With more students boasting flashy GPAs, academic honors lose their luster - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-graduated-cum-laude-so-did-everyone-else-1530523801 <comment><USER2> My grandfather was CEO of an NYSE listed company and he preferred to hire people out of college whom had lower GPAs around 3.0 then perfect students because he thought these folks made for better team members and well rounded employees. Simply put he wanted to hire people who perused side passions and had a social life.

Personally after having been in entrepreneurial circles for years it seems the most financially successful people I know had mediocre college grades if they went at all. One friend who's net worth is over $100m dropped out of high school to became a carpenter and is now a major real estate developer.Too many people spend way to much of thier youth focused on grades. What's important is finding what you love, learning a bit and just doing enough to get your diploma. If you want to get a masters then focus on just getting in. It's like passing the levels in a video game. No reading to get a perfect score if you don't need to.

When you are 40 years old your college grades will likely have no bearing on your career prospects. Your social network will.

<comment><USER3> There's a significant tendency on HN to unduly discount good grades. I think this is a mistaken tendency due to univariate, linear thinking. Grades are not everything, but they are not nothing.

The fact is, determining a good hire requires multivariate, nonlinear thinking.

Good grades can be a proxy for metaskills like discipline, cognitive ability, etc. They don't always measure these things perfectly, but the correlation is not negligible.

Doesn't mean say, a 2.5 GPA isn't a good hire -- but in multivariate thinking, there has be other factors that compensate for the low GPA. Otherwise you'd be hiring a 2.5 GPA who is truly mediocre, and my experience is that the majority of 2.5 GPAs are that. Not everyone with a low GPA is pursuing other interests or passions. Also, doesn't mean that everyone with a high GPA isn't (at competitive schools, the best students tend to be active in many extra curricular activities unrelated to their majors)

In the engineering/academic world, grades do matter and are highly predictive of ability. People with poorer grades often struggle a lot, and the amount of time spent on remedial training may not always pay off. We have this ideal of a genius hacker who blew off school but is a 10x coder in real life... but in reality those people are comparatively rare.

<comment><USER4> > In the engineering/academic world, grades do matter and are highly > predictive of ability.

Can you cite some research studies that conclusively show this to be the case?

I'd like to counter by saying that companies like Google have largely ignored GPA as a measure of aptitude. From the article (link below):

 _" Google doesn't even ask for GPA or test scores from candidates anymore, unless someone's a year or two out of school, because they don't correlate at all with success at the company. Even for new grads, the correlation is slight, the company has found."_

[http://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires- people-2013-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires- people-2013-6)

<comment><USER5> > I'd like to counter by saying that companies like Google have largely > ignored GPA as a measure of aptitude.

I think you have misinterpreted the situation.

What it's actually showing is once you have restricted the pool of applicants to the top 10% of the field GPA does not matter within the restricted subset.

I can't think of anyone I know that could do well in the Google interview process but could not get good grades.

<comment><USER6> >I can't think of anyone I know that could do well in the Google interview process but could not get good grades.

To get good grades, you must be able to do rote work on time. I did really poorly in high school, because if you don't do one thing, and you do brilliantly on the next thing? That averages to a failure. Doesn't matter how brilliant that next thing was. For me? This means I barely cleared 2.0 in high school, and didn't seriously pursue college. But in industry, I seem to do pretty okay. My experience is that if I finish between 2/3 and 3/4 of what I start? I get a positive performance review and a raise. They even talk about it; like "if you are accomplishing all of your goals, you probably aren't being ambitious enough when setting those goals."

(I mean, I've been in industry since 1997, and my impression is that breaking in was a lot easier then than it is now... and it did take me a long time to work up to the point where I could get a job at a top-tier tech company, and even now, I'm a SysAdmin and not a SWE, (I have worked SWE type jobs at less prestigious companies... but here? I'm a SysAdmin.) I would be a better employee, with better job prospects if I had the personality and follow through to get a degree, no question.)

My experience with those interviews (at least for a more senior position) is that they test knowledge of whatever specialty you are dealing with and to a lesser extent, intelligence and problem solving ability. The former, of course, can (and should be) studied for; the latter, less so.

I'm sure intelligence and problem solving ability also help (and to some extent, are required) in academia, but if you aren't the sort of person who does 'good enough' work every time on time, you aren't going to get good grades, as far as I can tell, even if you are brilliant. That sort of plodding follow-through is not tested at all in interviews, and while it's a positive attribute to have as an employee, from experience, it won't kill your career if you are lacking it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "Academic researchers say that uptick is a sign of grade inflation, not of > smarter students."

I don't think this is right. There is good evidence that the highest percentiles of students (the ones populating the competitive colleges mentioned) are indeed smarter, because they have standardized test scores to match.

First off, the bar for a PSAT score that gets National Merit recognition has risen significantly for most students in recent years. More graphically though, the number of students who get a 36 on the ACT goes back a while and is a good representation of the upper score band:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_(test)#Highest_score](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACT_\(test\)#Highest_score)

And indeed at the graduate level, GMAT scores at the top business schools are rising steadily:

[https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate- schools/top-b...](https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top- business-schools/articles/2017-10-03/test-scores-gpas-are-rising-at-top-mba- programs)

So instead of the positive, hopeful story "our best students are becoming even more capable, year after year," we get a story like this shaming colleges and universities for "grade inflation" instead. Disappointing.

<comment><USER8> IQ scores are also increasing[0].

Are we actually smarter than our grandparents? Or has the education system trained us to be better test takers (one of the suggested contributing factors).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)

<comment><USER9> No they're not[0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Possible_end_of_p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Possible_end_of_progression)

<comment><USER10> I guess it depends on the country and timescale you're looking at. But they are increasing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is much weight to the argument that the requirements to be a successful student have gone down, I'm inclined to believe that the requirements have skyrocketed. Students today are faced with an ever ballooning bulk of knowledge with which they are supposed to find the boundaries and gain control of enough interconnected parts to become a useful contributor to society. There's a lot of noise in the system, but the system is growing larger and larger. There's more footwork that _could_ be done.

Is it so hard to believe that more students are performing at a _close enough_ level to their forbears to deserve the honor?

<comment><USER12> Yeah, it is. Grade inflation is a well known, documented phenomena. Unfortunately I have no time to link the papers on this subject, but if you search, they are there.

<comment><USER13> Have school grades ever deflated? Or undergone some sort of correction? No citation needed, anecdotes are fine.

<comment><USER14> One of the Cal Polys has an engineering program which curves the average grade to a C+ which automatically disqualifies the average from many engineering jobs.

<comment><USER15> A curve distorts grades: they tell you how the person performed relative to their peers not relative to their mastery of the material.

<comment><USER16> This really depends on how difficult the tests in the course are.

I don't think it is uncommon for tests to be written such that with a student a strong command of the material will _not_ score 100%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I spent so much time and energy stressing over my very mediocre GPA. I had undiagnosed adhd at the time and struggled immensely with turning things in on time. I usually did above average on tests, but when there are only a few homework assignments in a semester and no-late work policy, one zero really hurts. I was able to work it back up from a 2.2 in sophomore year to a 3.0 by graduation, but that was only because they very generously allowed me to sign a matriculation contract to stay in my major despite the lousy GPA. Also my 300 and 400 level CS courses were far more interesting and engaging, with fewer tiny assignments to miss.

I was kinda depressed because I knew the likes of Google would have no interest in me with that GPA, but my part time intern experience turned out to be worth so much more. I got a great entry level job from it, and from there got my foot in the door at Amazon where I thrived (who didn't ask about grades once) and ever since then, Google and everyone else has been reaching out to me. So while I have nothing against people with good GPAs, I'm never going to hire based on them.

<comment><USER18> This is encouraging to read. Right now I'm at what feels like the nadir of a similar situation, and am trying to figure out the right steps forward.

I attended Caltech for CS, struggled with chronic late submissions, cratering self worth and other issues over about three years, took several short leaves ending with a medical leave and was diagnosed with ADHD. Got on medication, got a development job for about a year at UT Southwestern and enjoyed it immensely. Decided to come back and try again, but coming back to junior and senior level classes after a break was very hard, and even being back in the environment that I associated with such failure was hugely draining. I decided to withdraw indefinitely.

I'd already finished all but one or two of my CS requirements, most of the rest were going to be maybe 4-5 non-CS math/engineering/science classes, several humanities and a biology. About a year and a trimester's worth. As far as GPA, I left with about a 2.7.

I'm still not sure if that was the right decision. Part of me says I'm living in LA and I have a year of work on my resume, a bunch of knowledge from the tech CS program, a couple of mildly interesting personal projects on my GitHub, and I should be ok; I just need to put myself out there.

