For once, I feel that I am in complete agreement with
Marc. Consensus
doesn't cut it when you have a thousand participants in the discussion
rather than a hundred, unless you want to resort to voting - which is
effectively a tyranny of the majority.
Is a single leader making the final decisions really better than a
"tyranny of the majority"? If the right person is chosen as leader,
then it could work, but it's very difficult to find such a person.
One option I've been considering recently is some kind of parliament
with elected members of the community discussing and making policy
decisions. I don't think we've got to the stage where anything like
that is needed yet, but if the community continues to grow it will
eventually become impossible to involve everyone in every policy
decision.