Making proposals easier to find / organize / work on
I remain skeptical. :) If the Wikimedia Foundation wanted consensus on everything, we wouldn't even have the drive the improve the interface. For such a non-controversial idea, there are a ton of "ain't broke don't fix it" comments, plus a bunch of "if they can't figure Wikipedia out, they're too dumb to make good contributions" comments. That's actually an example where the foundation had to step in and say "we're doing this -- give us feedback and criticism but we're doing this".
I'm willing to give it a shot. I'll scan through the proposals in the next week or two. But I suspect anything uncontroversial enough to work without consensus will be very small, and have virtually no impact on the big strategic picture.
We don't need authority, but we certainly need leadership.
Just to make sure we're on the same page: The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't want consensus on everything. It wants to encourage action. I think we all want to encourage action; that's how I'm interpreting from your messages, Randomran.
And I think it's very fair for you to say that the Wikimedia Foundation needs to show leadership. To me, leadership means several things. One way to show leadership is to create a space that facilitates action -- in other words, empowering others.
Another way is to lead by doing. The Foundation is certainly doing that, and volunteers have an opportunity to do this as well.
A third way is to engage. We've seen some of that on strategy from Foundation staff; I hope much more of it happens in the future.
Finally, I forgot to mention something. I leave the project in a few weeks, and I will no longer have any official status. I'd love to stay involved, and I'd love you in particular to stay involved. This is an open invitation, but it's targeted especially at you, Randomran. Find an interesting proposal, let's agree to lead by doing, and let's see what a few volunteers can accomplish together. :-)