Another part of me says I'm a piece of shit that can't complete the only thing worth completing related to my career, I'm going to have to explain why I don't have a degree to everyone I ever interview with, and why would anyone ever pick me over a graduate.

All this made more painful by the fact that if I _had_ graduated, the Caltech degree would have been an amazing asset - and if I had gone _anywhere else_ (well, anywhere a bit less high powered) I believe I would have at least graduated, if not done very well. Source: the two sophomore CS classes I took at UT Arlington in half a summer and got A+s in both.

This thread is hard to read. Thanks for your story; I need to remember people like you exist while I'm job hunting.

<comment><USER19> Hey, I'm a fellow non-college-grad with a ~1.7 GPA who's worked at 2 of FANG and got an offer from a third.

The best actionable advice I can give you is: put Caltech on your resume with your years of attendance, leave off your GPA entirely, and indicate in text under that that it's incomplete. You'll need a compelling narrative around why it's incomplete (which is admittedly difficult and usually circumstance- specific) or why it doesn't matter too much given that you've done X. X is something impressive, uncommon, and shows intelligence and initiative. As an example, my Xs were getting press in lifehacker for a side project and doing well in a FANG hackathon while in school.

For jobs, I think a common myth is that your credentials/resume is hugely important. From what I've seen, this is both true and false. The _specifics_ of your resume don't really matter 99% of the time, only that they're interesting. Also, keep in mind most resumes are screened by a real, live human - being authentic and passionate can help out as a break from the BS a recruiter sees day-to-day (but do think about what a recruiter would be looking for at a glance). After you clear the resume filter, you're on a similar playing field vs. every other candidate. And then it's up to you and your ability to pass interviews - that's a whole other topic which I won't cover here =P

If it helps, feel free to reach out through linkedin or email in my profile. Stay focused and keep your chin up!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For college students, I absolutely recommend transferring up if your GPA is above 3.8 and you're attending a lower-tier school.

Your alma mater will resonate throughout your career. Your GPA will disappear after your first or second job.

Better to get a C at MIT than an A at RPI.

<comment><USER21> As someone who went to a "lower-tier" school. I hate how true this feels sometimes. My colleagues who went to big name schools all seem to be in some sort of "club" together. At least, they have shared experiences that I have no such ability to relate to. They've been "elite" tech people since before they were in the job force.

That being said, the only time I feel this is in social settings and it's usually minor. People ask where I went to school and then I usually get an "oh?" back, as they've never heard of it. But it's never really impacted my professional life to my knowledge. Maybe I didn't get the same opportunities as these people as quickly, but I've worked at and enjoyed success at a few of the big names and am enjoying my time at a well known "start up" now.

Kids, go to school where you can afford. Bust your ass, make connections, move on and move up. School doesn't matter once you're out of it.

<comment><USER22> > They've been "elite" tech people since before they were in the job force.

By what standard? What does that life look like? It seems so foreign to me. It seems like a lot of HN is comprised of this sort of folk or people who know them.

I don't work in the Bay Area, I work in Phoenix. I imagine it's a different world out there: instead of saving 90% of my income and living in a van, I own a home and save 75%. Instead of talking to people who work at Apple and went to MIT, I talk to people who were self-taught, or attended some other institution I'm not familiar with.

Even the people that I do know who went off to work at Amazon, Apple, or Google aren't even that great of engineers. In fact, they're probably worse engineers than the ones I know at Fortune 500s which aren't even tech companies.

I've seen people who had 25+ years of experience lose a job position to someone who didn't know what `setInterval` was.

To me, an "elite" tech person would be someone who wrote software that people actually cared about and had a strong amount of domain knowledge in a particular area, or prototyped hardware and sold a product that people bought. Even then, these people are flawed just like everyone else. Not too long ago, the author of Redis posted an article about shortcomings of Lua here on HN, and a deep inspection of his post simply yielded the finding that he wrote a Lua binding with a glaring exploit in it, and his entire article revolved around trying to justify his own flaws.

To me having parents that have money doesn't make you elite; it's just something to think is rather nice and want to work toward as well.

It seems to me that there exists a demographic of people in tech that seem impressive to others, but haven't actually contributed anything significant or tangible to the industry. They probably exist in senior positions of companies that I've never heard of that serve a niche that I'm not a part of. I don't know, but they aren't "elite" to me.

Kids, do and make things people care about. School doesn't matter at all. Learning matters. Spending a small fortune to maybe associate with people who will get you a job is trying to play the lottery, but with a far more expensive ticket.

When you're denied a job at a startup after receiving multiple degrees ask yourself if it was worth it. It takes 30 minutes to invalidate 4-8 years of your hard work. People want people who can do the job.

<comment><USER23> >By what standard? What does that life look like? It seems so foreign to me. It seems like a lot of HN is comprised of this sort of folk or people who know them.

That life looks like living in Seattle or the Bay or New York, making somewhere between $180-$230k a year first year out of undergrad, being able to travel for concerts and live in luxe Airbnbs with your similarly elite and pedigreed friends.

>Even the people that I do know who went off to work at Amazon, Apple, or Google aren't even that great of engineers. In fact, they're probably worse engineers than the ones I know at Fortune 500s which aren't even tech companies.

I think this is a reasonable viewpoint if you believe society (or even _people_ ) cares about how skilled you are in your craft. Unfortunately, society doesn't, and rather only cares about how much you make.

As such, society will always consider a jet-setting Facebook or Google new grad making $250k her first year because of a signing bonus or negotiation skills superior to someone who graduated from ASU working at Amazon/Cisco/HP/etc companies making $150k or god forbid, even less. There's a lifestyle difference that I'll never be able to match.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for sharing. Still curious how sustainable the lifestyle is if you're married, or if it's possible at all. Any thoughts? The folks in Phoenix out here can't make that type of money unless they're a Principle Software Engineer/Architect/VP or higher if they can manage to negotiate it otherwise it's reserved to management. Anecdotally, I've seen the CEO of Recruiting.com underpay his seniors heavily.

<comment><USER23> Most people don't get married in their early/mid 20's anymore. At least if they work at FB/Google and are native-born Americans. And if they do, their partner makes about as much at a similar company.

> The folks in Phoenix out here can't make that type of money unless they're a > Principle Software Engineer/Architect/VP or higher

If they work at Amazon they can as an L6 or above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> " _Everyone_ can be super! And when everyone's super...

[laughs maniacally]

... _no one_ will be." \- Syndrome, _The Incredibles_

<comment><USER25> Except that Syndrome's plan was to use technology to _actually make everyone better_ , which in a way is admirable.

What we have here is that we leave everyone mediocre but _tell them all_ that they are super. Now we are left with no way to measure the people who really have put in the work to become better.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, this is more like "when nobody's super, everyone is."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I do a lot of interviews and I am pretty sure that quite a few students are cheating to get high grades.

There is no way that I get a student who has a A average in computer science and then I ask them to do some simple coding and they outright fail.

The some people cheap right in the interview, I step out of the office and then quick come back and I see they have their cell phone out to copy from.

I am sure cheating is partially responsible for grade inflation.

<comment><USER27> As someone who has interviewed and been rejected several times, I don't think cheating is why someone with good grades would do poorly at a coding interview.

Some people are good test takers on paper. Ask me to whiteboard some code, and I genuinely get stuck on trivial problems because whiteboarding coding questions is not what I am great at.

I've worked at Amazon and now I am at Google - after alot if stress, anxiety, and prep, I was able to get through and get hired. Microsoft outright rejected me.

One other thing - CS degrees don't teach people to code. They reach computer science. It just so happens that labs and assignments may require coding, but spending half a day or a day to do a project and getting an A has very little relationship with being forced to quickly hash out code in a 45 min interview.

IMO, at both companies I have been at, the majority of new hires are fresh grads. The barrier to entry whose been out of school is extremely high... but I digress.

<comment><USER28> > whiteboarding coding questions

Ah, you haven't figured out the trick. When somebody asks you to whiteboard something, write down all the nouns they said, draw boxes around each noun, and draw lines randomly between the boxes. Keep talking and pointing at the boxes and the lines, and then draw circles around some of the boxes (but keep talking - this is important). Point emphatically at some of the boxes, underline some of the words, and redraw some of the lines - bonus points if you can use different colored markers. As long as you keep talking, the interviewer will get bored, assume you drew something smart, and offer you a six figure salary.

<comment><USER29> You jest, but this is exactly the feeling I got when I was reading up on how to do better at system design questions: [https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design- primer](https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer)

<comment><USER28> Wow, that's an amazing resource - thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Not all universities! Simon Fraser University uses a 4.33 point scale (A = 4.00, A+ = 4.33) and its average GPA in 2017 (2.83) is only slightly above the average GPA in 1992 (2.80). Over that 25 year period, the university-wide average grade awarded has varied between a low of 2.77 and a high of 2.85.

