Constitution
Who we are (and are not), and how we operate • Cape Town Wireless User Group is not a club or official organisation, but a research network. • Most decisions are made by general consensus at group meetings, and by committee members. • Anyone is able to attend these meetings, regardless of whether they are active on the Cape Town Wireless User Group network. • The group has a committee of Chairman, vice-Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer that preside over the regular meetings, generally held as indicated via the mailing list and shown on the website. • Equipment donated to the group 'belongs' to the group (not any individual) except if otherwise stated by the committee members. • Private Node operators who own their equipment are bound to act according to the Code-of-Conduct outlined here. Network Access There is one class of membership to the Cape Town Wireless User Group. All users are equal (==), meaning no user will have traffic priority over another user. This class is called: • Wugger Wugger: • Will have full access to the network without any bandwidth restrictions except where necessary for the health of the network or network segment. • Can vote at the group's meetings, these include any resolution that affects the organisational or financial aspects of the group in any form. • Is connected to the network and utilising what the network has to offer. • May donate money to further assist in growing and expanding the wireless network. Donations may be used to fund new CTWUG equipment, constructing/erecting CTWUG high sites as well as maintenance on current CTWUG owned high sites.
Donations to further the network are open to all Behaviors and Responsibilities Be kind to the backbone: The increased bandwidth (speed) offered by the current wireless technology can quickly be eroded if users aren't considerate of others. To this end • If you are going to download files via Bittorrent/FTP/DC/gnucleus/kazaa or other download applications from someone else on the network, please consider other wuggers if the total transfer is going to take more than a few minutes. • P2p and any other bandwidth hogging services will be vulnerable to traffic shaping during gaming hours (19:00 – 00:00). In the event of traffic prioritising on high sites, p2p and other bandwidth hogging protocols will be subjected to the lowest priority there is available, and gaming subjected to the highest. • Where availability and lack of obstacles permit, point your antenna towards a node in your neighborhood in preference to the major high sites. This assists traffic management on the network. The major high sites will quickly become saturated if everyone aims his/her antenna in that direction. If you point to a local node, only traffic that needs to be sent to the rest of the network will go through backbone links. • No wugger will have the privilege of connecting to a backbone link; backbone links are there to interconnect high sites only. Protect yourself from others • Make sure your PC and/or network is protected by up-to date anti virus software. This includes Linux users. • Make sure you protect your internet connection from being accessed from the wireless network. Should you discover that you have inadvertently gained access to the internet via someone-else's internet account without their knowledge, contact one of the administrators (email abuse@ctwug.za.net). Anyone found intentionally leeching from open internet connections without the consent of the owner of that connection may be banned at the discretion of the network administrators. Network Administration As with any group such as this there are those who have taken on a monitoring role for the network. This is usually by virtue of their generally accepted knowledge, interest, and participation in the setup of the network or ownership of a node. There are some circumstances where those monitoring the network may be required to make decisions on behalf of the group to protect the group and the network from malicious or unintended problems. Under these circumstances: • Anyone is permitted to participate on the network, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one (or few). If something you are doing causes problems for other users, the network administrators or node owners reserve the right to block your access until the problem is resolved. Administrators or node owners should try to contact those that they have blocked access to as soon as they can (if possible) or broadcast messages to the group in IRC or the forum if they cannot identify the wugger. • As the network is a shared medium administrators may use traffic shaping but not bandwidth capping to maintain usability for all users of the network/node. The implementation of this is at the discretion of the administrator(s). • MAC addresses or IP addresses on and off the wireless network may be banned from accessing the network if found to be scanning or hacking with malicious intent, causing Denial of Service, propagating viruses (maliciously or unintentionally) or causing a general nuisance to others on the network. Any donations paid will not be refunded to a banned user. Communication of this will generally be made by the person monitoring the service to the owner and/or the group so that those misunderstandings are avoided and the owner of the MAC or IP can have the right of reply. • Planned upgrades, maintenance and outages to the network backbone and nodes will be posted to the mailing list, IRC and forum so as to minimise the inconvenience to wuggers. • The administrators see to CTWUG requirements in their own time, have commitments outside the wireless and receive no payment for their services. Please do not spam or flame the administrators if they are unable to process your request in a time of your choosing. Please be patient and possibly re-request, as sometimes real life intervenes in the affairs of the wireless and you might not always receive notification when this happens. High sites / Nodes A High site is a central location that has an access point that broadcasts wireless signal. Wuggers then point their wireless antennas towards this location and connect as clients to this site. A High site is only recognized as a CTWUG high site when it complies to the following minimal specifications: • CTWUG administrators have admin rights on the high site. At the very least, one network administrator has write access and one or two other network administrators have read access. It must be directly connected to another recognized CTWUG high site. • There must be hardware on the high site that belongs to the CTWUG group and not only to one person. • Nodes are generally smaller high sites that are located at a wugger’s home. The equipment might belong to the owner of the node. • The naming convention for CTWUG highsites / nodes: http://site.ctwug.co.za for example http://mars.ctwug.co.za • We welcome all wuggers to be always on the lookout for new potential highsites. Our only requirement is that all meetings with potential highsite owners should be liased with the CTWUG chairman. Disclaimer • Being a public network there is no inherent wireless security enabled (WEP). It is up to individuals to protect themselves and their data with firewalls, VPN’s, anti virus software and other methods where necessary. • Content provided on this network is the sole responsibility of wuggers of this network. The Cape Town Wireless User Group is not responsible for any content on this network other than the website. • There are no guarantees of service on the Cape Town Wireless User Group network. It is run by volunteers in their own time. If something breaks down node owners and administrators will tend to it as time, money, and motivation permits. Please do not spam the administrators or the forums regarding this. • 802.11a/b/g equipment is designed to operate at a distance deemed by the equipment you own. Cape Town Wireless User Group does not guarantee constant speeds or signal levels. With all the variables in play there can be no guarantee of service at any given point or time. Cape Town Wireless User Group is not responsible for the costs incurred in obtaining any equipment that fails to connect to the network due to environmental, geographic or any other reasons. Cape Town Wireless User Group is not responsible for obtaining equipment for future wuggers. They can, however, buy on the Cape Town Wireless User Group account at Scoop Distribution and obtain hardware cheaper. The CTWUG network is used at own risk.
