Hi Toby,
A *single* person can't prolong the decision-making process forever, because we have enough people around that lack of a single person is no obstacle to reaching a consensus. Consensus != unanimity (in English, although apparently it does mean that in French -- see some earlier posts between me and Anthere).
And even with a voting mechanism in place, a single dedicated person could still prolong *discourse* forever. Or would you censor speech?
No, but in a voting process, the discourse period can be time-limited. Of course, people could continue to discuss the issue on a dedicated page, but an enforcable decision could be made before that.
And I'm afraid that when people get tired of our tedious decision making process, they will want to resort to more drastic forms
of
enforcement and more permanent power structures, which will in turn lead to wrong decisions, alienation, power struggles.
Agreed, but IMO, that's exactly what *you* are trying to do ^_^.
Not at all, the idea is to decentralize power, and thereby reduce the potential for abuse. Voting seems to me very much complementary to the wiki idea.
Regards,
Erik