Students complain. They complain a lot. We know that we're losing pre-med students to UBC -- which awards much higher grades on average -- because when we ask them why they decided to not accept SFU's admission offer, they reply "I'm planning on becoming a doctor and UBC will give me the higher grades I need". This also happens to a lesser extent with pre-law students. Over the past few years we've started displaying course average grades on transcripts and sending letters to graduate schools saying "so, there's something you should know about SFU's grades...".

I don't know how long SFU will be able to hold the line against grade inflation, but we're trying. It's not fair to students who worked hard to get a GPA of 3.7 (currently around 2% of students manage this) if next year's students can get that just by showing up.

In the mean time, if you see a student with a 4.00 GPA from Simon Fraser University... believe it.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, I pulled some statistics from the class graduating from SFU at the end of the 2017/18 year:

       First Class Honours with Distinction (Honours program, 4.00+ GPA) 6
       Honours with Distinction (Honours program, 3.50+ GPA)            61
       Honours                                                          61
       First Class with Distinction (Major program, 4.00+ GPA)          24
       With Distinction (Major program, 3.50+ GPA)                     265
       Bachelors                                                      1769

Across the university, 1.37% of students graduate with a 4.00+ GPA and 16.29% graduate with a 3.50+ GPA.

<comment><USER31> Yikes, that is really depressing that admissions committees aren't able to distinguish between what is effectively the "DOGEcoin is more valuable than x because everyone gets billions of coins!"

Ultimately I think everyone should be judged on merit, like an audition, or based on a portfolio. But many businesses with deep pockets still award these types of positions based on nepotism and personal connections

<comment><USER30> I think part of the problem that SFU undergraduate students have with graduate admissions is that most of the students in question will be applying to medical or law programs at UBC. It's one thing for admissions committees to recognize that some universities have inflated grades; it's quite another for them to recognize that an "A" _from their own institution_ is worth less than an "A" from another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Reporting the GPA of Medians (GPAM) alongside GPA would make GPAs more meaningful. The Washington Post recently reported on this idea: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade- point/wp/2018/06/1...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade- point/wp/2018/06/15/gpas-dont-really-show-what-students-learned-heres- why/?utm_term=.6fc6533c8b08)

</comment><comment><USER33> It's time to do away with grades entirely. Do what many Indian schools do -- report your score as a class percentile. At end of term, you don't get a grade, only a percentile. No curve. No score inflation. No bias.

What's more, each school should report your score _only_ relative to those of your peers. You should be compared only to other engineers, to other history majors, to other biology majors, etc. Because performance in physics is incomparable to english, education, or art, it's absurd to contrive a relative metric of comparison (AKA grades) to conflate them when none can possibly be meaningful or fair. Grades do an injustice to everyone.

As for comparing students from one school to the next, entrenched standardized tests like GREs have become a nightmare. Especially in terms of STEM curricula, schools often differ radically in how much they challenge the students and how far their skills develop by graduation. There simply is no way a three hour multiple choice test like a GRE can accurately reveal the difference between someone who attended Columbia vs Lehigh, for example. But a big difference there is. (I know since I attended both.) To pretend that some quick A/B/C/D/E test, which explores none of the practical skills learned in labs or projects, can accurately AND reliably reveal a meaningful difference among 'peers' \-- this does a disservice to everyone.

Finally, there's no better illustration of disparity in the academic ranks than the rise of for-profit degree mills during the past couple of decades. The pretense that millions are _not_ being cheated by these 'schools' is simply an abomination. I blame unchecked grade inflation and academic elitism for the tolerance for slap dash scholarship assessment that the sorry state of these 'schools' has revealed. As long as we avoid a precise and accurate accounting of the scholarly performance of the individual and the academic product of the university, we will continue to confuse student merit and invite charlatan schools to victimize their customers.

Somehow all these forms of false credentialism must end, and soon, or 'college' really will become the stinking albatross that Mark Cuban and others claim they are.

<comment><USER34> One of the smartest guys I knew from high school went to a top college for CS and went from being an valedictorian A student to getting Bs and Cs for the first time in his life. It greatly affected his perception of himself and he dropped out of the industry after getting his degree in CS. But he's actually a more capable programmer than lots of top graduates, so I agree that there should be some way of comparing students from one school to the next.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Poisonously, kids have become commoditized and all that distinguishes them are 'Schools and Grades'. 'Schools and Grades' are really the product here. Kids are the sellers. Companies are the buyers.

Until companies stop valuing kids solely by their 'School and Grade', this cycle will continue.

To make this an interesting conversation, how DO companies hire great people without relying on their 'School and Grades'? Are 'Schools and Grades' really the best indicator for worker performance?

<comment><USER31> In essence what is happening here is that rich parents/kids (or just very heavily indebted ones) are buying their degrees now, which have basically become shitcoins.

X% of employers are still believing the high worth of these shitcoin degrees, and for some reason, the bubble has yet to explode.

It's like, there's no difference in skill between buying bitcoin early vs a valueless coin. But, there is a massive difference in perceived wealth.

<comment><USER35> Agree. However, the difference is, once these 'shitcoins' get "bought" initially by the Goldman Sachs, Googles, and Mckinseys, the college grads then become truly valuable. So, now, we have this reinforcement problem, where the college grads get to work at the top firms for a few years because of their degree, and now, they are hot on the job market. And then, we further propagate the correlation between good degrees and good jobs.

<comment><USER31> I totally have seen this happen first hand as well. I would say there is a proportion of "shitcoin degree-holders who turn out to be valuable workers" and "shitcoin degree-holders who turn out to be costly but we keep them around anyway".

I think the real problem here is that investment capital (i.e money) is still so centralized in the hands of the fortune 500 and some investment banks. Most "run-of-the-mill" startups won't be differentiated by uniqueness of idea or ability to execute-- they'll just be differentiated by how much money they're given and how many rich dudes are in their network.

I really dream of the day that 10 high school graduates from Detroit can form a company and bootstrap their way to 100,000 users with a net profit of $1,000,000 a year.

I'm not sure such an example exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Do grades even matter anymore?

Unless you're applying to a gov't job, you're connections, friends, professors that like you, github accounts, art or MBA portfolio are the tools that move you "up" in the world. And in that order.

Online education dilutes GPA too. As well as more tech skill degrees (devops certs), aka those were called trade/vocational schools in my day.

I've never seen a GPA on an intern application/resume in the last 3yrs. Unless and (unfortunately) its from a visa student. Hmmm.

<comment><USER37> GPA, in my experience, seems to map _exactly_ onto your ability to wrangle a good GPA. That set of skills is largely orthogonal to solving hard problems or making useful contributions to a team.

<comment><USER38> To me, that just sounds like your teachers and professors were piss poor at their job and had no idea how to grade properly.

<comment><USER37> I was referring to my experiences with hiring engineers. Throwing shade about people's education isn't cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Relevant Mitchell and Webb sketch, Everyone gets an A [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGA11A340Ck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGA11A340Ck)

</comment><comment><USER40> I don't like these comparisons of statistics to justify that academic honors have lost their luster.

The students who go to these schools tend to be overachievers. Achieve honors at all costs kind of mentality. So just because too many students are actually achieving, do you try to bring them down? Or make coursework unreasonably hard?

I once talked to a professor from my university long after graduation, and I told him that I as I saw the students become better at the coursework (I was helping them so) the exams became harder and harder, to the point where the only way you could truly get the questions right and on time is by having a year of so experience doing those problems. He responded with the bell curve. That a few students should get A's, some should get B's, and majority should get C's.

Seriously? There are careers at stake here!

</comment><comment><USER41> Lots of people trying to justify their college experience in here. Reality is, none of it matters. What matters is how you were raised 20 years earlier and how you choose to live your life every day. Is every day a new puzzle to solve? Are you motivated to learn and solve challenges placed in front of you regardless of banality or difficulty? Guess what, you're the elusive employee everyone wants. Rarely are jobs too difficult for grades/degrees to matter in hiring process -- the job itself is the screener. Yeah,sure, some jobs are incredibly difficult and require elite skill and knowledge but we aren't talking about those jobs, we are generalizing. And guess what, attitude and outlook on life are all that matter.

</comment><comment><USER42> "A 4.0 does signal something significant, that that student is good," said Stuart Rojstaczer, a former Duke University professor who has studied grade inflation for years. " A 3.7, however, doesn't. That's just a run-of-the-mill student at any of these schools."

I disagree with this statement, at Carnegie Melllon I noticed that a lot of 4.0's were engineered. Students avoid taking hard classes, avoid difficult requirement classes by taking at an easier university, avoid challenging themselves outside of their major.

<comment><USER31> I can attest to this. I deliberately chose the easiest classes and even studied abroad twice because I knew specific professors leading the program abroad were giving out free As.

