We Are All Individuals
draft-gondwana-we-are-all-individuals-01

Network Working Group                                        B. Gondwana
Internet-Draft                                                  Fastmail
Intended status: Best Current Practice                   29 October 2026
Expires: 2 May 2027

                         We Are All Individuals
                draft-gondwana-we-are-all-individuals-01

Abstract

   Participation in the IETF is by individuals.  This document makes
   that principle concrete for an environment in which software agents
   can produce and submit text.  Each Datatracker account belongs to one
   human who has acknowledged the Note Well.  Every IETF Contribution is
   vouched for by one human who is accountable for it.  Anonymous
   Contributions are not accepted, and no human may use more than one
   identity in the same piece of work.  Reading the IETF's work remains
   open to everyone, with no account or identification required.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 2 May 2027.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  One Account per Human . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.2.  One Human per Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.3.  Every Contribution Has an Accountable Human . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Anonymity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.1.  Reading Requires No Identity  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  Multiple Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  Open Questions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   7.  Existing Principle  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   8.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   9.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Appendix A.  Related Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11

1.  Introduction

   The IETF has always said that its participants act as individuals.
   The existing statements of this principle are collected in Section 7.

   Those statements were written when every message to a mailing list
   and every Internet-Draft was typed by a person.  That is no longer a
   safe assumption.  Agents can now draft text, post to mailing lists,
   open issues, and submit documents, and can do so at a volume no
   person could.

   This document doesn't restrict the tools people use.  It states who
   is responsible for what those tools produce.

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2.  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 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

   This document uses "Contribution", "Contributor", and "Participant"
   as defined in [RFC8179] and [RFC5378].

   Human:  A natural person.

   Account:  A Datatracker account, and the credentials associated with
      it.

   Agent:  Software that produces or submits text, or takes other
      actions, on behalf of a human.

3.  Requirements

3.1.  One Account per Human

   Each human participating in the IETF SHOULD have one Datatracker
   account.  Section 5 describes the limited case in which a human holds
   more than one.

   A human MAY associate multiple email addresses with their account.
   Using different addresses for different affiliations, or for personal
   and work use, is common and expected.  Addresses on one account are
   linked, and the IETF treats them as one participant.

3.2.  One Human per Account

   Each Datatracker account MUST belong to exactly one human.  That
   human MUST have acknowledged the Note Well [NOTEWELL].

   An account MUST NOT be shared between people, and MUST NOT be
   operated by an organization or a role in place of a named human.

3.3.  Every Contribution Has an Accountable Human

   Every Contribution MUST be vouched for by one human, who is
   accountable for it as its Contributor.

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   That human MAY use any tools, including agents, to prepare or submit
   the Contribution.  The obligations that apply to a Contributor,
   including IPR disclosure under [RFC8179] and conduct under [RFC7154],
   apply to the human who vouches for it.  They apply in the same way
   whether the human typed the text or an agent produced it.

4.  Anonymity

   This document uses "anonymous" and "pseudonym" as defined in
   Section 3.3 of [RFC6973].

   Anonymity has real value.  People use it to take part in political
   life where speaking under their own name would put them, their
   families, or their jobs at risk.  [RFC8280] treats anonymity as a
   human rights consideration in protocol design for these reasons.

   Anonymous participation is still incompatible with the IETF standards
   process.  The process depends on knowing which human made each
   Contribution:

   *  A Contributor grants rights in their Contribution and makes
      representations about it (Section 5 of [RFC5378]).  A grant or a
      representation from nobody in particular is worth nothing.

   *  IPR disclosure obligations attach to IPR that the Contributor
      "reasonably and personally" knows of, including IPR held by their
      employer or sponsor (Section 5.6 of [RFC8179]).  Nobody can tell
      whether that obligation has been met without knowing who the
      Contributor is.

   *  Rough consensus is judged by chairs who read the discussion.  If
      one human can appear as several participants, the chairs can't
      tell how much support or opposition there really is.

   *  The guidelines for conduct [RFC7154] and the moderation processes
      [RFC9945] act on people.  A sanction that can be escaped by
      creating a new account has no effect.

   *  Affiliations "are often used for identification" (Section 3.2 of
      [RFC9281]).  Readers weigh an argument partly by knowing who is
      making it and what interests they may have.

   Every Contribution MUST therefore be attributable to an identified
   human, as required by Section 3.2.  The IETF does not accept
   anonymous Contributions.

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4.1.  Reading Requires No Identity

   The requirements in this document apply to contributing.  They do not
   apply to reading.

   The IETF's mission commits it to "making our documents, our WG
   mailing lists, our attendance lists, and our meeting minutes publicly
   available on the Internet" (Section 1 of [RFC3935]), and the
   standards process requires a "publicly accessible record" of its
   activities (Section 8 of [RFC2026]).

