Summary

  • The IETF’s 2026–2027 Nominating Committee opened feedback on nominees for IAB, IESG Area Director and IETF IPMC Board positions on 27 October. The main deadline is 19 November.
  • Its online form shows a commenter’s name to every NomCom member. An anonymous comment can instead be passed through the chair or another trusted committee member; feedback remains confidential.

An honest account of a prospective leader’s judgment is useful to the IETF. Attaching your name to it may be less appealing when that leader is also your colleague, employer’s partner or next working-group chair. The IETF has put that choice in plain view.

On 27 October, the chair of the 2026–2027 Nominating Committee invited feedback on willing nominees for the Internet Architecture Board, IESG Area Director posts and an IETF Intellectual Property Management Corporation Board directorship. Nominations closed on 23 October. Feedback submitted by 19 November is within the advertised window; later comments may be considered, but the chair does not guarantee that they will be reviewed.

The online form carries the commenter’s name to all NomCom members. To keep that name off the comment seen by the full committee, a person can ask the chair or another trusted member to submit it on their behalf. The intermediary then becomes part of the trust chain: that person knows the source and decides how faithfully to convey the account. The committee says it treats every submission as confidential. Confidentiality protects the material inside the selection process; the proxy route changes how widely the source’s identity travels within it.

The committee’s published original roster lists six IAB positions, seven IESG Area Director positions and one IPMC Board directorship. These are leadership choices across the bodies that steer architecture, standards approval and institutional stewardship. The roster counts positions, rather than willing nominees.

The IETF’s governing selection rule, RFC 8713, keeps nominee-specific deliberations and supporting information confidential. It permits publication of willing nominees’ names for community feedback, requires broad consultation and leaves candidate selection to voting volunteer NomCom members. Confirming bodies then decide on the selections. The public gets a chance to inform a private judgment, not a ballot on each person.

This is the new phase of the process. A previous IETF notice extended acceptance of nominations to 23 October. Now the question is how useful criticism reaches the selectors before 19 November. A named form is simple to operate. A proxy route may bring in information that would otherwise stay in a drawer. The published leadership slate will show the result of selection and confirmation; the confidential comments that shaped it will remain with the committee.

Sources