Folks, as John Klensin said, the reason we do not say "spokesperson" is that
our leadership do not speak for us. We only speak as a group through the
consensus process. So the term "spokesperson" is simply inaccurate.
The term "leader" makes sense as a generic because there were a number of
organizations, with different leadership structures, some not involving the
same consensus process that exists in the IETF. So we couldn't for example
say "chair," because that term wouldn't apply to all the people who signed the
statement.
I realize that the term "leader" has its own set of connotations, but I don't
know of a better word to use. There is no word that we could use that would
convey to someone who is not already familiar with IETF process what we mean.
Representative is no good for the same reason spokesperson is no good. Avatar
doesn't really work either.
I think it's better to just accept that the language is imprecise, and think
carefully about what is that we might be objecting to, and whether the
objection _really_ makes sense in the context. I guess there's about zero
chance that this won't get discussed to death, and that's fine, but I don't
think there's a knob to turn here.