QUOTE(sarcasticidealist @ Mon 14th July 2008, 7:33am)
QUOTE(gomi @ Mon 14th July 2008, 1:27am)
I suspect not, for there is no value of whomever that can make anything at all happen on Wikipedia, with the possible exception of Mike Godwin, and his powers are substantially limited in scope.
Well, you're leaving out the Board of Trustees, unless you're trying to restrict "whomever" to one person. But the Board's a small enough body that, unlike the community, it actually could act. Absent that, the Arb Comm could probably also make some significant change by overstepping its authority, provided it did it gradually and incrementally enough. But you've identified the fundamental problem: it's not that Wikipedia's run by a cabal, or that Wikipedia's run by a mob, or that Wikipedia's run by 14 year old admins. It's that Wikipedia is neither run nor runnable.
What's especially frustrating is that pleas to Jimbo to do something about it get answered with, "The current system is fine." If Jimbo would come out and say, "ArbCom is doing a good job dealing with user conduct issues, and now I'm going to establish similar committees to govern policy and content disputes," there would, of course, be some complaints, but I think it would get done as Jimbo said it. In spite of the serious blows to his credibility over the last six months or so, he still has the position and power to do this if he desired.
I know that I've advocated removing Jimbo from the ArbCom election process, but I'm not contradicting myself. I think he can make decisions to form and implement committees and/or other governance bodies. But, he can then let the community run them instead of holding final appointment authority for himself.
This post has been edited by Cla68: