference to Greenwich Village, the neighborhood in NYC where NYU is located.

So, Redwich Village stands for my institution, which was attacked ferociously as being the harbor of cheaters over the last few days, while people fail to recognize that this is most probably a more generic problem. You may claim that I overgeneralize without proof, but I have sufficient evidence from other people that this is the case. Especially after all the emails that I received within the last few days where people described their own experiences with cheating that were very similar (most did so anonymously, but with specific names of top universities around the world).

Ah, that makes perfect sense; thank you for clarifying.

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