🚀 go-pugleaf

First, a massive disclaimer:  I am not the news or system administrator for
any system here at Boston University.  The only computer I have
administrative responsibility for is the Mac on my desk.  This is policy
and situation *as I understand it* and does not represent the official
policies of any Boston University department.

LRL@psuvm.psu.edu (Linda Littleton) said:
 > 1. Do universities limit student posting in any way?

BU does not limit student posting *from any machine with news access*.  The
main campus system (buacca.bu.edu, aka buacca.bitnet) does not run news,
and isn't likely to any time soon.  Other machines have either local news
spools or use NNTP from a central dedicated server.  Only the campus Un*x
boxes are running news (to my knowledge) and not all of those; in any case,
the Un*x machines are all departmental and require some "reason" to have an
account.  Examples: the Computer Science machines are for those in a CS
class or degree program, the Engineering machines are for those in certain
majors in BU ENG, etc.

So they don't limit it if you have news access in the first place, but odds
are you won't.

[2-4 deleted, since I can't say much to those topics]

 > 5. Our management is concerned that we could be sued for things our users
 >    use our system to say or for things (said by users of other systems)
 >    that our computer propogates.  Is there any precedence for this?

I don't believe there are any precedents.  The answer is "we don't know
until someone gets taken to court."  Sigh.
-- 
  Christopher Davis, BU SMG '90  <ckd@bu-pub.bu.edu> <smghy6c@buacca.bitnet>
		 NETWORK PLANNING CONSTRAINT OF THE MONTH:
	      "You can't send bits over a non-existent link."
		--Valdis Kletnieks <valdis@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu>