Slashdot Mirror
University Networks Block Student Project
An anonymous reader writes "A computer science student at University College London put together FitFinder as a bit of a joke — it's been described as a cross between Twitter and personal ads, and it rapidly became very popular. The university took exception to this and started by blocking the site from being accessed on campus. Not content with this, a few weeks later it fined the student £300 and had him take the site down completely. Currently, the site is still offline, although there is a petition with several thousand signatures requesting its return. In the meantime, a site called PhitFinder has appeared, claiming to have no link to the original."
Just release the code and let people play with it. The uni won't be able to block every site. Now that's Phat!
Well, I'd say it sounds more like a cross between twitter and a creepy stalker organisation, but maybe I'm over-sensitive.
It are happen in Europe.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
University College London isn't in America.
Can you see why?
Azural - instrumentals
If you are old enough to attend college/university you are old enough to do whatever you want. Stop "babysitting" and let students do whatever they please. Universities and colleges exist to educate people and hand them a piece of paper letting them get a job. Thats all they should do. Let students think for themselves, give them facts and have them make their own opinion and do what they want with them.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Ya know, I really don't reply much, but the whole "anti-american" thing has gone too far when the damned summary includes something that tells anybody that knows anything about currency that this is not US thing. Here, allow me to quote it:
You might be especially interested in the currency indicator. That "£" symbol is used to denote the UK currency unit called the "pound". Over in the actual article (I know, nobody ever reads it, but I still did), they say this:
So, at least in this case, no, it is not an "american thing". It is, most definitely, a "London thing". As London is considerably closer to Europe (and, being part of the UK, is considered to be part of Europe) than any part of the USA, I would have to venture that your assertion
is now verified to be false. In fact, it might be so far false that this could be considered to be a "European thing", though I'm not sure I'd take it that far myself.
GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
Because we don't call our schools "University College"?
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
London isn't necessarily where you think it is.
London, Ontario, Canada.
The London Bridge which was sold and shipped from the UK to Arizona.
London, Ohio
London, Kentucky.
London, Arizona
London, California.
There are more Londons in the US than in the UK.
There's a university with far too much power.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
That's a zillion buck idea he had up and running! He should have told them to stuff it. That would have made the site even more popular as word of his telling "the man" to f off spread around his users and their friends. Plenty of time later to go get all the degrees ya want once you are rolling in dough.
According to the article, the student was fined £300, only the UK uses pounds to my knowledge...
You are absolutely right. Nevertheless, it tells much when everybody automatically assumes this is an American thing.
A university spokesman said: “UCL does not approve of or condone this site. We therefore advised the student to take the site down, but he declined to do this. UCL has no jurisdiction over the site, as it is not UCL-hosted. We have, however, taken disciplinary action against the student for bringing the college into disrepute and he has been fined.”
Another triumph for Slashdot accuracy...
Sounds an awful lot like breach of contract -- he agreed to pay a certain amount of money in exchange for the university's services, but now the university is refusing to deliver those services unless he pays more than originally agreed upon.
The university isn't hosting it, he is.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
From TFA:
Dean of Welfare (Students), wrote: “Following the serious complaints brought to this institution regarding the contents of the site and your association with it, I find myself having to bring a charge under UCL’s Disciplinary Code of Bringing the College into Disrepute. Therefore I am fining you £300.”
IANAL but AFAIK private organisations in the UK cannot enforce fines - that's a privilege open exclusively to the government. And the nation's universities are essentially private institutions (albeit receiving heavy state funding).
Having said that, if the university I went to was any guide they'll probably have something in their rules which states that if you owe them so much as a penny on graduation day, you don't graduate. And though they may not be able to get a judge to force him to pay, I have no idea if he'd be able to get a judge to force them to write off the £300 "fine".
Yes, but if someone says London without specifying a state or nation, typically we assume that they mean the greater London area around the capital of the UK. It being a major financial centre, a major university town, one of the worlds largest 20 cities (with a population well in excess of every other London added together). The only typical exception being when you are in the general vicinity of another London.
I was playing around with PhitFinder and I totally accidentally made it forward to slashdot.
Sorry.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
Yes, but universities aren't private institutions. And UK law can be quite specific when it comes to legal status of universities. Not sure whether this affects anything, but you can't draw conclusions based on the legal status of a typical privately owned establishment.
There is a University College that is part of Rutgers University. "University" and "College" are both words. They have meaning.
Standing up for your rights is one thing, but I'd also argue: Choose your battles wisely.
In any situation where there is a huge imbalance of power (which there is in this case - the student has paid his tuition fees for the year and there's no obligation for the university to actually hand over the degree certificate), the one thing you do not do if you're in the less-powerful position is piss off the person in the more-powerful position - unless you want to wind up being thoroughly crushed. You make sure the balance of power is restored and then you start pissing them off.
I'm wondering - if you were to pay under protest and then sue for the money back at a later date (which is quite possible to do in the UK if you're over a barrel), the statute of limitations is six years. Hypothetically (and IANAL), he could pay up under protest now and sue once he's graduated.
By stifling a creative and enterprising endeavour the UCL brings it's self into disrepute.
It's their understandable embarrassment over having to have the US save their asses twice in the last century.
Actually, no. It's the way you guys pissed away every last shred of credibility in the years following 9/11, which is quite an accomplishment. You get attacked, you have the entire civilized world on your side, and within a few years you manage to piss every last one of us off to the extent that saying "we're going to distance ourselves just a wee bit from the US" is a surefire way of grabbing a few more votes.
I honestly doubt Osama bin Laden could have possibly imagined just how much of a success his attack would turn out to be. He set the opportunity for the US to show the world what it is all about and well, it did.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.