[Wikipedia-l] I'm seeing a trend here or How to keep drivingaway good contributors

[Poor, Edmund W]

But, my dear Cunctator, we have already given one percent of the users power: Jimbo and the developers can ban anyone, even a signed-in user. Ordinary sysops, such as myself, can ban only an IP. 

There are 40 sysops, out of about 200 to 300 regular contributors. So our Dear Leader and Dictator For Life -- Jimbo -- and his royal bodyguards -- are that one percent. Sysops are about 20%. It's a two-tier power hierarchy.

Don't get my wrong, I have no quarrel with the benevolence of Mr. Wales. It is by his munificence that this project got started at all. Richard Stallman couldn't do it. FSF didn't hire a genius philosophy professor like Larry Sanger.

But we can't keep limping along by trusting the judgment of the top 1%. The authority needs to be delegated, lest the burden be too big. Recall the account of Moses and the 70 elders in Genesis.

Is SoftSecurity better than written guidelines? If so, clue me in.

Ed Poor