News & blog Support us Get started Contact Links q Search Donate ABOUT TOPICS OF INTEREST PARTICIPATE INTERNET STANDARDS About Participate_in the IETE Getting Started in the IETF Welcomel 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 to sources of further information: Introduction PARTICIPATE INTHE Howto start ETE Guides_program Getting_Started in the IETE Participating_in meetings ETE Guides Official documents Other resources The_Tao of ETE Appendix: WheredoRECs come fromz Introduction The IETF's mission is "to make the Internet work better, but it is the Internet Engineering Task Force, so this means: make the Internet work better from an engineering point of view: We try to avoid policy and business questions, as much as possible Most participants in the IETF are engineers with knowledge of networking protocols and software. Many of them know a lot about networking hardware too. The IETF's standards development work is organized into several Areas: Each Area has one or more Area Directors (ADs) which together comprise the Internet Engineering_Steering_Group (IESC) The ICC guide