Opinion: Why I hate the new rule. Written by 187

# 1. The new rule is so focused on banning people.

Since when did the ConquerHSC rules turn into a culture of scaring people into being banned? The announcements are using words like **“immediate ban”**, **“subject to permanent ban”, “we will ban on sight”.** What are we? North Korea?

Instead of implementing rules that sound like they’re trying to scare, perhaps we need to use a friendlier approach. I’m perfectly fine with having to provide a source for any questions that are asked, but everything doesn’t need to be a ban for non-compliance. It just doesn’t come off right. Instead, moderators/mentors, or even anyone who regularly reads the chats, should let question askers know that they should provide a source before their question is answered. I’m not sure why they have to be banned “on sight”, a great alternative is literally talking to them.

The current rule has the mentality of guilty and proven innocent. Is this how justice systems work? Last I checked, that’s how the Taliban works. We could potentially be banning innocent people who just want to ask a question and those who contribute greatly to the ConquerHSC community. The fact that we had to write **“you** **can for** **sure** **appeal,** **however,** **you** **would** **need** **proof** **backing** **yourself”** sounds like a pretty crap justice system when you didn’t even need valid proof of cheating to ban them. Double standard if you ask me.

I’m in plenty of mathematics servers. Every single one of them has rules to protect academic integrity. They could potentially ask where the question comes from and won’t help you if you can’t answer, but I’ve never seen one that bans for not providing a source. It’s just not reasonable.

# 2. The rule hurts more people than it’s worth. Is it really in the name of academic integrity?

What are we even trying to achieve here? Prevent academic misconduct? I understand that it’s trials period, but if I am posting a question at 11pm at night, how likely is it that I’m asking because it will help me cheat in trials?

Even outside of school hours, as we’ve seen since the new rules were implemented, channels are quieter than usual (see table below). People are afraid to ask questions in the fear they’re going to be banned, or because they can’t reliably ask a question and provide the source (i.e. something that doesn’t have a proper named source such as a self-made question or a teacher made a question). Instead, I’ve received three DMs so far of people asking for help because they’re scared of posting it on ConquerHSC for whatever reason. Is this really what it’s come to?

The new rule just makes people scared to ask when they’re in one of the most stressful time of the year (trials). I think we need to weigh the costs and benefits here. Are we even reducing academic misconduct by implementing these rules outside of school hours? Or are we just reducing confidence in people asking questions? Do we really need to impose such rules on so many because of so few who want to cheat?

Considering cheating through uploading the question onto ConquerHSC is rare1 and those who cheat generally aren’t active on ConquerHSC (characterized by few posts)2, I think this rule seems too extreme for what it’s worth.

1Not saying it doesn’t happen, in fact, someone posted a question from their trial last week and they didn’t get caught.

2It makes sense anyway and was the case in the previous example1. Active people generally don’t cheat by posting their questions during the trial. If they did, they’d mostly likely hire people to help as evident from the people who have asked me to do their trial for them.

I’d be fired as an actuary if I couldn’t post any statistics, so here are the number of questions asked over 24hrs until 3pm.

**Subject**

​

24/08/2021

​

25/08/2021

​

26/08/2021

​

27/08/2021

Mathematics Advanced

​

6

​

8

​

11

​

3

Mathematics

Ext 1

​

7

​

6

​

8

​

4*

Mathematics Ext 2

​

4

​

5

​

3

​

2

Chemistry

​

8

​

13

​

7

​

5

Physics

​

9

​

8

​

7

​

6

Biology

​

1

​

2

​

0

​

9^

*there were also a tumbleweed and 12 waiting gifs/memes.

^possibly because CSSA Biology is on Monday? Not sure what happened here.

📷

It is clear to see that excluding the outlier in Biology, all the relatively active channels have seen far less activity 24hrs after being implemented.

# 3. There are certain questions people now won’t ask.

It seems that so far, from scrolling through the past day’s chat, the only questions people are willing to ask are questions from past papers. They’re widely available to everyone and can easily be verified. Thus, we are no longer asking generic questions about topics, questions from tutor homework1 or questions from our teachers2. We’re ruining the model that ConquerHSC was founded upon, the ability to openly ask our dumb questions on how things worked because a teacher wasn’t readily available or we’re too scared to ask our peers.

I think this just opens up other alternatives. Other non-HSC Discord servers are open to ask questions without such strict rules. I’d rather head over to the Mathematics server which won’t judge you for posting a question unless it is blatantly from an exam. There are servers that specialize in helping people with questions regarding Biology, Chemistry and Physics too. Their response times are speedier and they have *thousands* of people asking and answering questions each day.

1Generally, this is a no since tutors are businesses and uploading their homework ruins the way tutors work.

2Earlier this year, a student was suspended for publicly posting a resource their teacher had made.

Sure, I can talk a lot of shit about the rules, but it’s no use if I’m complaining and I’m not going to propose a better one. So, here’s my proposal:

1. Scrap the whole idea of banning people. Completely unnecessary scare tactic. People answering questions can ask them to provide a source if they forget, or if any suspicions arise.

2. If asking a question between 8am-4pm (one hour on either side of school hours), require that they provide a source before being answered. If they have provided a source, we can safely assume it’s not from a current trial. We have SEEN this work in the #mathematics-2u when MilkTea tried to ask a question.

3. If they cannot provide a source for any particular reason, they should post it after 4pm (there should be no need for urgency if it’s not an exam anyway).

4. Outside of school hours, we should resume as normal. Nobody should need to provide sources outside of school hours because it’s clear they are not cheating. However, if any suspicions arise, you can also ask them to provide a source, but it should not be mandatory to automatically do so.

5. In the case that someone forgets to provide a source, there should be no bans in place until there is solid proof of academic misconduct. The question can be removed or deleted if need be. We shouldn’t be banning people when they’re doing things legally, even for possessing 2021 papers. It’s only illegal if they come from a paper with a security period on it.

By allowing people to post whatever questions they wish outside of school hours, we can allow people to safely go back to freely asking questions. The possibility of any form of cheating outside of these hours is basically zero and people are able to delay asking questions until after 4pm.

📷
Since your announcements come off as particularly threatening, I decided to write one for you to use based off my current proposal:

Notice how I didn’t need to mention an **immediate ban** anywhere?

# Mod C Reflection:

No. Not going there.