Fortunately for me, I got my degree without too much torture that many others go through. Unfortunately for me, nobody looks at my nice 3.7 GPA!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I've got to say, I think this is parallel to the issue that faaaaaaar too many people are getting bachelor's degrees. Generic sales jobs require them at this point, which is _nuts_. One should absolutely be able to get a sales job with a 6-digit income potential with mere experience in lower-powered positions, but for some reason we're forcing these people to study humanities for four years before we let them sell a CRM tool.

Shit, there's no reason most low-level programming positions need a CS bachelors. We really, really need good associates degrees that teach functional coding (logic structures, two common languages, git, agile). There is _no_ reason to expect someone to be in school for four years to be able to code.

Grades must be inflated to accommodate the horde passing through universities. The masters degree is the new bachelors degree.

</comment><comment><USER44> It seems there is a moral hazard involved here- administrators pressuring professors to pass more students, which leads to grade inflation. All this to retain students and keep the tuition money flowing.

I'd love to hear from front-line profs about this issue- does grade inflation need to be addressed?

<comment><USER45> I teach. I can say that I have never had direct pressure to pass students or raise grades, but there are two issues that I run into related to grades.

First is the ever-growing methods of academic dishonesty. I do not have enough hours in my life to create and design new homework that prevents cheating. It's possible for some assignments, but not all. I don't give up on cheating detection, but this leaves tests and participation (be it simply turning in work or in-person) as the primary grade-changing events for many students.

Second is the issue of student "litigation". It is not unusual to find a student that will fight to get their 4.0 by attrition, and that requires very good record keeping on the professor's part, taking away from time for other tasks.

My situation is at an extension of a very large university. We focus on teaching and student connection, not research. I know that these experiences change drastically when professors have graders and a research program taking their time away from teaching duties.

<comment><USER46> Can you explain more about this "litigation"? Your students actually sue over their grades?? That's nuts!

<comment><USER45> No, that's why I put it in quotes. They will often keep in incessant contact and try to escalate matters within the department or school. This is still somewhat rare, but happens often enough to complain about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I occasionally interview people and review resumes. There are two things I don't even bother looking at: where you went to school and what your GPA was.

<comment><USER48> then you're one of the only ones

<comment><USER49> I couldn't care less about your GPA or what school you went to, some of the best people I know never attended school at all.

<comment><USER28> Well, unless you're leaving something out, you just said that the less education a person has, the more capable they are - so, reductio ad absurdum, the most capable people in the world are middle-school drop-outs. But I suspect you're trying to suggest that education and competence are completely uncorrelated (which is a claim that would be hard to back up, incidentally) and that "something else" is an indicator of competence/intelligence/capability, but you're not specifying what you think that is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> If something like the Flynn Effect[0] is real and persistent, it could make sense that grade inflation is natural, and that fewer truly qualified students would be able to get university placements, scholarships, and so on, just because there are far greater numbers of deserving, materially higher- achieving students now, but the number of available "prestigious" outcomes has not grown as fast.

[0]: < [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect) >

<comment><USER4> I read about some years ago, that due to grade inflation, kids in high school are pressured to distinguish themselves further through more extracurriculars, volunteer work, even internships.

And you are right, the population is growing, but the number of prestigious universities has not, furthering the competitiveness. There aren't opening new Harvards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I think there's a very simple explanation for this.

In past times universities were very elite educational institutions that few attended. Today college is seen as basically high school 2.0. There's a lot of numbers in this [1] report from the census. [1] Today 33% of Americans have a bachelor's or higher degree, and 12% have a masters or doctorate. Those numbers also continue to skyrocket. In 1970 only about 10% of people had any degree and advanced degrees were a rare sight indeed. In other words we have more people with masters or better than had any degree in the 70s.

The explosive normalization of post-secondary school education has turned into a massive industry. College is now a half a trillion dollar industry per year, and rapidly growing. This has shifted students from being trialing and exceptional aspirants to... customers. And there is immense pressure to keep these customers happy. For instance many universities rely on student evaluations to measure teachers, yet those evaluations often work as a strong proxy to difficulty which works as a strong proxy to grades. You can see this connection in crystal clear fashion on any of the countless 'rate my professor' type sites.

[1] - [https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...](https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p20-578.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER52> Especially since in some graduate schools, you can't graduate with less than a 3.0.....

</comment><comment><USER53> The question seems to be, in which cases could a high GPA be a negative signal?

The answer depends on the qualities the employer is optimizing for in its employees. It's easy to imagine how a high GPA could be a positive signal or a low GPA could be a negative signal. However, it's also possible to imagine some circumstances where a high GPA may be a negative signal and a low GPA a high signal.

For example, perhaps a high GPA at a hard school implies a tendency for isolation, a preference for conformity over risk, and quality of work that depends solely on the specificity of instructions given. Depending on the stage of the company hiring, and/or the role it's hiring for, these traits may be undesirable and therefore useful as a negative hiring signal.

That said, the question of GPA as a signal is too focused in scope. Any such consideration of a signal metric like GPA should be balanced with its inverse: the likelihood of a low metric (e.g., GPA) being a negative signal.

A holistic approach would include creating a matrix of (x) traits the company wants to select or filter, and (y) input signals like GPA. That is, a mapping of signals to traits.

For each signal and trait the company should strive to estimate the probability function of the following cases:

\- High metric (GPA) is a negative signal for trait

\- High metric (GPA) is a positive signal for trait

\- Low metric (GPA) is a positive signal for trait

\- Low metric (GPA) is a negative signal for trait

The company should consider the importance of the trait(s) it is selecting for, and the relative risks (downsides) of misinterpreting any signal used as an input for selecting those traits. Only then does it have the information necessary to create a useful hiring strategy and rubric for candidates.

</comment><comment><USER54> When showing up and saying "I'm here" results in a 4.0?

When everyone is special. No one is special.

</comment><comment><USER55> A single grade serves at least three purposes:

\- To give students feedback about their progress

\- To competitively rank students knowledge

\- To competitively rank students organizational/bureaucratic hoop jumping skills

To conflate these three things is incompetence to the highest degree. Whoever invented this system, and everyone who has ever gone along with it should be deeply ashamed.

Of course, this is an oversimplification - there are many more confounding variables packed into a single stupid grade than just these three. I really can't overstate how stupid this system is. It's not even a system.

</comment><comment><USER56> To any young person worrying about the importance of their grades for eventually getting a good job, don't. Most everyone starts out with an entry level job and then other factors are immediately more important. Hiring considerations are more like: relevant job experience > total experience > references > whether they went to school > whether they finished school > what they went to school for > where they went to school > ... > GPA.

</comment><comment><USER57> A major benefit of attending elite schools is the increased opportunity to network. Google used to filter candidates by GPA but "quickly" learned this was a mistake.

Some companies do still look at GPAs. Others specifically indicate they're looking for people from "top-tier" schools. Out of context, this means you'll have more opportunities if you have a higher GPA and if you attended a top- tier school.

</comment><comment><USER58> I've found that GPA is completely irrelevant in the private sector but the school you attended still makes a big difference, particularly if it's in the very top tier.

Some companies will not even consider engineering candidates who did not come from a narrow list of schools (Ivies and similarly prestigious institutions). I know for a fact that Oracle has such a list along with several major finance companies.

</comment><comment><USER59> I just graduated with a "First Class Honours" degree (70%+) from a UK university. I'm really curious how companies in the UK view these grades (and how US companies convert these grades to a GPA, assuming that they do perform such a conversion), can anyone share their experiences?

</comment><comment><USER60> GPA is a totally useless metric, if for no other reason, then because it's a well documented fact that while some schools give out high grades for just showing up and applying some minute effort, others require an ass-busting amount of work just to register around average grades.

</comment><comment><USER61> Since it is much harder to get into the top universities and most classes scale their grades based on the history of the class, perhaps that relationship is the issue

</comment><comment><USER62> Grade Inflation has been an issue for decades. I think we all know to look up how rigorous a school or program actually is and adjust. Also, um, students cheat a lot.

</comment><comment><USER63> Still only matters for first job and then if you have nothing else to show. As a hiring manager, its a minus for me to see unless its for intern. But surprising how often i see on cvs. (Speaking as former top of ChE class and frequent outlier to be removed on grading curves.)

<comment><USER64> How can good grades ever be a minus?

<comment><USER65> I think he's saying that if you are applying to a job and have more than 0 experience, you shouldn't be relying on your GPA as a selling point.

And I agree - GPA is pretty irrelevant to anything in the business world. All it proves is that you can play by the rules in the school system - not a real indication of your experience, skills, or relevant knowledge.

<comment><USER66> Success in much of the business world requires you to play by the rules of the business system, which may be as capricious, arbitrary, pointless, stupid, and orthogonal to relevant knowledge [1], as success in the school system.

