How about this for starters for a leadership council. 5 members, serving staggered 3 year terms, and possibly subject to recall, with the following duties:
- To engage members of the community in open and frank discussions
about policy, technical, and content/style issues.
- To participate in discussions of broad-reaching issues, lending
moderation and reminding the community of it's core responsibility and values.
- To rule on the presence or absence of consensus where it is contested.
- To occasionally impose decisions based on the advice of the
community where the consensus process cannot produce a decision, and where the decision would reflect both a majority viewpoint and the long-term interests of the project.
- To occasionally call referendums on technical and policy matters
after sufficient discussion has taken place, and where the wishes of the community are not clear.
- To use the site notice and watchlist notice functions to call
attention to broad-reaching policy and technical discussions requiring more community input.
- To impose temporary policy decisions where timeliness is critical
due to potential for disruption to the community or gross violation of our core values.
The community would retain the ability to govern through consensus, and would further have the ability to call referendums on any decision imposed by the council. Overturning a council decision would be by simple majority, so that the council would lack the ability to go completely against the wishes of the community.
Someone take this and keep editing please :)
Later with elaboration, but very very promising initiative.
Fred