Subject: Update of IESG statement "Last Call Guidance to the Community"

From: IESG Secretary <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2021 10:51:00 -0700

Last Call Guidance to the Community, 16 April 2021

Online: <https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/last-call-guidance/>

In line with BCP 9, the IESG issues IETF Last Calls for all documents in the
IETF Stream.

In normal cases, since this is the final stage of open community review, the
IESG prefers that comments on Last Calls be sent to the [email-masked] list.
Authors, WG Chairs and the responsible Area Director are presumed to see all
such messages, but they may be copied if the person sending a comment so desires
(e.g., by copying the [email-masked] email alias.)

It is appropriate to send purely editorial or typographical comments only to the
authors, WG Chairs, and the responsible Area Director.

If substantive discussion of a technical comment is needed, then it is often
appropriate to move that discussion to the WG list, once the comment has been
made on the last-call list. (For non-WG drafts, it should normally stay on the
last-call list.)

In exceptional cases, a comment may be sent only to [email-masked]. However, the
IESG will normally need to discuss these comments with the authors, the WG
Chairs, and possibly with the WG as a whole. Once a comment is sent to the IESG,
it becomes a contribution to the IETF standards process, even if anonymity is
requested.

Please ensure that it is clear which draft is the subject of a comment. From a
practical point of view, Last Call comments should preserve the beginning of the
original subject header, up to at least the end of the draft name. For example,
a comment on:

  Last Call: draft-ietf-pigeon-post-02.txt (Avian Mail Transfer Protocol)
  to Proposed Standard

could carry a subject such as

  Re: Last Call: draft-ietf-pigeon-post-02.txt - what about avian flu
  risk?

This is to ensure that Last Call comments can be automatically sorted.

There are some organized review teams in the IETF (e.g., Gen-ART and the
Security Directorate). Reviews from such teams should be sent to the
[email-masked] list in addition to the review team itself, if they are
intended as Last Call comments.