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We should foster a world full of people who use their brains to interpret rules. If we're going to blindly do something because "it's the exact rule written he

We should foster a world full of people who use their brains to interpret rules. If we're going to blindly do something because "it's the exact rule written here" then we might as well replace all decision makers with an AI that never interprets anything. Their teacher was wrong for not interpreting the rules correctly - everyone's aware of that. On top of that the people writing those rules were wrong as well for either assuming that teachers would interpret them correctly, or not being more explicit when writing them. It's a competition that includes writing code as a team: one of the main things you'd want them to do is to use git and thus a website like Github.

Dalewyn 4y ago
>or not being more explicit when writing them. You really can't get anymore explicit than "sites that generate HTML from text ... such as ... GitHub ... are NOT permitted." They even emphasized the "NOT" in "NOT permitted" to try and drive the point home for the particularly dense: You are not allowed to use Github, and all the others, period. Is excluding Github okay? If you ask me, that question is irrelevant. The contest is about making a website by hand, nothing more and nothing less. This is an artificial environment and situation, and you either accept the rules and play by them or don't accept them and go elsewhere. Incidentally, if you really, really want to use Github in spite of the rules forbidding you: You can just as easily do all your work on Github, even get Github to generate the HTML for you, then take all the results and upload it onto some web hosting server and just not mention you used Github anywhere. Nobody would be the wiser and you successfully broke the rules you found so objectional (read: cheated, but nobody will know).
- richbell 4y ago
  > You really can't get anymore explicit than "sites that generate HTML from text ... such as ... GitHub ... are NOT permitted." > Is excluding Github okay? If you ask me, that question is irrelevant. The contest is about making a website by hand, nothing more and nothing less. This is an artificial environment and situation, and you either accept the rules and play by them or don't accept them and go elsewhere. It's not irrelevant: it's the crux of the issue. The rule was clearly written by someone that lacks in-depth technical skills and is nonsensical. Ask yourself: would they have been disqualified if they used GitLab? Saying "oh well that's the rules" is an awful attitude and does not prepare people for the "real world". The real world is full of people who have absolutely no idea what they're doing and like to swing around their authority. If you aren't able or willing to correct demands from people who are blatantly incompetent in a low stakes high-school competition, you're not going to have a valuable or fulfilling career.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    >Ask yourself: would they have been disqualified if they used GitLab? Does Gitlab generate HTML from text files of some description like Github (eg: README.md -> HTML-formatted presentation)? If so, yes. If not, no. Github is only named as one of many potential examples of "Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files". Ergo, anything that automagically generates HTML is "NOT permitted". >If you aren't able or willing to correct demands from people who are blatantly incompetent in a low stakes high-school competition, you're not going to have a valuable or fulfilling career. Two problems: 1. Kids are still learning. By definition they have no idea nor standing to judge what is competent and what isn't; they flat out /don't know yet/. You need real world experience under your belt if you want to go around declaring rights and wrongs. 2. The students completely missed their mark in how to bring about their objections. They should have read the rules beforehand and brought up questions and objections with the staff before the contest began. You don't complain about this long after the fact, and going off on tangents only worsens your standing.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > It's not irrelevant: it's the crux of the issue. The rule was clearly written by someone that lacks in-depth technical skills and is nonsensical. That's irrelevant - all the other competitors had to labour under the burden of the rules, allowing one of the competitors to violate the rules gives that competitor an unfair advantage. If you want to remove a rule that is nonsensical, you do it before you compete, you don't try to get it removed after you have gotten an unfair advantage by breaking it, because they it is too late for the other competitors to get the same advantage.
  - ironchest 4y ago
    it is kind of irrelevant, because we don't know anything about the process that led to GitHub being included on the list. Could be lack of technical knowledge as you pointed out, but could as easily be an admin problem, or any other operational problems with clearing submissions, or something else.
    - richbell 4y ago
brookst 4y ago
It’s not that easy. The problem with letting enforcers use judgment is it leads to selective enforcement, where the criteria becomes “who broke the rules” as much as “were rules broken.” It opens the door to all sorts of bad outcomes. For instance, being a good debater/lawyer becomes at least as important as being a good coder. I’m not saying judgment has no place, just that it’s not a panacea. It has its own unfairness.
lelanthran 4y ago
> We should foster a world full of people who use their brains to interpret rules. It's a competition. Competitions have rules, some of which are simply artificial barriers because of "competition". You can work to change the rules before agreeing to them. If you disagree that a rule makes sense, provide your disagreement before entering. Waiting until after you have found to have broken the rules you agreed to, to whine is simply unsporting and childish. If the rule-breaker is not disqualified, it's unfair to the other participants who worked under those onerous rules to compete only to find out that one participant did less work by breaking a rule.