For every hiring manager who takes the approach that anyone putting their GPA on their resume is an asshole or an idiot, there's three others who think that there's something wrong with a junior applicant who doesn't put their GPA on their resume.

Unless you tell the applicant what you want to see, they have no idea which of these two hiring managers you might be. Instead of downmarking people for having the audacity to present this information to you, perhaps you could just ignore it?

[1] Which the hiring manager in this thread has unironically demonstrated.

<comment><USER67> Without any evidence to back up your claim I could just as easily claim that for every hiring manager who cares about seeing a GPA on a resume there are three others who think there's something wrong with an applicant with any experience who does put their GPA on their resume.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I haven't read the whole article (paywalled), but I wonder if the honors losing their luster is more about a low correlation between high GPA and professional success (at least in STEM careers). I've been involved in hiring and for recent grads we will look at transcripts, but GPA as a factor isn't weighted very highly. I'm much more interested in hearing a candidate talk about their senior project or personal projects and other areas of interest.

Does anybody even look at transcripts or care about GPA beyond your first job?

<comment><USER69> You're lucky if they even look at GPA or transcripts for your first job.

College is the new high school.

<comment><USER70> I've taught in college. Freshmen and sophomores aren't that distinguishable from high schoolers by knowledge, ability, and maturity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> (Paywalled so I can't read the whole article) This is mainly due to society's (I'm in the US) mentality that if a kid get's low grade, s/he are lazy and a failure. We really need a reform to gauge aptitude better and accept the fact that some people are better at blue collar jobs than white collar jobs (and vice versa). Our current standardized test system does not reflect this.

</comment><comment><USER72> article without paywall: [https://outline.com/HeY8AN](https://outline.com/HeY8AN)

</comment><comment><USER73> Oooooh, these distinctions are given by absolute GPA and not by class ranking ? That's a shame...

<comment><USER74> Giving out academic distinction based on class ranking is no different than giving out professional distinctions based on stack ranking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Welcome to Purdue then

</comment><comment><USER76> For each course on a transcript, the average grade earned should be shown, so that the reader can adjust grades earned for easy or harsh grading. It would be nice to see the average SAT or ACT score in the class too, to see if the "harsh" or "easy" grading is just a reflection of the quality of the students. Put this data in a csv file that employers could download, and I think smart employers would use it.

</comment><comment><USER77> Capitalism has resulted in such fierce competition that now even its feeder system for employees is being compromised. There are few marks of distinction that matter anymore, resulting in ever greater precarity for even the middle classes that thought they were immune.</comment>


France has banned judicial analytics to analyze the courts - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/technology/2019/06/france-has-banned-judicial-analytics-to-analyze-the-courts.html <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20092458](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20092458)</comment>


The Deck ad network is shutting down - <AUTHOR> http://decknetwork.net/ <comment><USER2> This seems to fit the narrative of a broader wave of consolidation hitting the old-school web.

Like it or not, there are real advantages to walled gardens like facebook. To ad buyers, it's a single platform where one can target the entire world person-by-person -- even across multiple devices (iPad, phone, laptop), with hyper-accurate segmentation and user tracking, strong identity services with all the abuse/spam prevention and payment capability that enables, multi- lingual, optimized CDN-based distribution to ensure all content is fast and cheaply delivered to every corner of the globe (an especially big deal given the rise of video ads), mobile-first UX that works across every conceivable handset including iOS and every esoteric variant of Android, etc.

I'm not pleased about a lot of this, but it's a mistake to deny what's happening.

<comment><USER3> You don't need a walled garden for that. You would need some client-side listeners.

Walled gardens arise because our legal system incentivizes it. Network effects are unnatural online. There is no barrier to access or information flow here -- put simply, _there are no real walls_ to protect the garden. They're all artificially imposed barriers.

With improved laws, no one would be able to hold the web-accessible data hostage, and competition would be based on consumer-facing concerns like user experience and customer service.

Until we get to that point, which makes up the foundation of all competition in the physical world, the potential of the internet will continue to be squandered. It's very important to wake people up to these issues, since no one really seems to discuss them.

<comment><USER4> > _Network effects are unnatural online._

I find this line ironic since the Network Effect (or Metcalfe's Law) was created to describe literal computer networks.

Network effects don't happen in the physical world nearly as easily because the bar, grocery store, or whatever is limited by geography. They can only address a population within a certain radius and can't grow beyond it.

Transportation hubs - like airports - may be an exception because the more places you can get from one airport, the more likely you are to use that airport.. if you even have a choice.

<comment><USER3> >I find this line ironic since the Network Effect (or Metcalfe's Law) was created to describe literal computer networks.

The distinction is that it refers to _physical_ networks (and iirc, referred initially to phone systems, not computer systems per se). At layer 1, the network effect is still very much valid and caused by the capabilities of the physical hardware. This is forgotten because today everyone is plugged into the same network. This was not always the case.

Because Metcalfe's Law exists, people have misunderstood it to apply to cyberspace and incorrectly believed it's simply the way things have to be. This is not so.

The compatibility concern at the core of _real_ network effects, where the hardware buy will be dictated by what the most neighbors have, are not relevant once you have a physical hookup.

In cyberspace, layers 2 and up, there is no physical limitation on compatibility. There are only digits (hence the term "digital") upon which computations are made (hence "computers"). If the correct computations can be performed (i.e., if you possess hardware that can convert the electrical pulses to the expected digits and software (drivers, browsers, etc.) that can decode the digits to match expectations), the desired data can be presented.

Since network effects refer exclusively to physical compatibility, we only see this in the digital realm because it's artificially imposed. The law says that anyone who tries to extricate data from, e.g., Facebook will be severely punished, despite the fact that Facebook does not have a copyright interest in the data, and that as long as such extrication is done responsibly, it would have 0 impact on Facebook's ability to conduct its operations.

That's an artificial barrier that we've concocted, and it's the only mechanism by which network effects can work in cyberspace. Without the legal risk, people would read the data out from Facebook and recast, repopulate, etc. in alternate hypermedia. People would also make writable interfaces available. Facebook would then have to compete on its ability to provide a superior user experience, like most other businesses, not the availability of the data that they've misappropriated from users.

Social networks like Facebook have forced themselves between the open network and the data that used to be exposed to it, insisting that all traffic must be subject to their conditions. There's no reason to allow that!

Once the online marketplace is subject to the same types of competition that exist in the physical marketplace, i.e., once everyone is allowed to compete over the same core of knowledge, things are going to drastically improve.

<comment><USER5> I appreciate your thinking, but your understanding and application of networks, as well as your decidedly wishful thinking that they don't apply online, is simply wrong.

Mind: I'd much rather this not be the case, but it simply is.

Metcalfe's function is, by the way, _also_ incorrect. Very few networks are comprised of nodes of equal value, instead the nodal (and inter-nodal) value tends to follow a power function (Zipf's Law), with one suggestion being that the value function of a network with peer-to-peer connections then be:

      V = n * log(n) (Tilly-Odlyzko).

I see even _that_ as incomplete, as networks _also_ generate negative interactions, though by their nature, Metcalfe's formula applies, with some constant, such that the network _cost_ imposed by nodes is:

      C = k * n^2

Putting those together, a clear corollary is that the _maximum feasible size_ of the network is dependent on the cost function constant.

What you're failing to consider is that the _members_ of a network, including both the users and advertisers, are themselves components of that network, and have their own value and cost calculations to be applied. For large advertising networks, the fact that 1) larger markets with 2) more customers can be approached with 3) fixed costs for the advertiser and 4) efficiencies of scale for the network operator (e.g., Facebook or Google, approximately 2/3 of all online advertising), then there will automatically be an advantage to larger networks, provided _k_ is sufficiently small.

There's nothing artificial about those barriers.

Incidentally, you can find network or dendritic structures in _any_ system in which you have nodes or elements, and links or relationships: transport and communications systems, cities, even knowledge or information itself (think of the terms "knowledge web" or "information web").

I've never cared for Facebook and am finding Google increasingly evil and/or incompetent (and am torn as to whether that last is a good or bad thing on balance), but there's very little validity in claiming that the dynamics which have benefitted them are artificially imposed.

<comment><USER3> I wasn't clear.

I agree that networks will continue to benefit as more users hop on the platform. What I mean is that the element of network effects that we consider prohibitive/oppressive -- the "walls" around the "garden" \-- are artificial in cyberspace, whereas they are real in meatspace.

There is nothing in cyberspace to prevent that data from flowing freely; there is only the threat that meatspace thugs will come and take your liberty and property for failing to respect the imaginary lines. In effect, it's a political border.

Without the legal armaments at its disposal, Facebook could still be a central hub of activity, but the data could be freed from it and exported.