   Anyone MUST be able to read Internet-Drafts, RFCs, mailing list
   archives, issue trackers, meeting materials, minutes, and recordings
   without an account, without logging in, and without identifying
   themselves.  Nothing in this document anticipates or requires a login
   to read the IETF's work.  A reader can stay anonymous.  A contributor
   can't.

   The IETF already draws this line for meetings.  Attending a session
   has long been recorded: the blue sheets were "paper forms on which
   everyone writes their name and their affiliation", and for remote
   attendance "attendance is handled by accessing the application"
   ([RFC9592]).  Today, entering a session means logging in to Meetecho,
   and attendance lists are part of the public record (Section 1 of
   [RFC3935]).  The minutes, materials, and recordings of those sessions
   are published for anyone to read without logging in.  This document
   applies the same split to every other way of taking part.

5.  Multiple Identities

   A human may want to take part in the IETF under an identity that is
   not publicly linked to their existing account.  Reasons include
   changing employers, working in an area that is sensitive for their
   employer or government, or separating personal and professional work.

   A human MAY hold more than one account, each used for a different
   piece of work, without publicly linking them.  Each account is still
   subject to every requirement in this document: it belongs to one
   identified human who has acknowledged the Note Well, and that human
   is accountable for every Contribution made from it.

   A human MUST NOT use more than one identity to contribute to the same
   piece of work.  For the purposes of this document, a "piece of work"
   includes at least:

   *  an Internet-Draft and any later document derived from it;

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   *  any discussion, issue, review, or consensus call about such a
      document; and

   *  any nomination, petition, or other process in which participants
      are counted.

   A human MUST NOT create a new account to avoid a sanction applied to
   an existing one, or to avoid the history attached to it on an
   existing topic.

6.  Open Questions

   This document is a starting point for discussion.  These questions
   are expected to be debated.

   *  Is a working group the right scope for a "piece of work", or is a
      single document enough?  Working group scope is easier to check,
      but it may exclude people who have good reasons to keep two lines
      of work apart.

   *  Should an account with no public link to a human's other accounts
      still be linked privately, for example by disclosure to the IETF
      Secretariat or the Ombudsteam?  That would allow enforcement of
      Section 5 without exposing the link publicly.

   *  Is a pseudonym acceptable on a single account, if the human behind
      it is known to the IETF and accountable in the same way as anyone
      else?

   *  How should the IETF verify that an account belongs to one human,
      and how much verification is proportionate?

7.  Existing Principle

   The following documents state that participation in the IETF is by
   individuals.

   Section 3.2 of [RFC9281] (BCP 11):

      For all purposes relevant to the Internet Standards development
      process, membership in the IETF and its WGs is defined to be
      established solely and entirely by individuals who participate in
      IETF and WG activities.  These individuals do not formally
      represent any organizations they may be affiliated with, although
      affiliations are often used for identification.

   Section 1 of [RFC2418] (BCP 25):

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      There is no formal membership in the IETF.  Participation is open
      to all. [...] Participation is by individual technical
      contributors, rather than by formal representatives of
      organizations.

   Section 5 of [RFC8179] (BCP 79):

      This document refers to the IETF Participant making disclosures,
      consistent with the general IETF philosophy that Participants in
      the IETF act as individuals.

   Section 1 of [RFC8179] defines a "Contributor" as "an individual
   submitting a Contribution", and a "Participant" as "any individual
   Participating in an IETF discussion or activity".  Section 1 of
   [RFC5378] (BCP 78) uses the same definition of "Contributor".

   Section 2.2 of [RFC7241]:

      All IETF participants act as individuals.  There is no concept of
      "IETF membership".

   Section 4.1 of [RFC9680]:

      While IETF participants are expected to participate as
      individuals, their actions could still be construed as
      representing their employer, whatever their role.

   Section 2.1 of [RFC8718]:

      Meeting attendees participate as individuals.

   Appendix A.1 of [RFC6702] describes the IPR obligations as "personal
   requirements applying to all IETF participants as individuals".

   Section 5 of [RFC2026] notes that the IAB and IESG "are composed of
   individuals who may participate, as individuals, in the technical
   work of the IETF".

   The final version of the Tao of the IETF, archived in [RFC9592], says
   "There is no membership in the IETF."

   The IRTF's code of conduct [RFC9775] says a generative tool must not
   be listed as an author of a document, and that significant amounts of
   AI-generated content must be disclosed.

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8.  Security Considerations

   TODO

9.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.

   [RFC2418]  Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
              Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, DOI 10.17487/RFC2418,
              September 1998, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2418>.

   [RFC5378]  Bradner, S., Ed. and J. Contreras, Ed., "Rights
              Contributors Provide to the IETF Trust", BCP 78, RFC 5378,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5378, November 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5378>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

   [RFC8179]  Bradner, S. and J. Contreras, "Intellectual Property
              Rights in IETF Technology", BCP 79, RFC 8179,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8179, May 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8179>.

   [RFC9281]  Salz, R., "Entities Involved in the IETF Standards
              Process", BCP 11, RFC 9281, DOI 10.17487/RFC9281, June
              2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9281>.

