On 2 Aug, 01:57, Dave J.  wrote:
>
> If pushed I would own up to it being, in theory, another dictatorship.

It isn't really, because Control (as you indicate) doesn't have any
power /except/ insofar as he is trusted by people who do have power;
his directions are followed by them because they have a history of
being on the whole sensible. But in practice he is a supplicant to the
NNTP administrators; he is, in effect, the user's delegate, someone
who represents our views to the administrators and acts as a filter,
saving them the trouble of having to actively monitor threads like
this.

The people who have power are the admins, and the whole reason we have
the elaborate paraphernalia of the committee and Control is because
the admins have learned from experience that it is much too time-
consuming and aggravating to become directly involved in the
controversies of hierarchy management.