Wikipedia is a good example of how giving users a little more authority isn't necessarily a bad idea.

True, though the premise of Wikipedia is providing factual information. People generally aren't fighting over what year Poser came out, or who created it. It's the opinions, heresay, conspiracy theories etc. AFAIK, Wikipedia discourages opinions in favor of facts. If you weeded out opinions here, you'd lose most of the content. Ideally, it could be more self-regulating I suppose but I'm not sure that wouldn't require a degree of uniformity/conformity that would end up detracting from the whole exercise. The occasional ruckus is going to require the bouncer in any establishment - such is life.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken