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General MODeration PrOceDures moderation excellent party on The greatest and least heinous of all golden rules. About This Document The latest revision of this draft can be found at . Status information for this document may be found at . Discussion of this document takes place on the MODeration PrOceDures Working Group mailing list (), which is archived at . Subscribe at . Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at .

Introduction There is some informal text in this document, but the topic is serious. If you find yourself about to send a message you might regret, consult this text first.

Conventions and Definitions The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

Policy Be Excellent To Each Other. For a more extensive explanation, refer to .

Rules 0-12 days: Anyone appointed to moderate an IETF mailing list (such as a WG chair, or an IETF list moderator) can prevent posting from anyone for twelve days, either through outright blocking or screening, with no transparency aside from informing the person being moderated. Hopefully, this action will be used only for a day or two. This capability is good, because there's no shame. It is not to be used in "Last Call" situations, as those have a time limit as well. Twelve days might seem like a long time, but the policy is intended to cover all times of year. Anyone can start a blog, or CC an email to a non-IETF list. There are many venues not subject to IETF moderation. However, it may be that the IETF audience's attention is being abused through IETF infrastructure, so that's why this action exists. 12-24 days: The moderator or WG chair must inform an Area Director or the IETF Chair, as appropriate, and again inform the participant. 24-36 days: If the problem persists this long, it is in BCP 83 or IETF Ombudsman territory, which quite likely might have started in the previous steps. At this point, it must be publicly pointed out. Any of these actions may be appealed.

Security Considerations One problem with failing to be excellent to each other is that people wander off. Then, documents don't get the security review they require.

IANA Considerations This document has no IANA actions.

References Normative References In many standards track documents several words are used to signify the requirements in the specification. These words are often capitalized. This document defines these words as they should be interpreted in IETF documents. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. RFC 2119 specifies common key words that may be used in protocol specifications. This document aims to reduce the ambiguity by clarifying that only UPPERCASE usage of the key words have the defined special meanings. Informative References n.d.