The IETF works through interpersonal communication. Working groups and other ongoing activities use a combination of email mailing lists and physical meetings to foster communication. In most cases, work gets done without significant disruptions. However, situations sometimes arise when individuals become disruptive and their participation on mailing lists or in meetings must be managed to allow the work of the organization to continue.
"Disruptive" and "disagreement" are not synonymous. Rational discussion of conflicting viewpoints is healthy and must be encouraged up to the point that decisions about progress or alternatives can be made. The types of behavior that is considered disruptive and the methods used to manage this behavior are described in several RFCs, including RFC2026, RFC2418, RFC3005, RFC3683, and RFC3934.
Working group chairs are typically the first line of defense against disruptive behavior. They control access to the microphone at physical meetings and posting priviliges to working group mailing lists. Decisions made by working group chairs may be appealed to the working group's area advisor. Area advisor decisions may be appealed to the IESG. IESG decisions may be appealed to the IESG and the IAB. IAB decisions are final. See section 6.5 of RFC 2026 for a complete description of the appeals process.
IESG members are part of the appeals chain. Evaluating an appeal requires objective analysis that is sometimes difficult for an area director that closely follows the activities of a working group or mailing list. An area director that receives an appeal that they feel unable to analyze objectively should defer the appeal to either their co-area director or the IETF Chair. In ballot situations, a "recuse" position is appropriate if a conflict of interest exists. You as AD typically determine if there's a conflict of interest, but suffice it to say that if you were directly involved in a decision that is being appealed then it can be reasonably assumed that you have a conflict of interest.
Not all IETF business is conducted on working group mailing lists. Non-working group mailing lists exist for specific long-lived purposes, such as ongoing review of requests to register items in an IANA registry. In a recent appeal decision, the IAB questioned an IESG decision regarding posting rights to one such list based on their respective interpretations of the existing RFC guidelines. The current situation is such that more work is needed to clarify how our existing guidelines do or do not apply to non-working group activites that are part of the IETF.
The content of this page was last updated on 2006-02-02. It was migrated from the old Trac wiki on 2023-02-17.