On Thu, 08 Mar 2007 11:16:21 -0500, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org>
wrote:
It's kind of vague, really. Historically, the
Arbitration Committee
took over the roles Jimmy previously exercised. Informally, he
currently heads it (from afar, mostly), and has authority to veto its
decisions, appoint/remove members, etc. Even more informally, he does
so in accordance with community approval (elections, the policy
ratification vote, etc.). At one point Jimmy was also formally in
charge, but now in hierarchical terms the Foundation's Board of
Directors would be, with Jimmy retaining informal/customary authority
over some English-Wikipedia-specific processes. Now that authority over
the community is mostly effective because the community tacticly
approves of it, so teasing out which has priority is tricky.
Unless you are English, where the concept of a constitutional monarchy
is something we've always lived with :o) Yesterday I was riding along
the Queen's highway. Literally - The Mall.
Authority here derives from the monarch, but is vested in others, and
any attempt to exercise power against the will of the people would
cause problems. It took us a couple of hundred years to get the
balance right, and it's still changing. But over that entire period,
the country remained governable and tolerably well-regulated. Is that
so bad?
To paraphrase a fellow Englishman, Jimbocracy is the very worst system
of government, apart from all the others.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG