Proposed ietf.org email address policy

[IETF Chair <[e-mail]>]

We are proposing a policy regarding the allocation of individual
administrative email addresses in the ietf.org domain. The proposal
was motivated by a few community members that raised the concern that
continued allocation of individual email addresses under ietf.org
could at some point create collisions for IETF mailing lists.

Historically, the only email addresses created under the ietf.org
domain were for IETF-associated mailing lists, e.g., for working
groups, the IESG, directorates, etc., for aliases for certain roles,
e.g., [e-mail], or for administrative purposes, e.g.,
[e-mail]. This was not the result of following any explicit
allocation policy, it just happened that way.

This expanded slightly a number of years ago, on an ad hoc basis, and
now a few individuals - all of them IETF LLC employees - have work
email addresses under ietf.org.

Therefore, the IESG and LLC Board are considering formalizing a policy
concerning ietf.org email addresses:

* new email addresses for general and administrative roles under
  ietf.org must be chosen to avoid conflicts with potential IETF
  mailing list names

* the IESG must be consulted before any new email addresses under
  ietf.org are created and will have the sole responsibility for
  approving and managing addresses under ietf.org

* new individual email addresses for LLC personnel will be allocated
  under a new staff.ietf.org subdomain, with the LLC being solely
  responsible for the approval and management of those addresses

* existing individual email addresses under ietf.org at the time the
  policy goes into effect will continue to receive email, which will
  be forwarded to new staff.ietf.org subdomain addresses; and
  outbound mail should be preferably be sent from staff.ietf.org
  addresses or role-based ietf.org addresses

We invite the community to send feedback on this proposed policy to
[e-mail] by 24 June 2021.

Lars Eggert
IETF Chair

Jason Livingood
Chair, IETF LLC Board