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It's structurally very hard to get any significant change implemented. If you put a lot of work in you may eventually succeed, but it'll probably take a lot longer than you'd think. One example is the Article Wizard - this took about 2 years from gestation to completing its implementation. And that doesn't really challenge anyone's power, does it? This sort of structural inertia is why I created Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab), to at least try and have a space where ideas don't get shot down so quickly. Bottom line, the difficulty of changing the governance is not unique - though it's clearly a special case of being even harder. The only solution is to keep trying to come up with new ideas. PS The problem is not so much being given the tools indefinitely; the processes for removal of tools where that's clearly warranted are not so bad. The difficulty is in handling low and mid-level problems, and a certain tendency from people who've heard Wolf cried too many times to dismiss any problems short of ""desysop now"" seriousness as either bellyaching from troublemakers or just minor stuff of the ""everyone makes mistakes"" variety. More organised, constructive feedback might help, eg having a mandatory Admin review every year.  talk "