User blog comment:-Algol-/Of policies, admins and the community/@comment-25305799-20130204010123/@comment-4721065-20130207061948

Because neither Wikipedia nor Wikia were ever designed as democracies, and Wikipedia openly says that on one of their main pages here, and here's a direct quote from where they describe it in detail:

''Remember that Wikipedia is not a democracy; even when polls appear to be "votes," most decisions on Wikipedia are made on the basis on consensus, not on vote-counting or majority rule. In summary, polling is not a substitute for discussion.''

This one seems even more relevant to the current situation:

''Petitions are even more problematic since they not only encourage the community to avoid meaningful discourse and engagement, but also limit their scope to only one initially-stated opinion or preference with little or no opportunity for discussing and reconciling competing or opposing points of view. As a rule, petitions should be avoided; when they are created, they should be closed and marked after a reasonable period of time or once the initial interest in the petition passes.''

If anything, Wikipedia and off-shoots are best described politically as meritocracies with democratic elements: instead of a fixed "one person, one equal vote" the amount of one's contributions to the project gives their opinions greater weight than others. The insistence on total consensus rather than majority rule also seems reminiscent of the original concept of socialism/communism (or at least certain modern ideas of democratic communism).