RULES FOR ESTABLISHING NEW IRC SERVERS IN EUROPE (v1.1)

1. Establishing a new server and inner domain linking should be a local toplevel domain (country) decision.

   Guidelines:

   • New servers should be leafed until their admin(s) have sufficient experience to handle their server responsibly. (This avoids routing disasters).
   • Only a link for ONE server should be given to the new server site, that means the new site shouldn't be able to connect test-servers to other than its own server. (This avoids confusion about linking hierarchy).
   • Be sure that if a toplevel domain hostmask link is given, all hubs of that domain can connect the masked server! (this should avoid disagreement between serveral hub admins in one domain).

2. All other links between toplevel domains (countries) should be dicussed between the major link coordinators of each toplevel domain (country). These coordinators are called European Board of IRC Coordinators (EBIC).

   Guidelines:

   • Major link coordinators of each toplevel domain (country) should be published with the server sourcecode in directory ./doc/Europe
   • Each toplevel domain (country) participating in the European IRC net must have a coordinator, who is responsible for country-internal connections AND represents the country in contacts with the rest of the world. This person(s) is (are) chosen by their domain, but must be approved by the EBIC.
   • The EBIC is the only executive in charge of European interconnections and of connections from Europe to the rest of the world. They will decide linking issues WITH the affected local admins.
   • For establishing new links between several toplevel domains the affected EBIC coordinators should be consulted. If further coordination is needed it should be discussed within the EBIC.
   • Additional note: International links should also take care of the network topology, so even if several national opers agree on a same international link, they might be wrong and use unecessary network ressources. The EBIC should avoid such linking.
   • Any major linking change should be announced in the european mailing list: IRC-Operators Europe irc-eu@ifens01.insa-lyon.fr

3. Cracked servers are the concern of EBIC, overiding all local interests.

   Guidelines:

   • In a server with non-standard source code which breaks the current irc protocol (especially the incorrect manipulation of channel modes and user/hostname authentication) EBIC will take action.
   • The recommended action is permanent withdrawl of the server from the IRC-net by removal from all its uplinks configuration files.

4. A prerequisite for getting a NEW server connection within Europe is an understanding of and compliance to the above rules.

   Guideline:

   • All new admins should get a copy of these rules.