The Rules of the Game
Moderation guidelines for #icann-europe

• The channel will be moderated during the official part of the discussion. It may or may not be moderated before.
• The moderators' nick names will be tlr (Thomas Roessler) and Rince (Hanno Wagner).
• Initially, only the candidates and the moderators will be allowed to speak.
• Others ("participants") will only be allowed to speak for a limited amount of time.
• Whoever wants to ask or contribute to the discussion sends a personal message (/msg) to one of the moderators, giving him a short indication of the topic (a word or two may be sufficient, e.g., "independence", "conflict of interests", ...).
• Participants who want to follow up on a topic which is currently being discussed will normally be allowed to speak immediately (but see below).
• Participants who want to start a new topic will be deferred, and be allowed to speak according to a first-come-first-serve policy. Obviously, the moderators reserve the right to err.
• The moderators will, at their distinction, declare topics "closed" once they believe the discussion should go on with different things. This will be declared to the channel's public.
• Once a topic is declared closed, all allowances to speak granted to participants will be withdrawn. Pending requests for follow up comments will be discarded.
• The candidates are asked to honor topic closings.