Re: comments re: AUP

Roland John Turner (rjturner@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au)
Mon, 5 Aug 1996 14:00:07 +1000 (EST)

Joshua Graham Pitcher wrote:
>
> G'Day!
>
> I have a comment regarding the wording in one paragraph of the AUP. One of
> the points under "Unacceptable Uses of Progsoc Equipment is the paragraps:
>
> "possession of material designed to facilitate the breach of other points of this policy "
>
> This statement IMHO carries very broad interpretations, which could lead
> to problems further down the track. As a dumb example, elm is a very good
> vehicle to sent offensive messages to other members, which is a breach of
> the AUP. Thus possesion of elm could itself be considered a breach of the AUP.

No, elm is not "designed" to send abusive email messages, any more than a
keyboard is designed to type them.

> A more serious example: a president with a bad attitude gets into power and
> starts locking of all accounts containing disk duplication software because
> in his opinion anyone with software myst be using it to make pirate
> software.

Dum de dum.

(Sorry, flippancy is probably not appropriate here, I understand your point.)

> A suggested change would be:
>
> "possession of material designed specifically to facilitate the breach of other
> points of this policy"

In fact that says the same as the above, it merely strengthens the word
"designed". However, I'm happy to put it in, and it may indeed forestall
future accidental/deliberate abuse to some extent. Thanks for the suggestion.

> Also the AUP specifically revokes the right to appeal against decisions. If
> we are to give admins the power to take action independantly of the
> executive then we must also make the admins responsible to the executive by
> civing users the right to appeal to the executive against arbitrary
> decisions made by the admins. Sure we must trust the admins to do their job,
> but we must also make them accountable for their actions through
> such a mechanism. I do not feel that any user should have the right to
> appeal against decisions made by the executive as a group.

This is not so important. No right is revoked, it simply isn't mentioned
and, as a result of ProgSoc's structure is implicitly available.
The admins are simply the delegates of the
executive (read the constitution, the admins don't even exist - even in
the proposed changes, their power is simply delegated by the CSO.)

In fact, we INTEND that members appeal to the exec. One of our aims is
to remove any appearance of inequitable treatment by inviting all persons
whose accounts have been locked to attend a (now monthly) meeting of
the execs/admins to put their case.

(In fact, we are already operating this way - the AUP/GFA exercise is
simply a move to formalise this in a fashion that is agreeable to the
membership.)

- Raz rjturner@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au

"It often upsets a man's God fantasies to have (Misquoted? from )
someone shoot down one of his helicopters." (Ben Elton's "Stark" )