Participate

The global IETF community works together in many different ways to produce high quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet.

Internet technical standards are built on the combined engineering judgement of IETF participants, including individuals from academia and network operators, router vendors and open source projects. Anyone can contribute to this work. Read more in the Introduction to the IETF

  • Getting started in the IETF

    If you are a new participant in the IETF, this page is meant for you. It gives a short introduction, some general advice to new participants, and a guide to sources of further information.

  • Mailing lists

    This page describes many of the IETF mailing lists, where most of the daily work of the IETF is conducted.

  • Internet-Drafts

    Internet-Drafts are working documents of the IETF, its areas, and its Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts.

  • Hackathons

    An unofficial motto of the IETF is, "We believe in rough consensus and running code." Implementation experience provides critical feedback to the standardization process.

  • Online tools

    The IETF community works mostly online, and creates many of the tools used to develop standards documents and support IETF processes.

  • IETF Systers

    The IETF Systers Program offers women the opportunity to catch up with friends across all areas of the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Research Task Force.

  • IETF Guides program

    The IETF Guides Program matches experienced IETF participants with newcomers in order to aid their integration into the IETF community through advice, help, and collected wisdom.

  • The Tao of IETF

    This document describes many aspects of the IETF, with the goal of explaining to newcomers how the IETF works.