User Policy

This document outlines the responsibilities, restrictions, and requirements placed on users of WSO services. By using WSO services the user agrees to the policies outlined in this document. Failure to comply may result in the termination of the user’s account or removal of their privileges.

The Williams College Computing Ethics and Responsibilities, as outlined in the Student Handbook, apply to the use of WSO services, systems, and accounts. However, since WSO is a student organization independent of OIT, the Computing Ethics and Responsibilities are not a complete or authoritative policy for the use of WSO services.

Please address questions about any of these policies to wso at wso.williams.edu.

WSO provides a number of services to the Williams College community free of charge. The use of these services is governed by this policy.

WSO services are intended first and foremost for use by the Williams College community. Aspects of many of these services are available to the general public. WSO reserves the right to further restrict all use of WSO services to members of the Williams College community should the need arise due to limited resources, etc., though this is a highly unlikely situation.

The following restrictions and responsibilities apply to all uses and users of WSO services.

• The use or targeting of WSO services in any tampering, attacks, or attempts to break in to WSO or other services is strictly prohibited, as is the use of any WSO services in illegal activities.
• The storage or distribution of pornographic materials, pirated software, pirated media, and malicious software is prohibited.
• Each user is responsible for ensuring proper attribution and copyrights for materials stored in his or her account or posted on WSO‘s web services.

WSO is not responsible or liable for the actions of its users or for their use of WSO services. In the event that a person is discovered to be using WSO services in illegal activities, WSO will cooperate with law enforcement authorities if necessary.

Any member of the Williams community is eligible to open a WSO account. This includes current students, alumni, faculty, and staff. An email address ending in williams.edu is required as confirmation. Alternate confirmation may be arranged on request. One individual may hold only one WSO account.

WSO reserves the right to change the accounts policy at any time. Given the organization’s history and nature, if limited resources ever require it, WSO will give current students priority. Accounts will exist as long as the user is enrolled in or employed by the college. We currently do not delete accounts after graduation, but we do reserve the right to limit account activity (disk space, etc.) after graduation. Also, we reserve the right to delete accounts that have been stale (unused) for a long period of time.

The following restrictions and responsibilities apply to all uses and users of WSO accounts.

• Users are responsible for the materials stored in their accounts and the use of their accounts. Password security is vital to ensuring the protection of each user’s account and of the entire WSO system. Password-sharing is prohibited, as are attempts to steal the passwords of other users.
• It is the responsibility of the user to keep backups of his or her data. WSO conducts periodic system-wide backups, but we are not liable for data loss by users, hence users should not rely on backups done by WSO staff.
• The use of a WSO account for commercial or for-profit purposes is prohibited.
• The user must maintain correct and complete contact information, including full name and a valid email forwarding address at which the WSO staff can reach the user with important announcements or inquiries. The WSO staff reserves the right to terminate an account if the address provided does not reach the user. Be sure to update forwarding information whenever your email address will change.

WSO claims no responsibility for its users’ content in pages hosted on our servers, including forum posts, announcements, the Facebook, Willipedia pages, personal websites, or other material. Their actions and statements are their own, and do not reflect the actions and views of WSO, its administrators, staff, or other users. Given that we are a small, student-run organization, we cannot be expected to police the wealth of information that our users post daily. That being said, we rely on the users themselves to notify us when they deem something offensive, personal, or inappropriate to the general public. If you deem something unfit for the site, please contact an admin directly via the staff page or send an email to root [at] wso.williams.edu identifying the offending information and where it can be found. Thank you for your cooperation.

WSO Facebook data is drawn from OIT‘s LDAP and Ph servers. We do our best to keep this data up to date, and run several Facebook updates per semester. If you find that data is wrong, you may first verify that it is correct in your PeopleSoft database, and notify us if you find that your personal data does not reflect what is present on OIT‘s servers. We will then update our database to match information stored in OIT‘s servers. If you would like us to run a facebook update, please wait a business day for PeopleSoft changes to be reflected on OIT‘s servers, then contact us at wso [at] wso.williams.edu.

If the above process does not change the data in question, you may request that we manually update our database by emailing wso [at] wso.williams.edu. Please be patient, we are busy too. Changes must be appropriate and reflect verifiable truth.

WSO makes no guarantees regarding its services. As an entirely student-run volunteer organization, WSO strives to maintain and improve its services as best it can, but WSO cannot completely guarantee the continued availibility, functionality, integrity, accuracy, or security of its services. Each individual who uses a WSO service does so at his or her own risk. In particular, WSO is not liable for data loss resultant from the use of its services.