I may be as dumb as Toast (which admittedly is not all that dumb), and I admit I haven't been paying that much attention after helping OnceUp's team figure out an approach, but I'm having a hard time seeing a dictatorship in here:
This shows the current status of voting on a tiny fee for xeroc's effort in setting up a poll, which in turn informs the witnesses about the opinion of the community concerning whether a proposed software patch should be installed.
It would appear that the presumed "dictator" is the six accounts that have bothered to vote wielding about 6% of the community's potential voting power. How dare they do that! What blatant unmitigated tyranny! Off with their heads!
It also informs the proposers about whether they have enough support to risk spending their own money on developing a product.
Two weeks notice has always been the standard for advance notice in this community. Few corporations are required give more notice than that for a shareholder's vote. To take longer than that is to hamstring the corporation's ability to maneuver and compete.
At the end of that time, an investor's real money is going to be spent based on the status of that vote
at that time. As more voters get around to voting before then, that could swing either way - but enough have already agreed to pay Xeroc for setting up the vote, which is all that being "voted in" means at this point.
Then, when the project is complete, the new software will be presented to the witnesses as an opportunity to hard fork by switching to running the new package.
At that time they will face a choice:
1. Honor the vote at the time the decision to spend money was made, or
2. Honor the vote at the time the product is delivered (if it has changed in the mean time).
Acting against the wishes of Vote 2 could get them fired if enough people disagree with them keeping the implied commitment of Vote 1.
Acting against the wishes of Vote 1 means that BitShares gets a reputation for reneging on a prior vote upon which an entrepreneur has relied.
That could have a chilling effect on BitShares ability to attract more entrepreneurs.
This means that even if some voters have changed their minds about STEALTH by installation time, they might NOT decide to fire otherwise faithful witnesses for deciding to obey Vote 1 in order to preserve BitShares' reputation in future deals.
Please explain where your think the above process could be improved, given the tools available at this time.