3. Scope and Responsibilities

This section preserves the RFC text for IETF community moderation, including disruptive participation, the moderator team, procedures, transparency, appeals, reinstatement, and relationships to the Ombudsteam and IETF LLC.

Original RFC Text

3.  Scope and Responsibilities

   This policy applies to all public online IETF fora, both present and
   future, including, but not limited to, mailing lists, chat groups,
   and discussions in other systems that the IETF or WGs have chosen to
   employ, such as GitHub repositories, wikis, or issue trackers.

   Different people have different moderation responsibilities:

   *  *Participants* should always behave in the manner discussed in
      Section 1.2.  They are also encouraged to report disruptive
      behavior directed at them or someone else to an administrator of
      the respective forum *and* the moderators.

   *  *Administrators* are primarily responsible for managing their fora
      in accordance with procedures developed by the moderators and
      approved by the IESG.  As such, they shall address reports of
      disruptive behavior in a timely fashion, apprising moderators of
      reports or actions taken.  Administrators may amend or rescind
      actions, including those taken by members of the moderator team
      *after* they have consulted with that team.

      For a working group, chairs are by default the administrators.
      They may delegate this responsibility in the same vein as
      Section 6.4 of [RFC2418], but they must always accept,
      acknowledge, and keep track of complaints of disruptive behavior.
      Forum administrators should perform moderation in a way that
      obviates the need for moderator team involvement.

   *  *Moderators* are responsible for establishing procedures to
      address moderation needs across all IETF fora, both present and
      future.  They are a resource that the community can use to address
      disruptive behavior.  The moderator team is responsible to the
      IESG.  The IESG will create or designate a forum to facilitate
      discussion about moderation and refer interested parties to that
      forum.

      Moderators may take actions when administrators do not respond to
      reports in a timely fashion.  Their first action should generally
      be to attempt to contact and advise the relevant administrators.
      They should only take moderation actions when administrators are
      not responsive or when someone disrupts multiple fora at the same
      time.  Moderators should generally give WG chairs the opportunity
      to manage what may be difficult and contentious debates within
      their groups.  Within the bounds of this principle, it is left to
      moderators' judgment to determine when they must act, with the
      understanding that some situations may require fast responses.
      Moderators must notify administrators of any actions they take.
      Section 4.1 discusses the handling of disagreements.

      Moderators are administrators for IETF plenary fora, currently
      including the IETF discussion and Last Call lists and any plenary
      chat sessions.  They are also administrators for any forum that
      does not otherwise have an administrator.

      In order to scale the function, except for plenary fora as
      described above, moderators are not expected to always actively
      monitor all communications.  In general, they will process reports
      from participants.

   *  *Area directors* are expected to resolve conflicts as described
      here and in Section 4.1.  The IESG will periodically evaluate the
      performance and needs of moderators, and may appoint and recall
      moderators as they deem appropriate.  Apart from that, the IESG
      shall refrain from the day-to-day operation and management of the
      moderator team.  The moderators may consult with the IESG when
      needed.

3.1.  Actions That Are Out of Scope

   Moderator actions are only permitted for the purposes of limiting
   disruptive communications in online IETF fora.  All other actions are
   beyond the scope of this memo.  Examples of actions that are out of
   scope include, but are not limited to, Datatracker account removal;
   restriction of in-person, virtual, or hybrid meeting participation;
   content removal or redaction; and moderation or policing of private
   or non-IETF communications.  While the moderator team does not
   moderate non-public IETF mailing lists, the administrators of such
   lists can choose to adopt some of the procedures that the moderator
   team develops.

3.2.  Unsolicited Bulk Messages

   Unsolicited bulk messages are considered disruptive and should be
   handled in a manner consistent with the "IESG Statement on Spam
   Control on IETF Mailing Lists" [IESG-SPAM] or its successors.
   Administrators and moderators may take similar actions in other fora
   (e.g., GitHub or instant messaging).  Such actions require no
   additional reporting.