On Oct 9, 2013, at 6:45 AM, Tobias Gondrom <tobias.gondrom@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > But I support SM's proposal that it would be good > to do a few days comment period for such important statements in the > future - if timing is not critical. There is no harm in a few days delay > and getting input from the community. This is a nice theory, but the usual last call time at IETF is either two weeks or four weeks, not a few days, and that's for a good reason. I think there is no way that a statement of the type we are discussing can ever represent IETF consensus unless we go through an actual consensus call. So the real question here is, is it ever appropriate for the chair of the IAB or the chair of the IETF to sign a statement like this without getting consensus? I think that's a good question, and I don't have a strong opinion on the answer. But if the answer is that we need consensus, then we actually need to do a consensus call. The only value I see in "a few days" would be an opportunity for wordsmithing—as someone pointed out, the current statement could be read as expressing concern that secrets were leaked, rather than concern about what was done in secret, and it would have been nice if that wording could have been corrected. If that is what you were asking for, then that does make sense. (thinking out loud...)