I understand your passion on this, but I'm obliged to respond to it first as it's pretty dang fundamental.
I agree that an owner should be, ideally, an entity that also stands as a community leader and as a pivotal force of change when required. This was attempted mid last year, before I presume real life caught up to him again. Thus there is one example in pretty recent (though still, mid last year...) history that he definitely showed the will. Now, well, there's nothing - but the thing is, ideal doesn't work here. Without knowing the hardware and financial demands, none of us can presume the ability to keep the lights on in his place, even if they may care more in spirit right now. His technical competence is clearly vast, far beyond the median here at least. I'm actually in a similar boat, refraining a lot until I see more inspiring things from the top. If he's unable to be that force of change himself, someone should be around who can. But I think it's a matter of life catching up in general, where a return that might have happened by now has been delayed by real world events (even as we can waste quite a bit of time here, many are in the exact opposite boat for reasons out of their control - if for nobody else, that's certainly Hader's issue right now).
One can't just resolve their personal issues, just like that. Some nod, in my opinion, should have been given in a directing capacity by now, but still, there's a lot of patience that has to be afforded, because I really don't think it's a matter of him not giving a , but rather not currently being able to offer that . In the scope of this thread, as much as we absolutely need the top end to come back before true progress can be made, we need to acknowledge it's not very realistic to expect or demand that to happen immediately - what's happening at an ownership level isn't good, but it warrants understanding. If summer passes by and we don't hear anything, yeah, it's a good measure worse - but for now, there's still a good bit we can do with current numbers.
I'm game for the committee prospect. I'm actually considering a poll where thoughts on this can be acquired between multiple levels, work in progress being,
1 - Kill it, merge the functions off to Staff
2 - Exclusively give awards and elect magistrate, cut all non-essential things to this, merge all site initiative stuff with the Q&S
3 - Refresh an identity that sees citizens be a core for pushing site change in an advisory role to staff (per older purpose), more clearly defines the scope of a citizen, and includes the above functions while maintaining just enough internal staff to make these things run smoothly.
I'm game for Option 3 at the moment, which would preserve the most from now and involve a deliberate cultural shift as well as necessary changes to the word of law. I think it is impossible for the 'elitist' aspect to be permanently undone, but a refresher and some soul-searching would certainly help it become more useful now. If that's just too much or people don't want to see that again, I'll go to the second option and I guess all of the meta stuff in this thread can be routed over to the Q&S with anyone who cares to participate. But I'd like the unique potential of the Curia to be seen again. If that's the case, committee to get there might be a good start.
I suppose you've said about as much as you need to, unless it's to correct me on these things or clarify. All of this, it would seem to me, is coming months, years too late. Better a final burst now than fading into the sunset, I think.