Beyond the fact that the PHP community doesn't really do the BDFL thing, the process for adopting changes to the language is designed to be run by group consens

Beyond the fact that the PHP community doesn't really do the BDFL thing, the process for adopting changes to the language is designed to be run by group consensus, not by the older model of having a small group of self-appointed leaders. I suppose a core problem is that before the current process, a very large number of the people causing trouble happened to also be the self-appointed leaders.