In short:
For more detailed instructions, the following mail was sent to the liaison-managers@iab.org list accordingly on Aug 26, 2025:
Subject: Updated Process: secretariat will forward LSs from statements@ietf.org to liaison managers for upload
Hi all,
For incoming liaison statements that are sent from an organisation to the IETF/an IETF group where we have a liaison manager, we expect that all (incoming) liaison statement are send “over” the liaison manager. That means if one of those SDOs wants to send a statement, they likely give it to their selected liaison to the IETF and that liaison manager or representative of the other org would then send the statement (by email) to you. This is the process we discussed at the last liaison manager calls and respectively we also now requested the secretariat to forward you all liaison statements that go to statements@ietf.org instead of being sent directly to you.
We did instruct the secretariat to anyway upload a forwarded statement after one week in case they don’t see any action from you as a last resort to still ensure some timely handling. However, hopefully we can avoid this, given that you anyway need to carefully handle any statement that is directly send to you in the first place without the secretariat/statements@ietf.org in the loop. In case you need more than a week to handle a statement, just let the secretariat know that you are on it.
Then when you receive a liaison statement (either directly or forwarded by the secretariat), it is your responsibility to ensure that the liaison statement gets recorded in the datatracker. But clicking “post and send” in the datatracker the liaison statements gets distributed to the respective IETF group(s) as listed in the “To” field (as well as everybody in “CC”). There is no need to forward the received email directly to anybody in addition to that. In case you have any problems with uploading a statement, the secretariat or we, the liaison coordinators, are of course still there to help you with that.
This process gives you the ability to check that liaison statements are send to the right groups before they get recorded in the datatracker. If you think that e.g. a group is missing in the “To” or there is a wrong one, you can reach back to the other org/the liaison manager of the other org and clarify this before the statement is uploaded and distributed.
Please also note that liaison statements can only be sent to IETF groups, areas, the IETF as a whole or the IAB. Liaison statements cannot be sent to e.g the trust, the LLC board, or any IRTF research groups as those groups are not directly part of the IETF standards process. Also as a side note, usually it is better to send statements to specific groups, rather than an area or the IETF as a whole. Sending statements to the IETF as a whole (without identifying a specific group) or the IAB are usually more exception and might be cases where it might make sense to reach out to us and discuss the problem in advance.
And of course if you are uncertain where to send a LS or think there is otherwise some (broader) discussion needed based on an incoming statement, please reach out to us!
Further after you uploaded the statement, you have the chance to informally ack this to the other org, if useful, by informally replying to the initial email. As we discussed during the last call, there is not one way that fits all but it your responsibility to ensure good communication and needed information exchange between the orgs.
And finally if a statements needs follow-up actions, meaning that a reply from the IETF is expected or considered useful (often when the incoming statement was marked as “for action”), it is then also part of your role as liaison manager to support the respective groups in sending such a reply. If the chairs start taking action and working on a reply directly, that’s great, and we advised them to keep the liaison managers in the loop. If you don’t see any actions, then it makes sense to reach out to the chairs and ADs and check back if them if they are planning to take any action and send a reply.
We hope this makes the process most clear now. If you have any questions, please let us know or start a discussion here on the list.
In any case big thanks for your service and we hope this process will make things more clear and transparent for everybody and, on the long term, make your life easier!
Qin, Warren, Suresh, Mirja