If most authors aren't going to be on board with committee or democratic processes then why on Earth do they contribute to this site in the first place? Every article is subjected to a democratic process that can end in the article's deletion.

Yes, but that's a market, not editorial control. I don't mind subjecting my work to vote on its merits as I have made it. I would mind someone telling me that I wouldn't be allowed to write or edit it as I see fit! If I am to work under those circumstances I will be paid, thank you very much.

Personally, I don't think a rating reset should occur more than once a month at most.

IMO, there's about half a dozen times ever, outside of the normal rewrite process, that it would have been appropriate to delete and repost an article it is just a weird coincidence that most of them happened recently and involved Kactus.

What I'm asking people to vote on is "yes" or "no" to the question: "Did X revision of Y SCP article count as a major revision?".

Yes, but I am asking how they would be instructed to define "major revision"?

It would be like if you served on a jury in a criminal case where they never told you what the actual law was that was supposedly broken. How can you make any kind of fair assessment?

Absent other criteria, people who like the proposed revision should always vote "no" so the article keeps its current votes, and the people who don't like it should always vote "yes" in the hopes it spooks the author into not making the changes. So this really just becomes a vote on the revised article, and we already are going to have that with the rating module, either way.

the author themselves decide on whether or not to reset the rating.

Too be clear, this is a euphemism for "delete your article".

Rewrite needs to be involved at least at this point, especially if the author is expected to retain the same slot and if they are required to preserve the old discussion (which IMO should be a requirement here).

Site Administration

There's no need for an admin here. They are the busiest people on the site. Rewrite Team should handle this fine.

to force the rating reset

When would you ever need to force an author to delete? Why can't they opt to make no or reduced changes instead?

Naturally I'm doing a lot of hand-waving here, but I want your thoughts on the above process in general

Well it's a lot of process and the results may not be satisfactory.

I think the biggest flaws are:

It is a policy whose primary purpose is to protect the interests of inactive members that is to be carried out by a vote of active members. That's the exact same issue as just letting the rating module sort it out. So it doesn't seem to address the problem.

Without ever defining what a "major rewrite" is, the petitioners will just vote on whether they like the revision or not, which is also just like the rating module.

It requires mass participation in a procedural aspect of the site more involved than just up/down voting. Participation will likely be low, and people will still complain they weren't consulted (a lot of people who complain about these things actually have very little to do with the community, and often aren't even members!).

Your most important requirement appears to be the author's satisfaction throughout the process, which I see as a valid concern.

I would rather say authorial control and artistic integrity. Authors should always be able to change or delete their work, as they see fit, even if it is an unpopular decision.

My other concern is that any solution actually does what it is intended to and protects the interests of inactive members in the integrity of their votes.