Today's submitted homework was epic bad. Most of the class chose to try to run down answers with internet searches rather than follow directions.
Since I design my take-home assignments to be fairly google-proof, the resulting homework that was turned in was mostly un-gradeable garbage.
I don't feel bad about giving people zeroes for not following specific directions, not doing their own work, and turning in pasted nonsense.
I do feel bad that I spend time and energy crafting complex homework that is designed to foster critical thinking skills and improve assessment performance, but won't help students that choose not to participate correctly in the process.
This was the first time that over half of the class chose to behave badly. More and more students have been misbehaving with their take-home assessments over the years, but today was unusually disappointing.