you know i've just been having this discussion on my talk page interesting what we currently have on project is a kind of pre tribal band system which can look like any other system because the elements of all sophisticated political systems are present 'in the bud' in social bands there are some elements of tribal society developing arbcom and administrators fill a role 'tribal elders' in loose tribal aggregates policy and guidelines take on an almost mystical devotional role in some discussions but on individual pages it still largely devolves to conflicts between small ideologically insular groups fighting for control of a resource aristocracy in any sense of the term would be a superior system in aristotle's sense it would be far superior i'll admit that i'm a huge fan of consensus systems i live for deliberative democracy but consensus systems are hard they take a lot of self reflection a lot of self moderation and both a willingness and an ability to set aside small personal concerns in favor of large public concerns these features are noticeably absent from many of the more contentious discussions on project if we are not willing to take the steps to achieve a properly functioning consensus system then we would really do better to try for another less open approach because dysfunctional consensus systems are ugly ugly ugly beasts it's why aristotle considered 'democracy' the worst form of governance because his understanding of democracy was more or less rule by the ignorant and emotionally volatile masses ludwigs