RFA by year

Well RFA is not blackballing. If one person says they don't like someone or their contributions but they don't say why or give examples it won't derail the RFA - but the resulting Drama can make the RFA look a little poisonous.

Where we really have contention is where they give reasons which 75% of the community deems weak.

I think we're talking about the same thing. It only takes 30% of people to derail an RFA. Sometimes less for other RFCs. The power to obstruct really is the only added power you can find on Wikipedia. If you can make two friends who will watch your contribution history and follow you to a discussion, you can pretty much obstruct and any discussion smaller than 10 people. (Same thing if you make three enemies.) It's a more fundamental issue. People have learned that gumming up Wikipedia helps them retain power.

I think you're right that drama is the real reason people shy away from RFAs. But I'm more trying to point out where the drama comes from. In an encyclopedia with no systematic decision making process or power structure, drama is power.

The people just say no without proposing alternative or remedy to the situation.

De-facto let's do "nothing" until something or someone outside Wikimedia create an incident big enough that we have to act.

ON EN wiki we've managed to get things going a bit by publicising the problem. August 2010 is now the best month so far in 2010, and one of the best months in the last two years. But we are still in drought and the recent admins have mostly been oldtimers - all 13 successful candidates in August have been editors for more than two years and 11 of 13 were from 2005/6 and 7.