10.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.carpenter-rswg-authoring-ethics]
              Carpenter, B. E., "Principles and Guidelines for
              Assignment of RFC Authorship", Work in Progress, Internet-
              Draft, draft-carpenter-rswg-authoring-ethics-06, 2 August
              2026, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-
              carpenter-rswg-authoring-ethics-06>.

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   [I-D.fengfar-led]
              Farrell, S. and C. Feng, "Dealing with LLMs in IETF
              Discussions", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
              fengfar-led-01, 6 August 2026,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-fengfar-led-
              01>.

   [I-D.ietf-procon-2026bis]
              Salz, R. and S. O. Bradner, "The Internet Standards
              Process", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              procon-2026bis-11, 1 July 2026,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-procon-
              2026bis-11>.

   [I-D.ietf-procon-2418bis]
              Salz, R., Schinazi, D., and S. O. Bradner, "IETF Working
              Group Guidelines and Procedures", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-procon-2418bis-04, 17 August
              2026, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-
              procon-2418bis-04>.

   [I-D.moonesamy-authorship-ietf]
              Moonesamy, S., "Reflections on IETF Authorship", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-moonesamy-authorship-ietf-
              00, 9 September 2026,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-moonesamy-
              authorship-ietf-00>.

   [NOTEWELL] IETF, "Note Well", n.d.,
              <https://www.ietf.org/about/note-well/>.

   [RFC2026]  Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
              3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, DOI 10.17487/RFC2026, October 1996,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2026>.

   [RFC3935]  Alvestrand, H., "A Mission Statement for the IETF",
              BCP 95, RFC 3935, DOI 10.17487/RFC3935, October 2004,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3935>.

   [RFC6702]  Polk, T. and P. Saint-Andre, "Promoting Compliance with
              Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Disclosure Rules",
              RFC 6702, DOI 10.17487/RFC6702, August 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6702>.

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   [RFC6973]  Cooper, A., Tschofenig, H., Aboba, B., Peterson, J.,
              Morris, J., Hansen, M., and R. Smith, "Privacy
              Considerations for Internet Protocols", RFC 6973,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6973, July 2013,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6973>.

   [RFC7154]  Moonesamy, S., Ed., "IETF Guidelines for Conduct", BCP 54,
              RFC 7154, DOI 10.17487/RFC7154, March 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7154>.

   [RFC7241]  Dawkins, S., Thaler, P., Romascanu, D., and B. Aboba, Ed.,
              "The IEEE 802/IETF Relationship", RFC 7241,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7241, July 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7241>.

   [RFC8280]  ten Oever, N. and C. Cath, "Research into Human Rights
              Protocol Considerations", RFC 8280, DOI 10.17487/RFC8280,
              October 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8280>.

   [RFC8718]  Lear, E., Ed., "IETF Plenary Meeting Venue Selection
              Process", BCP 226, RFC 8718, DOI 10.17487/RFC8718,
              February 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8718>.

   [RFC9592]  ten Oever, N. and G. Wood, "Retiring the Tao of the IETF",
              RFC 9592, DOI 10.17487/RFC9592, June 2024,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9592>.

   [RFC9680]  Halpern, J., Ed. and J. Daley, "Antitrust Guidelines for
              IETF Participants", RFC 9680, DOI 10.17487/RFC9680,
              October 2024, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9680>.

   [RFC9775]  Perkins, C. S., "IRTF Code of Conduct", RFC 9775,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9775, March 2025,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9775>.

   [RFC9945]  Eggert, L., Ed. and E. Lear, Ed., "IETF Community
              Moderation", BCP 245, RFC 9945, DOI 10.17487/RFC9945,
              February 2026, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9945>.

Appendix A.  Related Work

   RFC Editor: please remove this appendix before publication.

   Other documents under discussion cover parts of the same ground:

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   *  [I-D.fengfar-led] discusses the use of AI tools in IETF mailing
      list discussions and recommends that the IETF develop guidelines
      for them.  It notes that the sock-puppet problem is a separate
      issue.  This document addresses that issue.

   *  [I-D.carpenter-rswg-authoring-ethics] states that authors remain
      entirely responsible for any content generated by AI, and that an
      AI tool must not be credited as an author.  This document applies
      the same principle to every Contribution, not only to RFC
      authorship.

   *  [I-D.moonesamy-authorship-ietf] reflects on authorship in the IETF
      and asks whether the IETF should set guidelines for the use of
      generative AI by authors.

   Some documents cited here are being revised.
   [I-D.ietf-procon-2418bis] would replace [RFC2418] and keeps the text
   quoted in Section 7.  [I-D.ietf-procon-2026bis] would replace
   [RFC2026].  References will be updated if those documents are
   published first.

Acknowledgments

   TODO

Author's Address

   Bron Gondwana
   Fastmail
   Email: brong@fastmailteam.com

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