Subject: Establishing a permanent memorial for deceased IETF participants

From: IETF Executive Director <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 May 2021 13:23:20 -0700

The IETF is a community where people participate for many years, often decades, contribute a huge amount over that time and make many friends.  For some it becomes the defining community of their life's work.  So when community participants pass away, there is often a widely felt and long-lasting impact and, as we’ve seen from previous plenary sessions, there are many who want to remember those individuals and their contributions.

The IESG and IETF Administration LLC propose that we recognise this by establishing permanent online memorials for deceased IETF participants.

We propose that when we are informed of someone’s passing and we are able to confirm it, their Datatracker profile is updated as follows:

* "(deceased)" is shown after their name and a link to any testimonials below is added

* their email address is shown in a strike-through font but remains copyable, as their mail may be being handled by someone else and we do not want it used without consideration

* a new section appears at the bottom of the page titled "Testimonials", which displays any testimonials that members of the community have submitted about that person.  Initially these will be plain text, without images or other formatting and the only metadata being the name of the author and the date of publication.

The proposed process for adding a testimonial is that anyone can write one and send it to the Secretariat, who will check it to make sure that it is both respectful and genuine. If they are in any doubt, they will consult with the deceased’s family or other members of the community who are known to have been friends of the deceased.  All genuine and respectful testimonials will be published.  Testimonials cannot be anonymous.

We welcome feedback on this proposal by 23 May 2021.  Please send all feedback to the admin discuss list [email-masked] or privately to the IESG at [email-masked].  

-- 
Jay Daley, IETF Executive Director
Lars Eggert, IETF Chair