@Jabba These discussions are endless, and that’s why we are where we are. You are relatively new to them, so if you and a group want to spend time working out a practical solution that properly addresses the concerns of everyone, including finding a group of dedicated community volunteers who will do the heavy lifting, please do.
Personally I’m exhausted by all this, so my input will be reduced - perhaps that will make it easier. But above we can see the personal animosity that means we have individuals with personal grudges and issues, and who evidently find it very hard to put those aside and be constructive.
Maybe your giraffe ears can be cloned? 
let’s send everyone on an NVC course before they can post in Meta and have a seat at the community table. 
Only half joking - so long as there is a completely open door to these discussions, and any forum moderation process, the processes become vulnerable to disruption by one or two vocal individuals, deliberate or unconscious.
James, I respect your modesty about those fine ears, but your talent is impossible to miss. I hope everyone can see that or be reached by it. It just might be the key, but can you, or do you want to, give that much of yourself here? It’s a big ask, and a serious question. If not you, then who? I can’t do it - I see that now though I have tried, and I’m very sad to be seen and treated so negatively by those I’ve been unable to relate well enough to, and who do not see me.
To bring this kind of change we will need some with commitment, staying power and endurance. Others come and go, dip in loudly when they have a personal bug bear or some free time, but that’s a luxury and no way to build something that can last. So we need people with staying power to run their whole “leg” before handing over the baton. We have a fine group of those in the mod team, and I hope some in the community who might be willing to step up and work in the same dedicated way, but we, or rather they (because I’m stepping back), need to find a way out of this snarky, demonising, and disrespectful (insulting really) dialogue. You offer us an example that gives me hope, but I return to my question above.
We recently had someone suggest having a trusted person to help resolve disputes, but they didn’t want to do that work themselves, and nobody else did either. 
We had someone else (a respected long term community member) who wanted moderator privileges so they could investigate community members and flush out saboteurs. I couldn’t see what it could possibly achieve, and said we’d have to be transparent about it with the community. They saw my questions as some kind of personal attack and refused to discuss it further. I’m a vitriolic exit from the discussion they revealed that they’ve been very unhappy about us as moderators without me being aware of it. 
(So yes of course @Tonda, you @Al_Kafir, @whiteoutmashups @Warren and others speak when others remain silent. But unless they speak, you don’t know whether you speak for them or not. I know some people won’t speak up in these situations - I was one of those for most of my life, so I know that happens and how hard it can be to be self censoring through fear. One of the most infuriating things for me though was when someone thought they were speaking for me, and put me in the awful position of being forced either to speak my truth when I didn’t want to, or let their assumptions stand, as if it was what I had said. Sometimes of course they were right, but we don’t know. That’s my point, and is why I’ve encouraged those who are dismayed to come up with clear, solid proposals and put them to a vote. That hasn’t happened on these issues, but it seemed like it might be a way through this problem. It hasn’t been. Now, I’m not sure if we can trust the outcomes until the technology allows, but that’s a moot point until members of the community are willing to create proposals detailed enough to be voted on.)
So I have tried to do my bit but was not up to this part of the task: creating a workable, trusted solution that was better than what’s used on every comparable forum (AFAIK) In spite of that, I think the community is really about the people who are attracted to SAFEnetwork, so the optimist in me believes the rules and process will not alter what we have here to a significant extent. I think the changing demographic that arises from mass awareness of SAFEnetwork will have far greater impact, and that we’ll need to have clear workable process in place to survive that. If that happens, a small dedicated band will set up a new, more discrete, home I’m sure (using Decorum of course ), and I may well be with them… if they’ll let me in lol. But things will change, no doubt about that. They always do, thank goodness.
@Al_Kafir scoffs that Devs are working on solving these issues, so it’s rubbish for me to say we can’t solve them for the time being, and that we have other important things to do. Well man, be my guest. I’m just saying I tried and failed, I’m not saying they can’t be solved ever, but please don’t underestimate the difficulties. It was a shock to me when I read a bit of Socrates while exploring Greece a few years ago, and learned that 5,000 years ago clever folk like him had set out all the problems of governance and what we should (but repeatedly don’t) do about them. Not one of the problems we have today with politicians, dictators, oligarchs, “democracy”, republics, monarchies, local councils, or online forums etc etc is new. What old Socrates wrote about is still alive and well in microcosm right here, right now, on this forum. Humanity is still failing to solve those problems in a better way, and despite our best efforts so is this community, for now!
The community is itself creating that which it abhors. That’s not blaming, that’s my observation of what’s happened since the community formed, and I include everyone when I say “the community”. I agree with David about this. What we must avoid is “us” and “them” - that’s the key to solving this. And I think we will need to keep solving it again and again.
So I’ve failed at that - no we’ve failed at that - or are looking like failing at least from the trajectory were on. What I think I have achieved is being part of an exceptional community, while growing myself and being part of establishing a very able and dedicated team (a really marvellous team) and a way of working here that should I hope give this forum a good chance of remaining different, but still being able to grow massively with this project.
As for helping solve the problems of how humans can govern themselves in this situation, I’m ready to hand that baton over to another runner or runners. Any takers?
Knowing your tendency to hold grudges makes me wary of your new position. Couple that with your sarcasm and my hair trigger. The result… is to be seen.
Or you can try to find some way to give the community a sense of ownership of the rules by having a say in what they are or how they are prosecuted.