Instead of creating Google+ and hoping it caught on, Google, seeing Facebook's success, could get credentials from the user and automatically multiplex/multicast the user's streams from G+ and FB into the G+ interface. The user would be using G+ as an FB browsing device, and that should be legal -- just as legal as using any other software as a browsing device.

Yes, the browser could materially modify the content of the page, including stripping the ads off the child stream. But all browsers can do that. Should we make it illegal for Chrome or Firefox as well? The only difference is that Firefox is executed on a box a few feet away from the user, whereas a G+ browser is executed on a box that is (probably) much further away.

In this scenario, Facebook continues to directly benefit from the growth and expansion of its network, and more people hop on Facebook. The difference is that there is no barrier to get up against if you're viewing the network's growth from across the room, and you can tell people on your side of the room "It looks Alice from that other network is brushing her teeth". Facebook would no longer have a monopoly on the content generated by users who are "in their space".

<comment><USER5> _the "walls" around the "garden" \-- are artificial_

But they're not.

Standards, access, frictions, legal obstacles, implementation costs, and much more.

How, precisely, do you distinguish "artificial" and "non-artificial" barriers?

There were open networks, with Usenet being a particular example. Usenet still exists, sort-of. It's entirely a non-starter in social networks. You might want to enquire as to why. Similarly, Diaspora, Friendica, FOAF, blog+RSS, etc., etc.

<comment><USER3> >How, precisely, do you distinguish "artificial" and "non-artificial" barriers?

An artificial barrier is something that constrains by fiat, especially when that barrier comes from a third-party like the government. It's "because I said so".

You're correct that things like standards, access, and costs are barriers that must be overcome, but with a relatively small amount of effort, these barriers _are_ surmountable.

The ongoing cat and mouse game between something like Facebook and something that multiplexed its data on the user's behalf would be the most expensive/irritating "natural" barrier; natural because, while Facebook would be intentionally creating it, it's a real capability restriction that must be circumvented technologically and not the government saying "Don't do that, or else".

A natural barrier that may constrain some otherwise illegal activities would be the disdain of the public. In this case, there is no such disdain; copyright and IP law long ago exited the space that most people consider reasonable.

>There were open networks, with Usenet being a particular example.

Fixing the law would make the data open without requiring any material change in FB. They don't have to open up. The point is that in cyberspace, the data is natively open.

As Bruce Schneier says, "trying to make digital bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet". Easy copying is an intrinsic, inextricable mechanism of the medium. Indeed, it's the fundamental mechanism that allows computers to function at all.

Blog+RSS did extremely well. Facebook and Twitter succeeded _because_ they were simple forms of aggregation. Throughout the 00s, before FB took off with the adult crowd, many people had personal/family blogs to share information about their lives with families and friends, and you'd add them to your feed reader to keep up. FB has supplanted that by having greater usability, but at the core, the concept is the same. The difference now is that FB can lock it up due to the favorable legal situation.

As for things like Diaspora, though I admittedly haven't studied them thoroughly and they probably suffered significant real flaws, they're hamstrung by the _artificial_ effects discussed here.

Diaspora likely would've been an acceptable "social interface" if it could multiplex streams from Facebook and multicast out both to its own network and Facebook (and for all I know, there probably _is_ software that allows this to happen on open protocols like Diaspora; it just can't be deployed in a usable way by anyone looking not to get sued out of existence).

True there are barriers like technology and cost to overcome, but the one intractable barrier is the one that is totally arbitrary: the laws that prevent it.

Anyway, I know that we don't agree, but I do appreciate your contributions to this thread. The discussions have been interesting and given me some good feedback on how to phrase this moving forward.

<comment><USER5> I think we're at about the limits of an HN discussion length here. I appreciate your thoughts, though I also think you're severely understimating the emergent properties which can lead to lock-in effects. That's not to say there aren't _some_ imposed barriers, though I'd argue ultimately those legal bars _themselves_ are in some sense emergent (virtually any empowered agent will seek to reinforce its power through available means).

The good news, if there is that, is that aspirational social networks tend to follow cycles, both online and off, and Facebook will all but certainly fall, eventually. The bad news is that the same dynamics which created it will create the next instance, and I'm really not sure those dyanamics _can_ be disrupted, no matter how much I'd like to see that they are.

While it's hard to make digital information uncopyable, it's relatively easy to make it _nonsensical_. Obsolete or opaque formats, hoop-jumping, rate- limiting, and more, all impose costs. And the larger your population is, by definition, the less sophisticated it is (sophistication is a definitionally minority characteristic). So the harder it is to manifest a shift.

Something to keep in mind: any time someone pitches an idea to you with the line "all we've got to do is convince people to ...", run. Just run. Unless people would sell their children and mothers to get what it is you're selling, it won't fly.

(Cellphones are crack.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Whenever I noticed that a site I'm visiting is "powered" by DECK, I was whitelisting it in the adblock. I hate ads, but I totally get that they keep things going in the Net, and so if there have to be ads they should be like the DECK: no tracking, no profiling, no being invasive. It's really a shame that an opposite of that triumphs today. In the long term it's gonna be painful for the users, for publishers, for the net, for advertisers as well. Probably for everyone, except for Facebook and Apple.

<comment><USER7> I'm curious what you think of my ad network[1] -- it allows for native ads that are non-intrusive and actually benefit the user. When you hover over an item in an image, an ad is displayed, but hovering off of it makes it go away.

Here is an example video showing that: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_oTtDUV0yI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_oTtDUV0yI)

Although the ads aren't blocked by ad blockers, if they were, would you unblock them? Also would love any feedback!

[1] [http://pleenq.com](http://pleenq.com)

<comment><USER8> I'm curious.... is there some sort of crazy image recognition tech going on here or does the website owner need to somehow identify what's in the image for the ads to work? If it's the former then this is seriously impressive.

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately (in terms of programming credibility), it's done manually. The process is extremely fast though -- just seconds to do a highlight, and a built-in search that hooks into all affiliate networks (Commission Junction, Linkshare, Affiliate Window, Share-a-sale, etc.) along with allowing custom links.

<comment><USER9> Huh, the startups who tried to do this before you (and died) didn't do it manually. Some crowdsourced it, some did recognition. Do you think your timing is better?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a shame.

I really liked the deck - it was one of the few ad networks I actually wanted to get on my site. They had both really high quality ads, and really high quality publishers.

This is also a pretty big blow to the publishers - they'll feel the revenue loss, and there isn't an equivalent network to take their place. I'm sure they'll find something though.

<comment><USER11> does Carbon ([https://carbonads.net/](https://carbonads.net/)) not provide a similar offering?

<comment><USER12> Yes. Very similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This makes me sad. We based our Ethical Advertising concept that we're doing on Read the Docs ([http://docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ethical- advertising.htm...](http://docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ethical- advertising.html)) on their inspiration.

We don't have nearly as much mobile traffic (only ~6%), so hopefully we will be able to make it work, but this doesn't fill me with confidence.

<comment><USER14> You should join us at Carbon :)

<comment><USER15> But the Carbon site says it's invite-only. Also, how do you go about advertising on a site with user sub-sites using Carbon?

<comment><USER14> That was an invite.

I'm not sure I understand your question. We put the sites in "circles" and advertisers buy a specific circle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Metafilter used this ad network: [http://metatalk.metafilter.com/24390/Fond- farewell-to-ads-fr...](http://metatalk.metafilter.com/24390/Fond-farewell-to- ads-from-The-Deck)

So did Waxy: [https://twitter.com/waxpancake/status/847188783724322816](https://twitter.com/waxpancake/status/847188783724322816)

<comment><USER16> Also Daring Fireball: [http://daringfireball.net/2017/03/the_deck_adieu](http://daringfireball.net/2017/03/the_deck_adieu)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This was a fun weekend hack experimenting with the iOS 9 content blocker extension framework. Never got that link on Daring Fireball though!

[http://swabthe.com/](http://swabthe.com/)

<comment><USER18> You built a content blocker that _only_ blocked The Deck?

<comment><USER19> You are obviously missing the sarcasm.

<comment><USER20> You are obviously missing who jgruber is.

<comment><USER19> Should I care? I don't buy into personality cults.

<comment><USER21> In this case, yes. Not because of personality cults, but because jgruber is the person behind DF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Shame to hear this... although I guess there is less demand now with hyper- targeted invasive social ads. Working with The Deck previously, Jim was always such a pleasure to deal with and it felt a lot more personal as a network vs. Google or the big social networks. RIP.

</comment><comment><USER23> > In 2014, display advertisers started concentrating on large, walled, social > networks. The indie "blogosphere" was disappearing. Mobile impressions, > which produce significantly fewer clicks and engagements, began to really > dominate the market

There was a recent discussion on HN about how difficult it is to promote a blog now (compared to a few years ago). I think this statement by Deck further emphasises the fact that independent blogs are seeing a decline in readership.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is sad. I based my idea for a free software friendly ad network on this, and pitched it back in 2009. It became AdBard, and for a while it was quite popular in the free software space.

