I cant imagine what it is exactly that the wards are supposed to do to insure the safety of the students.
All external threats (without internal assistance) for a start. As for internal threats there is the old "If you kill your fellow students with either spells or via garrotting them with your shoelaces like any mortal could do then Dumbledore, Snape, Quirrel and McG will @#%@ you up!", and anything less than actually killing them and the staff can heal you.
None of this helps vs the "Students learn transfiguration. Everybody dies." problem but that was outside the scope of authorial comprehension.
(The HPMOR discussion thread after this one is here.)
The previous thread is over the 500-comment threshold, so let's start a new Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread. This is the place to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter fanfic and anything related to it. The latest chapter as of 09/09/2011 is Ch. 77.
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. The fanfiction.net author page is the central location for information about updates and links to HPMOR-related goodies, and AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author's Notes.
As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: