Someone commented on MeatBall:MrBungle1 that they thought the final decision was wrong.
I've never been on LambdaMoo, so I'm not that clear about what people's expectations were, but it sounds like the tradition was that the wizards would do what they felt like doing to keep order, and this "new direction" document was more of an experiment than a promise on behalf of all the wizards. So, the experiment was modified, and the wizards did what they felt like (making voting and a court system). I'm not sure I'd think that was fair if that were a RealLife community with expectations of communal power (such as many wikis), but this is a game, and expectations were that the wizards did stuff. So, why not?
Then again, I'm not a MOOer, and I find it hard to invest this stuff with a sense of importance. It's a game; a virtual rape in a game doesn't bother me; and neither does ejecting a player without due process (although I'd be a little miffed if the player was ejected from a game in direction contradiction to expectations, such as if I was playing online games of Risk and the sysadmin decided to start booting me out mid-game of spite).
Virtual rape goes (completely, utterly) against the CommunityExpectations of an online RPG. In a sense it doesn't matter whether it is objectively important - such a complete violation of the rules of a community demands punishment, because the community need to re-establish that expectation. The toading is purely symbolic - but the symbolism is important. In fact, MrBungle could be used as on a NarrativeLevel to explain correct MOO etiquette to newcomers.
The wizards followed (in practice, if not in theory) a similar ConsensusPlusJudgement? pattern to EnglishWikipedia's approach to some issues (particularly in 2002/3). This is a useful intermediate step in DevolvePower, and what a BenevolentDictator should be doing, most days.
Fussnoten:
1. ok, it was on a different page, but I’m trying to refer to the discussion on meatball here