Unfortunately I am reading legal documents before signing them. Practically all documents require some clarification. Official Competition Rules requires them also.
\r\n1. "The winner ...will also be required to complete,sign and return an Affidavit of Eligibility and Liability/PublicityRelease". Could you please make the Affidavit available now to avoid last minute legal misunderstanding.
\r\n2. "you registration may be rejected ...if any of the information in your Account is...incomplete, incorrect or inaccurate". Could you, please clarify which
\r\nspecific information in an Account it is related to. I hope we are not talking about "favorite technique", for example.
3. "Team Entries must be submitted by the Team leader". Do you really want it? It creates unnecessary problems for participating teams.
\r\n4."The log for forming the validation dataset corresponds to an earlier time than that of the testing dataset". What does it mean?
\r\n5. "Each Winner grants to Sponsor...non-excusive (except with respect to Entrant) ... right to use". What is " non-excusive (except with respect to Entrant)". I could understand "non-exclusive" or "excusive (except with respect to Entrant)".
\r\n6. In Confidentiality: "If Participant is required by law... to disclose...the terms of this Agreement...". Are you considering this agreement to be confidential ?
\r\n7. "If a Participant does not wish to continue to participate in the Competition...such participant may terminate his/her/its participation in the Competition by deleting his/her Account on the Website". Does it mean that to stop participating in one competition\r\n I have to delete my whole Kaggle Account?
", "messages": [ { "id": "13171", "postDate": "08/17/2012 12:31:42", "content": "Unfortunately I am reading legal documents before signing them. Practically all documents require some clarification. Official Competition Rules requires them also.
\r\n1. "The winner ...will also be required to complete,sign and return an Affidavit of Eligibility and Liability/PublicityRelease". Could you please make the Affidavit available now to avoid last minute legal misunderstanding.
\r\n2. "you registration may be rejected ...if any of the information in your Account is...incomplete, incorrect or inaccurate". Could you, please clarify which
\r\nspecific information in an Account it is related to. I hope we are not talking about "favorite technique", for example.
3. "Team Entries must be submitted by the Team leader". Do you really want it? It creates unnecessary problems for participating teams.
\r\n4."The log for forming the validation dataset corresponds to an earlier time than that of the testing dataset". What does it mean?
\r\n5. "Each Winner grants to Sponsor...non-excusive (except with respect to Entrant) ... right to use". What is " non-excusive (except with respect to Entrant)". I could understand "non-exclusive" or "excusive (except with respect to Entrant)".
\r\n6. In Confidentiality: "If Participant is required by law... to disclose...the terms of this Agreement...". Are you considering this agreement to be confidential ?
\r\n7. "If a Participant does not wish to continue to participate in the Competition...such participant may terminate his/her/its participation in the Competition by deleting his/her Account on the Website". Does it mean that to stop participating in one competition\r\n I have to delete my whole Kaggle Account?
", "rawMarkdown": "", "votes": null }, { "id": "13172", "postDate": "08/17/2012 14:27:18", "content": "Sergey, thanks for raising these questions. The rules are by necessity somewhat complex and it's good for us at Kaggle to know what needs clarification.
\r\nOn point #1, you can find the eligibilty information on the Prizes page. We've added a link to the Rules page to make it easier to find.
\r\nWe'll get back to you with specific responses to your other points once we've had a chance to review carefully.
", "rawMarkdown": "", "votes": null }, { "id": "13173", "postDate": "08/17/2012 15:30:20", "content": "Guy, thank you for fast reply.
\r\nFrankly speaking it is not eligibility I am worrying about, it is the fact that winner will need to sign unknown in advance document. I can imagine situation when participants will spend hundreds hours developing powerful model only to find that Liability Release\r\n (for example) is absolutely unacceptable for them. Simply publishing that document in advance will prevent that situation.
Hi Sergey,
\r\nThanks for flagging these and we have now updated the rules document that addresses your questions. You can find the updated rules document on the Rules page for this competition.
\r\nTo make things a bit easier, below are our responses to your questions:
\r\n#1: As Guy pointed out you can find the document that Winners need to sign here: https://www.kaggle.com/c/MerckActivity/details/prizes. We are trying to put up the template when the competition launches so you know what you will be signing at the end if\r\n you win.
