Re: [Dfey-nw-discuss] How to deal with an nasty and vague Acceptable Use Policy ?

[Tim Dobson]

James Grabham wrote:
> Indeed, but the banning of "chat" must be annoying; when I'm at college 
> and have nothing better to do, I often log into CGI:IRC.  

What counts as 'chat'?
* web based chatrooms?
* IRC
* IRC web interfaces (CGI:IRC)
* Forums
* Mailing lists
* Blogs with comments sections
* Slashdot/Digg/Reddit
* ???

As far as I'm concerned it could logically include all of them.

All of the communication methods listed above could be extremely helpful 
to someone trying to learn how to do something - the quickest way to 
find out how to do something could be to ask on IRC...

In a situation where students are meant to be sucking in as much 
information about the subject they are studying, is communication with 
other like minded people such a bad thing?

> Also, what counts as "bad language" in emails - I often swear in emails 
> to friends etc, as I would in normal conversation, but it wouldn't 
> necessarily be "obscene", or "offensive".  (In fact, most of my 
> lecturers at college say much worse things ;) ).

Oh totally, teachers regularly say things I wouldn't say to my mother... 
Should I be reporting them for it?
hehe I'm not offended;
I find "I'll nail your arse to the wall if you don't hand $foo in on 
time" quite a funny joked threat :-/ but it *could* be totally 
misinterpreted...

Tim


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