Colleagues One or two vocal members of this community frequently express their opinion that all WG chairs should sit silently in the background, post an occasional review and wait to declare consensus or not. I am always willing to try out ideas from the community. So for the last couple of months, since RIPE 86, I have stayed silent on DB matters. How has the conversation been on NWIs? Oh there hasn't been any. How have they progressed beyond some steps already in progress? Oh there hasn't been any. Are we any closer to completing action on most NWIs? Er no we aren't. So I think it is fair to say this is not an appropriate way of working with some WGs these days. I will now go back to my previous way of working where, as a co-chair, I do have an agenda - to get things done, for the good of the internet. Whether you consider that a 'personal' or 'professional' or 'DB' agenda is up to you. Just to be clear, this is not the same as for the good of 'operators'. There are many stakeholder groups in this community now. We are no longer just 'the operator community' or even 'the technical community'. So I will continue to engage with the community, push out ideas (even crazy ideas sometimes), start and drive conversations until we get resolutions. Incidentally, this quiet period since RIPE 86 does remind us how busy you all are and how difficult it is for you to find the time to get so involved with the fine detail of small technical and operational changes to the RIPE Database. Which does fit with the presentation I did at RIPE 86 on how to manage the RIPE Database. I will come back to that shortly. cheers denis co-chair DB-WG