Complaint regarding censorship of MODPOD list (Daniel J. Bernstein) - 2025-08-27
Response - 2025-10-17

Scope of the Appeal

The IESG notes that this appeal includes content that are beyond the scope of the IESG’s remit to process as described in IESG Statement on the Conflict Resolution and Appeals Processes. Since this appeal predates the said statement, the IESG is not rejecting the appeal and instead only processing the contents of the appeal within its remit as indicated further in this response.

Summary

The IESG received an appeal from D.J. Bernstein on 27 August 2025 appealing the action of the General Area Director (GEN AD) Roman Danyliw in upholding the action of the MODPOD Working Group (WG) Chair to limit a mailing list conversation initiated by D.J. Bernstein (the appellant).

The GEN AD, Roman Danyliw, did not participate in the processing of this appeal.

The IESG has concluded that there were no process failures by the GEN AD.

This appeal is denied.

Remedy Being Sought

The appellant is asking the IESG to reverse the actions of the MODPOD WG Chair and GEN AD, and to allow the appellant to continue discussion on the MODPOD WG list on the topic of criminal antitrust law started by the appellant.

IESG Response

The IESG finds that the portion of the appeal within the IESG remit meets the criteria of Section 6.5.4 of RFC 2026.

The IESG concurs with the MODPOD WG Chair’s determination that the topic of criminal antitrust legal aspects is beyond the scope and charter of the MODPOD WG. As such, the WG Chair’s decision asking participants to not respond and stop the discussion on that topic was an appropriate exercise of their duty as WG Chair to reject inputs that are out of the scope of the WG based on Section 3.3 of RFC2418.

The IESG, therefore, also upholds the GEN AD’s rejection of the appellant’s complaint. The IESG notes that the GEN AD did provide the reason for the WG Chair’s rejection of inputs on the specific topic on the WG mailing list and further directed the appellant to the correct forum for discussions on that topic as described in Section 4.3 of RFC 9680.

Conclusion

The IETF is a technical standards body, and discussions conducted on working group mailing lists are to be narrowly scoped to a working group’s chartered work. No current working group is presently chartered to discuss matters of antitrust law regarding the IETF. However, Sections 4.2 and 4.3 of RFC 9680 do provide guidance on how such matters should be handled by IETF participants.

Therefore, the IESG finds the GEN AD’s action in this matter to be correct and the MODPOD WG Chair’s action in this matter to be within the purview of their WG Chairs duties and responsibilities.

This appeal is denied.