Goldsmiths - University of London

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IT Services Guides

Wiki Community Policy

March 2007

This Policy was approved by the Registrar and Secretary on 30th March 2007.

1. Scope

  1. This Policy applies to all wiki communities ("wiki spaces") hosted on College servers or on internet domains owned by the College, and to all facilities provided within them.
  2. The Director of Information Technology may from time to time issue "Guidelines for Wiki Contributors", which supplement this Policy and are binding on all contributors.
  3. This Policy and the "Guidelines for Wiki Contributors" are reviewed on a regular basis in the light of technical developments and user needs. Links to the current versions of the Policy and Guidelines are present on all pages which form part of this service.
  4. All contributors, whether or not they are members of Goldsmiths, are also required to comply with
  5. Messages posted to any blogs, discussion forums, or other discussion facilities which form part of this service also fall within the scope of the College's
  6. Users who are not members of Goldsmiths are subject to Section 2, "Unacceptable Use", of the E-mail Policy for Students when posting messages within this service.

2. Acceptable Use

  1. Any username or password issued for access to restricted areas of this service is solely for the use of the individual to whom they were issued.
  2. The Goldsmiths logo or crest may not be used on any part of this service, except where explicit permission has been given by the Head of Web Services.
  3. This service may not be used for commercial gain or advertising, and links to external sites must not be used to promote commercial services.
  4. No user may use this service to publish personal data (i.e. information which identifies living individuals), unless the permission of the individual concerned has been obtained, or the information is already in the public domain. The person posting the information is responsible for ensuring that one of these criteria is met. The Director of Information Technology may remove material where he or she has reason to believe that they have not been, or may not have been, met.
  5. Contributors must not submit any material that may be reasonably considered as offensive, defamatory, or illegal.
  6. Contributors must ensure that their contributions do not infringe the copyrights of others. The copyright status of material under UK law will determine whether a contribution breaches this Policy.

3. Rights

  1. Contributors license contributions under the GNU Free Documentation Licence: copyright remains with the original author but the material contributed may be freely modified by others and may be copied subject to certain restrictions. This service is a collaborative system, and contributors accept that their contributions, other than user home pages, may be modified or removed by any user with appropriate access rights.

4. Community Administrators

  1. Community administrator privileges are granted entirely at the discretion of the Director of Information Technology, who may also issue guidelines for the management of any or all communities, which are binding on administrators.
  2. Community administrators are responsible for ensuring that all contributions comply with this Policy, and in order to do so they may modify or remove any page, including user home pages.
  3. Community administrators do not represent or act on behalf of the College, and the College accepts no responsibility or liability for the actions of administrators, whether or not they are staff or students of the College.
  4. The College does not exercise editorial control over the material on this service, but reserves the right to instruct administrators to remove without notice any material brought to its attention which appears to breach the terms of this Policy or relevant legislation.

5. Infringement

  1. Any contributor who breaches the terms of this Policy may be barred without notice from making further contributions to this service and may also be barred from accessing all or part of it.
  2. Where changes in this Policy or the "Guidelines for Wiki Contributors" mean that a previously acceptable contribution breaches this Policy or the Guidelines, material may be modified or removed by community administrators but its contributor will not face any sanction.
  3. Breaches of this Policy by contributors who are members of the College may give rise to disciplinary action.

See also Disclaimers visible to all who enter the Wiki site.