How does that stand against the reality

The reality taught Larry and us that designing a language isn't a task for which a community is really suited all that well. Everybody wants to get their pet project in, but that way you don't get a uniform, smooth and coherent language.

So in the end it was decided that Larry designed most of the core language, which many ideas from the community, and some specs written by other people (for example S05), and unified under Larry's maintainership.

As the various implementations proceed, more people hack on the Synospis again, because he just doesn't have enough time to care about every detail, so others chime in, collect thoughts and publish drafts. (For example Daniel Ruoso has been working on the draft of S07, Laziness and Iterators, and particle on S19, Command Line Interface).

Still the comment about the community rewrite isn't all wrong, because all implementations are community projects.

Update: These days I'm collecting thoughts for a draft of S24, on the topic of a built-in testing system. So if I'm considering myself "community", then I'm another example for community-driven design. What drives me is that in my work with the test suite I noted that different things are assumed about the testing functions in different places, so there should a be a place where such things are clarified. And since nobody else does it, I do. But I'm digressing a bit here... follow p6l in the next few weeks if you're curious.