\r\n#2: We have removed that section in its entirety.
\r\n#3: We have removed this restriction.
\r\n#4: Not relevant to this document so it has been removed.
\r\n#5: We have removed ‘(except with respect to Entrant)’
\r\n#6: The sentence just says if you have to disclose Confidential Information \r\n(OR) the terms of the agreement, we would like to be notified. Confidential Information is basically what is defined the in that section.
\r\n#7: Changed it to ‘stop making entries and delete all Confidential Information’
\r\nHopefully that addresses all of your questions. Looking forward to your participation!
\r\n\r\n
Thanks,
\r\nKarthik
", "rawMarkdown": "", "votes": null }, { "id": "13191", "postDate": "08/18/2012 16:08:20", "content": "Dear Karthik,
\r\nThank you for your response. I appreciate your willingness to address my concerns.\r\n
\r\nAfter second reading of the Competition Rules I realized that you want to treat developed "formula or algorithm" as Confidential Information. Should it be reasonable then to exclude "formula or algorithm" from requirement to destroy Confidential Information\r\n upon Sponsor request? (Confidentiality. 4.). Participants have IP rights for developed algorithms after all.
\r\nCould you, please, also clarify what kind of "assistance" Sponsor expects "in attempting to obtain an order protecting the Confidential information from public disclosure" . My concern here is that "assistance" may become financial burden for Participants.
\r\nI, probably, will have more question after I read "Declaration of Eligibility, Nonexclusive License, and Release"
Sergey, thanks for raising these questions. The rules are by necessity somewhat complex and it's good for us at Kaggle to know what needs clarification.
\r\nOn point #1, you can find the eligibilty information on the Prizes page. We've added a link to the Rules page to make it easier to find.
\r\nWe'll get back to you with specific responses to your other points once we've had a chance to review carefully.
", "votes": null, "replies": [] }, { "id": 13173, "author_name": "ccccat", "author_url": "", "post_date": "08/17/2012 15:30:20", "content": "Guy, thank you for fast reply.
\r\nFrankly speaking it is not eligibility I am worrying about, it is the fact that winner will need to sign unknown in advance document. I can imagine situation when participants will spend hundreds hours developing powerful model only to find that Liability Release\r\n (for example) is absolutely unacceptable for them. Simply publishing that document in advance will prevent that situation.
Hi Sergey,
\r\nThanks for flagging these and we have now updated the rules document that addresses your questions. You can find the updated rules document on the Rules page for this competition.
\r\nTo make things a bit easier, below are our responses to your questions:
\r\n#1: As Guy pointed out you can find the document that Winners need to sign here: https://www.kaggle.com/c/MerckActivity/details/prizes. We are trying to put up the template when the competition launches so you know what you will be signing at the end if\r\n you win.
\r\n#2: We have removed that section in its entirety.
\r\n#3: We have removed this restriction.
\r\n#4: Not relevant to this document so it has been removed.
\r\n#5: We have removed ‘(except with respect to Entrant)’
\r\n#6: The sentence just says if you have to disclose Confidential Information \r\n(OR) the terms of the agreement, we would like to be notified. Confidential Information is basically what is defined the in that section.
\r\n#7: Changed it to ‘stop making entries and delete all Confidential Information’
\r\nHopefully that addresses all of your questions. Looking forward to your participation!
\r\n\r\n
Thanks,
\r\nKarthik
", "votes": null, "replies": [] }, { "id": 13191, "author_name": "ccccat", "author_url": "", "post_date": "08/18/2012 16:08:20", "content": "Dear Karthik,
\r\nThank you for your response. I appreciate your willingness to address my concerns.\r\n
\r\nAfter second reading of the Competition Rules I realized that you want to treat developed "formula or algorithm" as Confidential Information. Should it be reasonable then to exclude "formula or algorithm" from requirement to destroy Confidential Information\r\n upon Sponsor request? (Confidentiality. 4.). Participants have IP rights for developed algorithms after all.
\r\nCould you, please, also clarify what kind of "assistance" Sponsor expects "in attempting to obtain an order protecting the Confidential information from public disclosure" . My concern here is that "assistance" may become financial burden for Participants.
\r\nI, probably, will have more question after I read "Declaration of Eligibility, Nonexclusive License, and Release"