Wikis rely on "soft security": in particular, technical mechanisms that make it easier to detect and undo damage than to do it. Most pages on this Wiki may be edited by any logged-in user. Having no previous experience with running a Wiki, the administrators of this one have no idea if this is actually a good idea, and reserve the right to adopt more restrictive policies if it turns out to be a problem.
Here are some simple, common-sense rules that will help things work smoothly. Most of these rules are not that different from the rules that apply to paper handouts, but we'll state them explicitly since the sense of unlimited power that comes from using computers can often tempt the unwary to actions they would never think about doing with physical objects.
- Don't create misleading pages. No matter how tempting it is to issue your own Homework Twelve or announce that everybody who took the midterm failed, don't do it.
- Don't hijack the Wiki for purposes that have nothing to do with the course.
- Don't post solutions to assignments before official solutions are made available. Solutions are typically posted a few days after the assignment due date, to allow for the possibility of late assignments turned in with Dean's Excuses. Please do not put anything on the web page that is likely to make it trivial for students to solve the assignments without doing their own work. This includes requests for clarifications that convey too much information (e.g. "I think that doing X completely solves problem Y; does this mean I am interpreting Y correctly?").
Don't create extraneous pages if you don't have to. Use WikiSandBox to play around with editing pages.
- Don't delete useful information.
- And, for the benefit of those of you outside of Yale who might someday be targets of legal action, don't insert advertisements, spam, pornography, copyright violations, bomb-making instructions, libels, criticisms of the Singaporean government, or anything that might create liability for this web site.
/Discuss this page.