Background

Under the (user) documentation strategy... we propose to differentiate between 'policy documents' and (generic) 'narrative' documents.

These document types are defined with respect to each other... the following represents a proposal relating to the contents of 'policy documents'.

This is a fundamental strategy! You comments / input are invited and considered important to the documentation project.

The Problem

The difficulty with site policy embedded in a wide range of (narrative type) 'user' documentation is... the need for another site (implementing the CSuite package) to review a large number of documents to ensure that users are not presented with conflicting information. (Can we or can't we FTP?)

User documentation is still very much in a state of flux. Sites are adding new functionality, and adjusting local policy in response to changing demands. As a result there is an ongoing requirement to update user documentation.

The Proposed Solution

The proposed solution is to create (as required) a policy.html document for each directory. This file would contain site policy relating to this topic (eg. /Telnet/policy.html).

Primary user access to site policy will be a link from the (Telnet) directory 'Index.html' file. ...Associated strategies relating to 'site references' and the automation of index creation will allow the link to be customized for the individual site.

In theory... a new site will review the /Help*/policy.html files and be able to revise or delete material as required.
The following topics / policy areas have been identified... (there are probably more that will surface as we go along)

1) Explaining _who_ to contact ...such as a volunteer team (eg. userhelp), a committee, an e-mail address (eg. office@chebucto.ns.ca), etc..

2) Explaining an administration procedure.... As an example, sections dealing with "what is required to register and... how quick your user account will be activated" would be considered policy. Other areas include becoming an information provider, registering for training, requesting a mailing list, obtaining a custom user-id, etc..

3) Sections relating to quotas... how long/often users are permitted to log on; disk storage, etc...

4) Sections relating to appropriate usage by the user. Such as harassment, sexually explicit material, business/commercial activity, hacking the system, anonymous mail, distribution of viruses, etc.. would be considered site policy. (These will likely be relatively uniform from site to site but an individual site may want to impose various penalties for inappropriate usage/activity.

5) Sections relating to restricted access. Anything that can be disabled in Lynx such as viewing/editing 'dot files', Telnet to non-standard ports, ftp, etc... should be considered policy if they are implemented on Chebucto. Other sites will develop their own policy or amend our policy.html documents to reflect (their) local policy.

General discussions of Telnet would not be site policy, Telnet to standard (currently - unspecified) ports is not permitted on Chebucto. An explanation of this 'policy' would be in /Telnet/policy.html.

6) Sections relating to extension of 'privileges' such as increased disk quota for volunteers.

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