RFC 3184

🎀 RFC 3184: IETF Guidelines for Conduct 🎀

RFC: 3184 Title: IETF Guidelines for Conduct Author: Susan Harris (S. Harris), Merit Network Category: Best Current Practice BCP: 54 Date: October 2001 Obsoletes / Updates: the header doesn't list either one 🫶

---

Status of this Memo ✨

okay so this doc is an Internet Best Current Practice for the Internet Community, and it's asking everyone to talk about it and suggest improvements 💅 Distribution of this memo is unlimited, so share it with everyone bestie 🌸

Copyright Notice 🦋

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). All Rights Reserved.

Abstract 💜

this doc gives a set of guidelines for how we act around each other in the Internet Engineering Task Force 🧚 The Guidelines recognize that IETF participants are super diverse, they highlight how important mutual respect is, and they stress that our work applies really broadly 🌈

1. Introduction 🍓

the IETF only works because people from all kinds of cultures, ideas, and communication styles cooperate 🫶 The Guidelines for Conduct shape how we interact while we build interoperable technologies for the Internet together ✨ Everyone in the IETF aims to follow these Guidelines when we build consensus, whether we're in person, at IETF meetings, or over e-mail 💖 If conflicts pop up, we settle them using the procedures in BCP 25.[1] no drama, just process 💅

2. Principles of Conduct 👑

1. IETF participants show respect and courtesy to their colleagues at all times. 🫶

people come from all sorts of backgrounds and bring different skills and ideals 🌸 No matter those differences, participants treat each other with respect as people, especially when it's hard to agree 😭 Seeing things from someone else's point of view is often super revealing, even when it doesn't end up convincing you 🦋

English is the de facto language of the IETF, but it's not the native language for a lot of participants 🌍 Native English speakers try to talk clearly and a bit slowly, and they cut back on slang so everyone can keep up 💖

2. IETF participants develop and test ideas impartially, without finding fault with the colleague who proposed the idea. 🧚

we argue about ideas with reasoned arguments, not with intimidation or ad hominem attacks 🔥 Or, in a more IETF-flavored way:

"Reduce the heat and increase the light" ✨

3. IETF participants think globally, devising solutions that meet the needs of diverse technical and operational environments. 🌈

the IETF's goal is to keep a working, viable, scalable, global Internet going, and the problems we run into are genuinely really hard 😭 We get that "scaling is the ultimate problem," and lots of ideas that work fine on a small scale fail that test 💀 IETF participants use their best engineering judgment to find the best solution for the whole Internet, not just one network, technology, vendor, or user 👑 We follow the intellectual property guidelines outlined in BCP 9.[2] 🎀

4. Individuals who attend Working Group meetings are prepared to contribute to the ongoing work of the group. 📚

IETF participants who come to Working Group meetings read the relevant Internet-Drafts, RFCs, and e-mail archives beforehand so they know what's being discussed 🤓 This can be a challenge for newcomers, since e-mail archives can be hard to find and search, and tracing the history of longstanding Working Group debates isn't always easy 😵‍💫 So newcomers are encouraged to observe and absorb whatever material they can, but they should not interfere with the group's ongoing process 🙈 Working Group meetings run on a very limited schedule and aren't meant to teach individuals from scratch 🧚 The work keeps going on the mailing list, and a lot of questions would be better asked there in the months that follow 💌

3. Security Considerations 🔐

IETF participants review each Internet protocol for security concerns, and those concerns get built into the description of each protocol 🛡️✨

4. Acknowledgements 🫶

Mike O'Dell wrote the first draft of the Guidelines for Conduct, and a lot of his thoughts, statements, and observations are in this version 💜 Dave Crocker gave lots of useful editorial comments 📝 And members of the POISSON Working Group added a ton of significant text 🌸

5. References 📚

[1] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998.

[2] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.

6. Author's Address 💌

Susan Harris Merit Network, Inc. 4251 Plymouth Rd., Suite 2000 Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2785

EMail: srh@merit.edu Phone: (734) 936-2100

7. Full Copyright Statement ⚖️

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). All Rights Reserved.

This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English.

The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.

This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Acknowledgement 🌷

Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society 💖