It's funny that you see the problem with AfD and
RfA as being their
"globalness". With RfA at least, I see the reverse: the fact that a
subcommunity ("regular RfA participants") has formed, with its own
norms, culture, convetions and so forth. If you randomly selected any
Wikipedian, pointed them at the policy for selecting admins, and asked
them to vote on a given candidate, you would get a result very
different to what happens at RfA.
I've heard similar stories about AfD - that there is a small group
that frequently votes, occasionally interrupted by vote stacking or
interest from outside parties.
Perhaps the real problem is that "locus of control" should not be
self-selecting.
I don't want to propose an elected committee to do RfA's or AfD's. But
do you agree that a) there exists a "locus of control" already, and
that b) it is self-selecting?
I think that you are right but missing the real problem. There will
always be a "locus of control" and unless you want to impose elections
for those who should vote on AfD, that group will always be
self-selecting. I think that the real problem is that the group which
controls which Star Trek articles (for example) that should be
included and deleted from Wikipedia is a different group than those
who are interested in Star Trek. A group of people on Wikipedia is
interested in writing and improving Star Trek articles, another group
is interested in deleting Star Trek articles. That arrangement
obviously causes friction. It would be much better if it could be
arranged so that those people who write Star Trek articles also are in
charge when it comes to deleting Star Trek articles.
--
mvh Björn