Purpose

The purpose of this document is to briefly provide an overview on how DareNET operates, and to establish consistent guidelines and rules for DareNET staff to follow while carrying out their duties on the network. They MUST be adhered to at all times, regardless of one's position on the network. If a guideline states specific access is needed to carry out the desired effect, then it must be done by someone with equal or higher access. Simply "getting permission" from such an individual is not sufficient.

This document IS the final and ultimate rule book for staff conduct and activity. Any rule you have heard of that is not written within these guidelines or contained in one of the policy documents simply does not exist. If you continue to follow such "unwritten" rules after warning could have consequences up to and including your dismissal from staff.

These guidelines and rules are here because we want to present a consistent and united focus to our user base.

Network Organization

Various teams form the administrative foundations of DareNET. They can be divided roughly into two groups: administrative and broad policy/decision making teams, and those which center on providing a particular service or cover specific aspects of the network's operations. Regardless, each team is given the authority to autonomously carry out their responsibilities. Each team has a manager. All teams work under the oversight of the Operations team, which consists of the actual administrators of the physical servers that make up the network.

Each staff member is required to actively participate on at least one team.

Finally, everyone of DareNET's staff is also a member of the "DareNET Team" -- everyone is dedicated to making DareNET a better IRC network.

Team Managers

Team managers are directly responsible for ensuring their teams are adequately staffed, provided they follow any network staffing policies that may be in place. Managers supervise and manage the overall performance of staff on their team. They are also responsible for ensuring the team achieves team and network goals, visions and objectives.

Team managers are appointed through a method determined by the Operations team.

Teams

The following teams currently exist:

Executive Board

DareNET's main governing body, retaining ultimate authority in all network matters. Most, if not all, areas of the network's operations have been delegated to various teams (outlined below) leaving the Executive Board to function in an oversight capacity. As such. the board's remit is only as caretakers for all network matters.

As caretakers, the Executive Board exists to hold, in trust, ownership of some essential resources, like dedicated servers (e.g., master dns, mail servers, etc.), the darenet.org domain, etc. The board also acts as an arbitrator in the mediation of disputes regarding network matters that cannot be resolved through other means (i.e., disputes referred to it by the Operations team).

Contact address: eb@darenet.org

Operations Team

The Operations team is comprised of the administrators of the physical servers that make up DareNET, who jointly oversee the activities of the network and its various teams. They have the authority to make decisions on broad network and policy issues.

Membership is limited to server administrators who have been "linked" to DareNET (in a permlink status) for at least three months. Non-IRC server administrators / sponsors of other DareNET servers may hold a non-voting seat on the team.

Contact address: ops@darenet.org

Development Team

The Development team is responsible for maintaining and developing much of the software the network is built upon, which includes, but is not limited to: ircd-darenet, webchat-darenet, website-darenet and services-darenet. The team may take on other projects, as decided by the development manager.

The team is also responsible for providing a means where staff can easily report bugs, submit feature requests and provide feedback in regards to the team's core projects.

Membership is decided by the development manager.

Contact address: dev@darenet.org

Infrastructure Team

The Infrastructure team is responsible for maintaining a stable, geographically diverse and well structured infrastructure for not only the DareNET IRC network, but the organization as a whole. The team is directly responsible for maintaining the servers linked to the network, web servers, database servers, and name servers, in conjunction with their respective administrators. The team also maintains the IRC pool, reviews link applications and administers the test link process.

Membership is decided by the infrastructure manager.

Contact address: infrastructure@darenet.org

Support Team

The Support team is responsible for the customer service end of DareNET's day-to-day operations. As such, its members listen to requests and questions from our users and respond based on the network rules and current policies of DareNET.

Membership is decided by the support manager.

Contact address: support@darenet.org

How DareNET Works

The above list of teams and their brief descriptions do not go much towards explaining how DareNET's administration actually functions. To explain this, we first need to look at the key elements of DareNET's existence:

• DareNET would be nothing without the users (thus, users make the network).
• DareNET servers are operated and/or sponsored by the admins, without which there would be no IRC network at all.
• DareNET was founded by the Executive Board, who in essence own and control the domain and other vital resources.
• The Operations team is the main decision making body on DareNET.
• DareNET relies on its staff and teams for its operations.

As you can see, each part is important. None are too overbearing, and they are all needed for DareNET to function. Cooperation is the only way things can work.

The actual administration is based on the below control structure:

• Server administrators are in charge of their servers, in conjunction with the Infrastructure team.
• Teams handle various issues, specific to their function.
• The Infrastructure manager oversees the technical aspects of DareNET.
• The Operations team oversees non-technical operations on DareNET.
• The EB and Operations team have the highest authority for network decisions.

And responsibility is laid out as follows:

• Operators are answerable to their admin.
• Individual admins are answerable to the EB.
• Team members are answerable to the team manager.
• Teams are answerable to the Operations team.
• The Operations team is answerable to the EB.
• The EB is answerable to the staff, as a whole.