[http://www.fsf.org/news/ad-bard](http://www.fsf.org/news/ad-bard)

A big problem for free software sites is finding ads that respect the users freedom while promoting products which are not harmful to computer users.

</comment><comment><USER25> Monetizing content with DISPLAY ads is no joke.

The sheer number of tools display networks have at their fingertips to try to unlock value from your visitor's eyeballs are astounding - RTB exchanges / re- targeting / user profiling / etc / etc.

And even with all of that most content producers can't make a living off of their cut.

I always loved the simplicity of The Deck, but their end was inevitable.

<comment><USER26> Yup. Reading their post, it appears they didn't want to play the contemporary adtech game because it felt scummy, so they became unprofitable and quit.

<comment><USER27> Publishers massively overvalue their inventory and don't understand how their million views are worth only buttons. Ad networks can't pay more because they don't get paid more from the advertisers. The key is that no one clicks on banners any more, so it really is a race to the bottom.

<comment><USER26> Did people ever click on banners after like 2002? CTR on these things are abysmal.

The whole ad business reeks of desperation. However, it does pay the bills, so I guess it actually works.

<comment><USER28> CTR isn't the only KPI by which ads are sold. These days, publishers understand that ads still influence even if normal users don't actually click. When a purchase is preceded by an impression from my ad network, in some cases I can get credit for a portion of it.

<comment><USER26> Agree that CTR isn't the main metric that matters from a business perspective, but it's the one to verify the statement "no one clicks on banners".

<comment><USER29> Isn't that the wrong question?

what I'd really like to know is whether banners are a worthwhile investment, not if they get clicked on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Clicked on the link to read the post and it said the page was blocked by my ad blocker... oh the irony!

More seriously, sad to see them go but this does reflect the reality of a market shift in this space.

</comment><comment><USER31> I remember looking to host their ads and it was more like they would call you not the other way around. Was this always the case?

</comment><comment><USER32> I wonder how much their content providers moving over to platforms like Medium hurt their business? Aside from the fact so few people are clicking on traditional display ads anymore.

We really shouldn't be looking down on this business. They managed to outlive a TON of companies (10 years is great on the internet), and I'm sure provided livelihoods for a fair number of people both at Coudal and their partner blogs who they were monetizing. Kudos to them!

</comment><comment><USER33> uBlock Origin will block the article by default.

It seemed like a straight-forward business with little overhead considering there wasn't anything invasive or highly technical about the advertising units.

Is there a market for that type of advertising online?

<comment><USER34> > uBlock Origin will block the article by default.

Seems short-sighted! And, also, an indication of where things are today.

<comment><USER35> There is no shortsightedness involved, it's just a false positive from one of the filter lists. When false positives are reported, they get fixed. This fixes the false positive:

@@||decknetwork.net^$first-party

<comment><USER36> Or browse in blacklist mode. That's what I do and recommend to most... I love uBlock Origin, but I wish it was blacklist mode by default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Could anyone in the know comment on whether their invite-only nature contributed to this? I have wanted to have Deck Network ads on my sites forever, but there was no real way to do so. They seemed to be restricted to inviting only Apple-themed blogs and sites, plus maybe their peripheral network.

I wonder if having a somewhat more clear and easy vetting process would have helped expand their reach somewhat.

<comment><USER12> What are your sites?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is sad really...Its the walmart effect happening here (where a bigbox store comes into town and crushes the little, local shop).

</comment><comment><USER39> I guess being humane doesn't really work in the advertising industry.

</comment><comment><USER40> Anyone have recommendations for video ad providers? I would like to embed ads to play before a stream starts, but would also like to do it in the most ethical way possible.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Was The Deck still invite only and if so can someone explain the value in that? That elitism could be a selling point, but if you are charging monthly, it just seems a turn off for expansion because they won't grow with you but only come in when you are established.

</comment><comment><USER41> Such a shame. A bad week for the web

</comment><comment><USER42> It was probably the only ad network I have whitelisted on every adblocker I use.

</comment><comment><USER43> Has Deck considered making video ads? I ended up liking their take on 'banner ads'. Curious to see what they might have done with video.

</comment><comment><USER44> The Deck consistently presented the most sensible ads I've seen out there. Sorry to see it go.

</comment><comment><USER34> It's worth noting because this was an ad network that tried to do the job the right way. The heyday of the indie blog was already over, this is just a reflection of that. It worked for a while, and the wold has moved on. It's not a matter of "grinding it out" or persistence, the market factors have simply changed.

I wonder what Daring Fireball (AFAIK by far the site with largest readership on the Deck) will do. I'm sure that's still quite a profitable enterprise, to be clear.

<comment><USER45> Not quite the same thing, but it is sort of heartening that Marco Arment -- of Tumblr, Instapaper, and now Overcast fame -- was able to build out his own non-scummy ad buying platform for his Overcast app. It seems to be doing quite well.

[https://overcast.fm/account/buy_ad](https://overcast.fm/account/buy_ad)

<comment><USER46> I know one person who ran a listing so far and they are very happy. It's about putting the right sort of "ad" in the right place. Advertising podcasts in an ad where people are listening to podcasts is a no-brainer and engagement should be high.

Advertising arbitrary services, even if they're good, on arbitrary blogs seems trickier to price and sell. But with the quality of the sites in the network, I'm sure they could all individually find the right, complementary type of advertising to continue to fund them.

<comment><USER45> What makes podcast ads so much better? I'm not referring to overcast ads.

I think the only thing I've ever bought based on a podcast ad is BackBlaze, but I do find podcast ads for the podcasts I listen to much better, more relevant, etc., I've just never been in the market for most of what they are selling.

<comment><USER47> Yev from Backblaze here -> thanks for purchasing! I think part of that is when I find places to run a Backblaze ad, I try to find a show-host who is willing to do the read themselves, try the product, and maybe share a personal story instead of just reading blanket copy. That doesn't happen all the time, but when it does it comes off better. Backblaze is a tough thing to market because a lot of folks view backup as a horrendous time-sink - so if the host can drive home the ease-of-use we see folks more inclined to giving our trial a spin!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> lol @ 7 billion ad impressions during the entire lifetime of an AD NETWORK. I get 1.5 billion ad impressions a month on my 1 site alone.

<comment><USER49> I'll bet money the CPM Deck sold their ads is magnitudes greater than what you're selling for.</comment></comment>


New MongoDB feature for efficiently paging geo queries - <AUTHOR> http://emptysqua.re/blog/paging-geo-mongodb/

<comment><USER2> great post! I like the detailed description and sample app</comment>


BitTorrent-Only Movie Denied IMDb Listing - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-only-horror-movie-denied-imdb-listing-100929/ <comment><USER2> I don't see the problem here. If they allowed anyone to submit a title without any backing from a trusted name or company, or without it already being a working title, the quality of the site would soon drop off a cliff.

<comment><USER3> IMDB requires a theatrical release, e.g. film festival or wider release. It might seem arcane, but the system is human-edited

<comment><USER4> They list straight-to-DVD releases (e.g., <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120131/>). They even list TV shows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Lots of speculation on torrentfreak's part. I expect the reason for rejection is because Imdb want to keep the quality of their database high and have an approvals process for movies to appear on there - otherwise you'll get every amateur film maker wanting to submit their productions and they don't necessarily need to be on there.

Although in this case it looks to be a serious production, I think this is just the approvals process stopping this and I'm sure it will be get sorted out soon.

</comment><comment><USER6> I found the movie's funding model far more interesting than the spin about why IMDb.

</comment><comment><USER7> It would be interesting to see how large chunk of imdb's traffic comes from The Pirate Bay. Whenever a film is posted on TPB, the popularity score imdb keeps goes way up.

</comment><comment><USER8> IMHO, IMDB serves two major purposes - one as an archive for anything you may want to know about the movie, and second the rating ( which many people, including me, don't judge movies by)

Alternatives - One, Set up your own website/ Use Wikipedia . Second, use Rotten Tomatoes, or someone create a new and more open 'movie' database to help movies like 'The Tunnel'.

<comment><USER9> Um, IMDBPro is kind of a big deal too. Actually, most of the folks trying to get listed on IMDB is because of IMDBPro.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A friend of mine made some short films on a budget of around $3000 on average, and they're on IMDB. Also, they are shot on genuine film.</comment>


The Lx Programming Language - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/c3d/xl <comment><USER3> Disclaimer: Author of the language / web page speaking.

This one is hopelessly outdated. See [https://github.com/c3d/xl](https://github.com/c3d/xl) for the current state of things. A bit of history of the language here: [https://github.com/c3d/xl/blob/master/doc/HISTORY.md](https://github.com/c3d/xl/blob/master/doc/HISTORY.md).

