[71] in 6.033 discussion
Ethics Assignment
ericldab@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ericldab@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Apr 12 19:20:19 1994
The following transaction from the "eve' meeting touches upon issues
raised in the "computer ethics" writing assignment a few weeks ago.
The author of this message is the Director of Academic Computing...
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[6400] gjackson@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Everybody 04/12/94 10:46 (34 lines)
Subject: Re: You can help dml@mit.edu, or you can type "next"
To be a smidge more official than Ted was, let me add a little to what he
said.
When an individual appears to have violated Athena Rules of Use the usual
response by IS is to write that individual and say what the Rule is and
what the violation appears to be. In most cases that's the end of the
matter; most people really don't want to violate the Rules, which are
generally designed to maximize access to Athena for everyone, and they
simply stop doing so.
Sometimes the violation is more serious, or is repeated, or the individual
contests the rule. In these cases one of us senior IS people usually meets
with the individual. If this proves unproductive ("productive" being
defined as confidence there will be no repetition of the violation), then
we refer the matter to the Institute disciplinary processes (COD for
students, Personnel processes for staff). Once we refer cases, they are out
of our control. In some cases, especially those involving harassment over
the network, Institute disciplinary proceedings can result without our
taking any action.
We do not take away accounts or take other private punitive measures, even
though some Globe correspondents this morning suggested that was the right
thing to do.
There have indeed been cases where individuals did "community service"
(usually working with cluster patrol cleaning screens, and like that)
rather than have their cases referred to the Institute disciplinary system.
In general, however, we've stopped doing that.
Typically Rule violations are reported to Cluster Patrol, to the Online
Consultants, to the Postmaster, or to the more general <stopit@mit.edu>
list that reaches those of us who act on violations. Questions about Rules
or policies can come to me, and are generally discussed by members of the
Academic Computing Management Group.
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