Sure, but the analogy isn't perfect. Who will guard the guards themselves? Admins close AfDs based on a mixture of that local consensus and policy, sure, but then we have Deletion Review to check that out. Who will look over Jimbo's shoulder in the manner that Deletion Review looks over the shoulders of admins closing AfDs? If democracy gives us tyranny of the majority, godkingship gives us discontent, and consensus ain't working any more, Jimbo acting as final arbiter for policy just won't work: the English Wikipedia is too big to be run by one man in this manner.
To be honest, there's no real reason why the English Wikipedia should be Jimbo's personal fiefdom - which is what it is. The amount of control the community really has over that is minimal, which causes not only balls-ups - cf Essjay, if the community had been allowed to see that one sooner a lot of drama would have been avoided - and also community discontent - cf Credental Verification, which will doubtless be railroaded through regardless of consensus on the matter, or lack of it.
A lot of this is irrelevant to me whatever: I'll always keep on writing articles, because that's darn fun. On the whole, though, I think perhaps the Arbcom taking a more proactive role in determing consensus and how that works with policy is preferable. It isn't our wiki, but it should be, and that gives the community some more clout.
Moreschi
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