Warning: this is currently under heavy repair / refactoring, so Nothing Works™.

An interesting (if old, 2010) application of the language here: [http://tao3d.sourceforge.net](http://tao3d.sourceforge.net).

Contributions and ideas welcome.

<comment><USER4> What you did there is very cool! I am speaking for both LX as presented in the old link and the new work that you are doing.

Personally I have given up creating a new programming language about a decade ago because I realized no matter what language I create, people will not use it, it it comes from a random github page.

Also, existing languages cover almost all business needs and while languages like LX provide a lot of improvements, the cost of change seems to be greater than the cost of not having these improvements.

As for ideas, what I'd like to see in a programming language is signal-based programming: the execution flow of a program is not 'one instruction after the other' but reactions to signals. A program shall be built by wiring output signals to input signals.

I'd also like to see types morph based on run-time conditions.

The most fundamental problem of all the current programming languages is that types are too rigid and don't allow for catching all the possible outcomes. For example, a File morphs between a closed file and an opened file, however in current systems any operation can be applied to a file, irrespectively of whether the file is actually opened or closed.

I believe that the combination of signal-based programming and type morphing will increase the reliability of programs, leaving only bugs that cannot be proven to be solved due to their nature (aka like the halting problem).

I may not be necessarily correct, but I have a strong belief in the above.

<comment><USER5> The thing you are referring to with open and closed files is called typestate. Check out its implementation in the Plaid programming language: [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aldrich/papers/onward2009-state.pdf](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aldrich/papers/onward2009-state.pdf)

<comment><USER6> There was a post here on HN about typestates in Rust too yesterday. For anyone that didn't see it: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21413174](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21413174)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hmm, one might think there's a trend in how almost none of the 'programmable programming languages' catch on. Lithp, Rebol, Forth, Nemerle, this one. Perhaps it has something to do with readability being more important than writeability? Me, I find macros and implicits repulsive. Give me Zig over LX any day (Zig purposefully contains no macro facility).

<comment><USER8> Java has compiler plugins, annotations, reflection and aspect oriented programming as metaprogramming tools.

.NET has T4 templates, attributes, reflection, expression trees, and F# adds code quotations to the mix.

<comment><USER9> T4 barely counts, as it's string- and not AST-based. For meta-programming to be useful, IMHO it really needs to be part of the language and base tool- chain. I certainly don't want to write code in Java, f'rinstance, that needs random compiler plug-in to weave in AOP calls, etc. But in Lisp, Prolog (and not Elixer, etc.) macros are part of "how stuff works".

<comment><USER8> Then languages like D don't have metaprogramming capabilities if using AST based one is considered a requirement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It makes me so happy to see more rewrite based languages. Another one that is extremely cool that I almost never see brought up is [pure][1][2].

[1]: [https://agraef.github.io/pure-lang/](https://agraef.github.io/pure- lang/) [2]: [https://github.com/agraef/pure- lang/wiki/PureIntro](https://github.com/agraef/pure-lang/wiki/PureIntro)

</comment><comment><USER11> The name of the language is XL, not Lx. The title of the Readme is "XL - <USER2> extensible language" and the URL ends with /xl

<comment><USER3> I'm not too sure about the dates, but the rough history is this:

LX: Langage expérimental (~1992) Ada like with "pragmas" extending the language

LX: Langage extensible (1998): Rewrite with documented object-oriented parse tree

LX/XL: Extensible language (2000) based on object-oriented parse tree, cross- language framework called Mozart, that also had a Java front-end called Moka

XL2: Extensible language (2002) based on simple parse tree, 8 node types, Ada- like in syntax

XL2: Self compiling compiler (2005?) with same 8-node parse tree, Ada-like

XLR: LLVM-based functional variant (2008-2009), same parse tree, functional, very simple, library-defined if-then-else

Tao3D: real-time 3D graphics running on XLR (2010-2015)

ELiOT / ELFE: Distributed programming (2015?), based on interpreted version of XLR

XL: Reconvergence of all of the above (WIP), all merged, implemented as a library with a tiny front-end.

<comment><USER3> I forgot to mention that XLR meant "XL Runtime" and was initially thought of as a back-end for XL2. Then it took a life of its own.</comment></comment></comment>


These are the best and worst airlines in the U.S., according to new ranking - <AUTHOR> https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2019/03/19/best-airlines-delta-alaska-southwest-united-worst-airlines-frontier-spirit-allegiant-jetblue/3200926002/ <comment><USER2> The original article is at [https://thepointsguy.com/news/tpg-2019-list-best- and-worst-a...](https://thepointsguy.com/news/tpg-2019-list-best-and-worst- airlines/)</comment>


FBI Agents Visit Second Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/04/g-men-visit-second-life-casinos-stay-for-the-brothels/ <comment><USER2> I'm curious what names the FBI agents took. I believe SL still uses a list of pre-selected sirnames that users may choose from, i.e. my SL name is "Bonaventure Tackleberry."

This should be fun.

</comment><comment><USER3> Second Life needs their "Neo".

</comment><comment><USER4> Feds == evil.

:(</comment>


Gitstore App - <AUTHOR> https://gitstore.app <comment><USER2> The discussion about GitNews mentioned there might be trademark trouble launching a service starting with 'git' [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19207524](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19207524)</comment>


Concepts – Laws, Principles, Mental Models, Cognitive Biases - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-concepts <comment><USER2> I've seen several of these lists being shared around the internet, and I'm curious if anyone actually finds it valuable to read through a laundry list of mental models. I generally find these abstract descriptions useless unless I've already seen the principle in action in several concrete real life examples--in which case the idea is not a new one to me.

<comment><USER3> The set of "mental models" here isn't very well curated. They seem more like clever quotes than mental models, and it's curation seems less organized/thoughtful compared to the list of laws described above it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The default 80/20 example everyone uses for Pareto misleads you about the nature of the insight. You can observe any combo, and they need not add up to 100%. It could just as well be "12% of the effort gets you 100% of your results, and the other 88% gets you nothing."

</comment><comment><USER5> Alphabetical is no way to arrange concepts like these if the intention is to be useful.

My intuition tells me this was more of an exercise for the author to help keep these things in mind than as a high traffic repository for learning these things and applying them to one's life.</comment>


People with hidden immunity against Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200716-the-people-with-hidden-protection-from-covid-19 <comment><USER2> I'm glad this is getting attention, but I don't like how this line is written: "Most bizarrely of all, when researchers tested blood samples taken years before the pandemic started, they found T cells which were specifically tailored to detect proteins on the surface of Covid-19."

If you look at the linked article ([https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286742...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867420306103?via%3Dihub)), it is pretty clearly stated that these T cells are considered cross reactive (maybe arising from previous exposures to other coronaviruses). They couldn't be specific for a virus when they arose before that virus even started spreading.

</comment><comment><USER3> For anyone curious to learn more about our immune system I highly recommend the book "An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System".

It will really open your eyes into how complex, and in most cases unknown, our immune system is. It's fascinating what sort of internal defenses arise out of the chemical soup of billions of years of evolution.

</comment><comment><USER4> Page Unavailable</comment>


The Century of Self Happiness Machines - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUYFr-uDQgg Controling masis ...The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays.It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world. <comment><USER2> The Century of the Self is an excellent documentary. I felt horrible when I first watched it, but it changed the way I see things. I was shocked to learn that Goebbels kept Bernays' book in his back pocket and based the nazi propaganda on its principles. What would be the effect on people if they watched it? Do you think they'd want to wake up and face reality?

<comment><USER3> What do you mean by wondering if people would "wake up and face reality" aside from pointing out your superiority to the "unthinking masses"?

How, exactly, would things be if people were 'awake' and 'facing reality', and what are people doing now in your view instead of that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My first viewing of The Century of Self some years ago clearly marks a turning point in my understanding of the world and how it truly operates. I have learned so much since then. No one can take our liberty without us allowing it.

</comment><comment><USER5> The obvious irony here is that compelling images, great editing and good writing can also manipulate large groups of people.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's a shame this viedo has only has 7,000 hits in a little less than a year. Everybody really ought to see this</comment>


NASA shake-up leaves space program in confusion - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1664077/nasa-fires-top-official-over-moon-2024/ <comment><USER2> The lack of national unity makes something like the Apollo program impossible today. Every presidential administration I have memory of living through has announced grandious plans with congress eventually pulling the plug on it just after the planning stage. What national motivation is there to retake old ground? Or to go to mars which many believe is practically a biological impossibility? Nasa vets have all seen this time and time again. Morale must be pretty bad. Apollo was canceled because congress did not think it was worth the funds to keep it going. It is not going to be either cheap or easy to go back. Besides we don't even have a working human spaceflight program and have not for years.</comment>