@Kevinjohn Gallagher - I know what you mean, the sense of a wall going up and, for me, the surprise has been how needlessly tight that circle has been drawn.

With so much enthusiasm and goodwill towards WordPress, I would have imagined they could have been much more open - when you are already on a roll and people are already so willing to follow your lead, you should have to confidence to open up even more, not batten down the hatches.

Matt and Jane already have natural authority, certainly enough to weather the possible consequences of small politenesses such as consulting the UK WordCamp organizers on important rule changes before introducing them. You asked if the rules are actually online, yes, I believe they are on a specific section of the WordCamp.org site and their sudden appearance there was the first that the UK organizers knew of them. So, astonishingly, even those guys, who have been so committed and volunteered so much of their time, are outside the circle.

This past weekend, I happened to have a Skype chat with someone who is fairly connected and he was saying that, professionally, I made a huge mistake in mentioning this problem in this thread and that, now, no matter what I do, I will always be seen as an enemy of the inner circle. He said that a lot of people are upset about the way things are going but that it simply isn't worth mentioning it and getting blacklisted. I don't know if it is true, about the blacklisting, but screw that, the Internet and WordPress itself should be about freedom of expression and open debate, not nervously censoring what you say for fear that a small cabal will decide that you no longer officially exist.