My reading of question 7 is
that the document shepherd have to ask the authors to confirm the IPR
status to their knowledge which is different than just reporting what was
discussed in the WG and which IP statements were submitted. Did I
mis-understand question 7.
You're correct: question 7 is asking you to confirm with the document
editors, to make sure nothing's been forgotten.
This is why I was trying to draft the question to ask the documents authors
in order to be able to reply to question 7. I was not trying to change the
proto itself.
I understand that you weren't trying to change the PROTO template; I
thought Stephan was, and, as he's said, he's now aware of where it
comes from. (And, by the way, it's always possible to make
suggestions to the IESG about changes to the writeup.)
As I said in my first note, you're welcome to ask the question in any
manner you like, as long as you can comfortably complete the PROTO
writeup.
The way I've handled it since the change was to ask openly on the WG
mailing list. I've asked the editors *and* the participants, but only
expected explicit replies (off list) from the editors. This way, all
participants were reminded to let the working group know about IPR
they're aware of ["reasonably and personally known to the participant"
is the specific text from BCP 79, in case you want to use that].
How you, as a chair, do it, is up to you. And I suggest that "Yes,"
is a reasonable answer to question 7, and question 8 is the one that
wants more words.
Barry