Comment by aroberge | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aroberge | Hacker News Reader

I wish Google would use a strategy that a former colleague used in an upper year Physics course. While encouraging students to discuss problems, he informed them that plagiarizing assignments was not allowed. When he got the first assignment, he noticed that the solution handed in by one of the top students in the department was identical to the one handed in by a much weaker student. So, he gave zero to the top student and full marks to the weaker student. (It should be noted that the contribution of each assignment towards the final grade was likely less than 2%). As he expected, the student who got zero went to see him. My colleague told him that he had no foolproof way to show that it was the other student that plagiarized the assignment and that the best method to prevent another zero being given was to not allow other students to plagiarize his assignment - if indeed this is what had happened. This solved the problem for that year ... and for many years after as word got around.

So... I wish Google would selectively remove links that are clearly submitted erroneously (claiming that, since the studios own these sites, no third party is claiming fair use) whereas preventing links where fair use appear clearly reasonable (such as wikipedia and reviews from news outlets) from being removed.

I very much doubt that that actually happened. It seems more likely to be a story created to scare people.

But it seems that the problem here is that google accepts DMCA requests that are not signed by an individiual but mass produced by a computer. That really shouldn't be allowed and I don't know why it is (what other legal documents are mass produced by a computer with no human oversight? Deeds? wills? power of atterny? Didn't think so).

It did happen. I was there (Laurentian University in Sudbury Ontario), teaching in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and my former colleague, N.I. Robb now retired - and an extremely well liked prof btw-, did just what I described.

How would giving a zero to both students have been any less of a dicincentive to the act in general?

In this example he plagarist has no dicincentive to plagarise again from some other source.

It wouldn't be the first time that someone devised and implemented poor policy, meanwhile touting it as an infallible act of genius...

But, the students that do care about the course are dissuaded from plagiarizing their work. If my experience in uni is any telling, people who get caught copying/plagiarizing will do it again. If you cut the easy access of the more hard-working students, at the very least they'll have to do some research for those answers.

The nice thing about the zero to the stronger student without consequence to the weak student is that they didn't go down together, which tends to make the affected more likely to go confront the issue.

Sure, what I'm saying is not based on any hard data except my years at uni and the fact that a physics professor in my campus did the exact same thing.

People get really annoyed when someone undeserving gets favorable treatment. So, stronger students will not take the chance to let weaker students copy their assignments. Penalize both equally, and a group mentality makes it more likely that they will take a chance again... at least, that's how I understand it worked out.

wouldn't have made for as good or as memorable an example. the guy who let the other guy copy his work now has to feel bad both about getting a zero, and about seeing the other guy unfairly get 100%.

what other legal documents are mass produced by a computer with no human oversight?

Mortgages and foreclosure documents come to mind. See "robosigners".

Actually, the "robosigners" were humans who would sign (and were encouraged / forced to sign) documents asserting facts for which there was no supporting evidence, or even where there was directly contradictory evidence. Signatures were by humans, not computers.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/false-affidavits-fore...

You're right, although in practice it was largely the same thing. Huge database contains home listings, computer spits out which are due for foreclosure, a bunch of ex-fast-fooders sign them as quickly as possible. There was a human in the loop but 0% of their judgement was employed - their job was to sign stuff, and that's what they did.

Unfortunately, there is nothing requiring that DMCA takedown notifications not be mass produced. In fact, the law specifically allows a "physical or electronic signature"[1] (emphasis added) on takedown notices.

The bigger problem is the "knowingly" in "any person who knowingly materially misrepresents...that material or activity is infringing...shall be liable for any damages". Enforcement has no teeth because that is a barrier that almost no discovery process will be able to overcome.

[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512#c_3

I'm curious, why do you doubt that it happened? Nothing in the story strikes me as at all implausible.

Naivety? He probably thinks that professors care about creating effective and fair anti-cheating schemes and therefore would never have gone with this one.

An unnamed friend did something that would a) be blatantly unfair and b) he knew would have been the subject of a complaint.

Doesn't seem terribly unfair, but in any case I don't see why this person would necessarily would care. As for the complaint, what's he going to complain about, that he got a zero for letting somebody cheat off him? Not a complaint worth worrying about.

Maybe Google indeed should make these companies stand in the corner for a while, but wouldn't that conflict with its interests? It's a quick way to make enemies with lots of money to spend in court.

As someone who dropped out of high school and has never set foot in a university, this strikes me as insane.

Why wouldn't both students be immediately expelled for this behavior?

Because such a harsh punishment doesn't fit a first time offense, especially if it's entirely possible both parties had innocent intentions?

In university I took advantage of a lot of my peers by having them critique/edit my assignments (of course, I'd offer the same in exchange). One of my editors could have a moment of weakness and plagiarize my work, but that's never happened in all those years. However, it was always possible. Would that merit expulsion on my part? Or should the punishment be a slap on the wrist and a reminder to exercise better judgment in the future?

On the other end, sometimes the person committing the plagiary isn't aware that what they're doing is wrong. I've seen a lot of it at the writing center, and this happens a lot with (especially east-asian) foreign students. Here in the US, we teach that individuals should have our own ideas, but in some places, they encourage adopting ideas from great thinkers (understand and make their ideas your own; stand on the shoulder of giants so to speak). And even with local students, some genuinely don't understand that copy-pasting 2 lines from the wiki is a breach of conduct.

In the end, it's much better for these students that you take the time to teach them the hows and whys of avoiding plagiarism. There are a few bad eggs that will never learn and will consistently plagiarize, and its at that point when expulsion is merited - and probably best for these students, since they probably weren't meant for academia. However, the majority of students (even the foreign ones) catch on and grow to be very successful academically.

Now, I don't know how it's possible any student could have completed all those years of school prior to college without having encountered this lesson. Our school system truly is dysfunctional.

Because then they stop giving money to the university.

A lot of learning takes place outside of the classroom. Times and times again, it has been demonstrated that peer teaching is one of the most effective way to enhance learning. In Physics, many profs (myself included) encourage students to discuss problems and help each other but without copying solutions. When you give one assignment every week with 5 to 10 problems to solve, and assignments count for 20% of the final grade, each problem is worth very little... which is why you do not penalize students strongly when you catch them for the first time copying a solution to a problem. Learning the difference between explaining the solution of a problem (similar to explaining an algorithm) and just giving a solution to copy may is not something that is immediately obvious for some.

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