Personal Wiki Pages

Most of the text in the Personal Page section of the Open MediaWiki Policy is a guideline and discussion rather than a policy. The main message of the policy should be: personal, unofficial use is encouraged and should flourish, but most of the web guidelines should be adhered to otherwise. And the question still remains ... Is a Personal___ category really necessary?!! --Ralph 10:57, 20 Oct 2005 (EDT)

Examining the policy at Web Guidelines we see that several general requirements for all University web pages are met easily using the wiki:
 * Date of last update is automatically generated and appears at the footer of every page.
 * A link to an official General Disclaimer message is on every page.
 * Communication with authors is facilitated, using the Wiki Talk: mechanism (on the page History Tab) and by adopting a userid naming convention that uses University userids (closely associated with University email addresses).

A notable exception is found concerning personal content. The authorship and ownership of wiki pages are distributed, so provisions in the Policy Part I, paragraph #2 concerning official University roles are difficult to enforce and define. How do you define the 'role' of a small group of individuals that passionately gather around a common interest?! Is their 'official role' ONLY the sum of their individual 'official roles'? I'd assert here that the role a group of individuals have when striving for a better 'University' is MORE than the sum of their official roles and to limit them to 'official' duties too strictly does not allow for vibrant and vital growth at our University (--Ralph 16:20, 20 Oct 2005 (EDT)).

Most General guidelines concerning unofficial web pages listed do apply to wiki pages especially: copyright and other laws, University codes of conduct, and the rights retained by the University to deny access to this wiki service.