You seem to be using the word "cabal" here in a sense that is neither derogatory nor ironic. I find that highly disturbing.
You may find it disturbing, but the truth is that there are people like Jimbo who can make high level decisions, and there are sysops that have more power than ordinary users. Many of these decisions already happen in places that most people don't know about (e.g. the mailing list). Glossing over the truth doesn't make it go away: there is a Wikipedia cabal.
I have already suggested a voting scheme that would democratize the decision processes by the inevitable administration. Aside from extreme opinions like "voting doesn't work", I see few arguments against that. We need to talk openly about this kind of stuff, or what you find disturbing will turn into a nightmare eventually.
A decision would have to be made as to which teams to include in the default view, i.e. the one that anonymous and newly registered users get. In the short term such decisions may be made by the cabal, in the long term I would prefer voting.
If newcomers see only what is approved by a list of certification teams, then Wikipedia will no longer be a wiki. There will be a wiki underneath, which you can get to by registering and then setting your preferences, but that wiki would be dead without an influx of newcomers.
You misunderstand me. I am absolutely in favor of creating and keeping a site that is immediately accessible to the newcomer, where the newbie quickly notices that WP is editable and joins the process. I love wikis! My idea centers around the facts that - there will always be many people who just read and who will never be contributors, - even for contributors, it is sometimes desirable to quickly find trustworthy information, - some contributors would like there to be some distinction between the work they have invested much time in and the vandalism of a bored Internet hooligan.
So what I am suggesting is an alternative viewing mode that would *never* be the default but optional. It would allow me to browse a Wikipedia where the article about Mozart *can* not just have been replaced by an image from goatse.cx. Instead, I would view the last certified version of that article, which hopefully would be brilliant prose.
Instead of just telling people to use Britannica if they want trustworthy information, we should substitute this part of Britannica -- quality control -- as well. That doesn't mean we have to give up any part of the massively collaborative project that WP is becoming. As a matter of fact, it would hopefully attract all those skeptics that are afraid that something like the above happens to their sacro-sanct articles -- it could still happen, but they could find peace of mind in the fact that the vandalized version would never be certified.
Last but not least, we should not forget that WP is intended to be a useful tool, not just for those who like to write, but for those who like to read, too. Be it interested adults or curious children, rich or poor, we want Wikipedia to be accessible. We may want to distribute it on CD- ROMs and on paper. Then how on Earth are the schoolchildren in India going to wade through megabytes of Middle Earth mythology and stubs, if not if we supply them with at least the option to filter articles according to criteria developed collaboratively by various teams, working together to find the sparkling gems among the ocean we are creating?
"Being a wiki" doesn't mean that we shouldn't extend the original wiki functionality. Had we stayed with that, Wikipedia would have never become that big. We would still be using CamelCase.
Regards,
Erik