This idea isn't fully fleshed out yet, but a suggestion to see what people think---how about we empower unilateral sysop action on the short term, but of only a few sysops at a time in a rotating group? As motivation, the basic problems seems to be that some things need to be done right away, but due process takes time. We can avoid due process in really clear-cut cases of pure vandalism, but that's not enough, and there are a lot of other cases left that cause significant trouble for days or weeks on end until it's decided what to do. To fill this gap, some sysops have gone out on a limb and just unilaterally banned users, sometimes with a backlash and sometimes with people approving (and sometimes with people grudgingly approving, disliking the principle of unilateral action but agreeing that something needed to be done). One proposal to fix this is quickpolls. I like that idea, and think we should pursue it, so perhaps my suggestion (if fleshed out) could be integrated somehow as a complementary component. I think there should be a schedule such that on any given day, there's a designated three sysops who are empowered to take short-term unilateral action, on the order of 24-hour bans. Any one of them could take action, and agreement of the other two could overrule any action (to allow for quick overruling as well as quick action). Scheduling in advance would ensure that the three can actually be present for a good portion of the day monitoring Wikipedia, so can serve as a contact point for resolving disputes. Consensus and committee stuff simply doesn't get the job done on the short term, although quickpolls could conceivably be made to work for some cases (ideas on that?). Although it has a top-down feel, I think having a rotating group would prevent power from accumulating in anyone's hands---at any given time there would be only 3 people who can do this, not the entire cabal of sysops, and each sysop would have only one day at a time in which they'd have such unilateral power. I envision dealing with these things as very quickly becoming more of a chore than some sort of privilege, so I hope people won't be making power-hungry jumps at the chance to be the person responsible for solving short-term disputes for a day. Anyway, thoughts? -Mark