Dalewyn 4y ago

>or not being more explicit when writing them. You really can't get anymore explicit than "sites that generate HTML from text ... such as ... GitHub ... are NOT permitted." They even emphasized the "NOT" in "NOT permitted" to try and drive the point home for the particularly dense: You are not allowed to use Github, and all the others, period. Is excluding Github okay? If you ask me, that question is irrelevant. The contest is about making a website by hand, nothing more and nothing less. This is an artificial environment and situation, and you either accept the rules and play by them or don't accept them and go elsewhere. Incidentally, if you really, really want to use Github in spite of the rules forbidding you: You can just as easily do all your work on Github, even get Github to generate the HTML for you, then take all the results and upload it onto some web hosting server and just not mention you used Github anywhere. Nobody would be the wiser and you successfully broke the rules you found so objectional (read: cheated, but nobody will know).

richbell 4y ago
> You really can't get anymore explicit than "sites that generate HTML from text ... such as ... GitHub ... are NOT permitted." > Is excluding Github okay? If you ask me, that question is irrelevant. The contest is about making a website by hand, nothing more and nothing less. This is an artificial environment and situation, and you either accept the rules and play by them or don't accept them and go elsewhere. It's not irrelevant: it's the crux of the issue. The rule was clearly written by someone that lacks in-depth technical skills and is nonsensical. Ask yourself: would they have been disqualified if they used GitLab? Saying "oh well that's the rules" is an awful attitude and does not prepare people for the "real world". The real world is full of people who have absolutely no idea what they're doing and like to swing around their authority. If you aren't able or willing to correct demands from people who are blatantly incompetent in a low stakes high-school competition, you're not going to have a valuable or fulfilling career.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  >Ask yourself: would they have been disqualified if they used GitLab? Does Gitlab generate HTML from text files of some description like Github (eg: README.md -> HTML-formatted presentation)? If so, yes. If not, no. Github is only named as one of many potential examples of "Template engine websites, tools, and sites that generate HTML from text, markdown, or script files". Ergo, anything that automagically generates HTML is "NOT permitted". >If you aren't able or willing to correct demands from people who are blatantly incompetent in a low stakes high-school competition, you're not going to have a valuable or fulfilling career. Two problems: 1. Kids are still learning. By definition they have no idea nor standing to judge what is competent and what isn't; they flat out /don't know yet/. You need real world experience under your belt if you want to go around declaring rights and wrongs. 2. The students completely missed their mark in how to bring about their objections. They should have read the rules beforehand and brought up questions and objections with the staff before the contest began. You don't complain about this long after the fact, and going off on tangents only worsens your standing.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > It's not irrelevant: it's the crux of the issue. The rule was clearly written by someone that lacks in-depth technical skills and is nonsensical. That's irrelevant - all the other competitors had to labour under the burden of the rules, allowing one of the competitors to violate the rules gives that competitor an unfair advantage. If you want to remove a rule that is nonsensical, you do it before you compete, you don't try to get it removed after you have gotten an unfair advantage by breaking it, because they it is too late for the other competitors to get the same advantage.
- ironchest 4y ago
  it is kind of irrelevant, because we don't know anything about the process that led to GitHub being included on the list. Could be lack of technical knowledge as you pointed out, but could as easily be an admin problem, or any other operational problems with clearing submissions, or something else.
  - richbell 4y ago

brookst 4y ago

It’s not that easy. The problem with letting enforcers use judgment is it leads to selective enforcement, where the criteria becomes “who broke the rules” as much as “were rules broken.” It opens the door to all sorts of bad outcomes. For instance, being a good debater/lawyer becomes at least as important as being a good coder. I’m not saying judgment has no place, just that it’s not a panacea. It has its own unfairness.

lelanthran 4y ago

> We should foster a world full of people who use their brains to interpret rules. It's a competition. Competitions have rules, some of which are simply artificial barriers because of "competition". You can work to change the rules before agreeing to them. If you disagree that a rule makes sense, provide your disagreement before entering. Waiting until after you have found to have broken the rules you agreed to, to whine is simply unsporting and childish. If the rule-breaker is not disqualified, it's unfair to the other participants who worked under those onerous rules to compete only to find out that one participant did less work by breaking a rule.