He's too young, and frankly i can think of more mature contributors who deserve it  a little bit more.

No way. He'd ban everyone. Well, at least people who don't want Austria to win in that Euro 2008 thing ;)...and me :(

Just to explain the issue a bit: There was admittedly some miss-communication among the administrators involving this issue, but it has not been resolved, and even when it is resolved that's not information you are actually entitled to. Our staffing decisions are only the business of the administrators. And no, the moderators don't know everything about our staff decisions either, and they did not lie to you.  We have administrator forums as well where those things are handled.

So feel free to continue to congratulate people, but past that I really don't want to hear anymore about it. Thanks.

Not exactly sure what the 'mystery' is - I think ioi was extremely forthright in his explanation. There was a communication breakdown, but that's where the conspiracy ends. This was an issue of workload, plain and simple. As this site continues to grow, the demands on the people responsible for monitoring and managing the different parts of our community increases as well. And we will adjust to those changes as needed.

As for the admin boards, there are levels of permissions over there and the thread that Soriku was referring to (which, he SHOULDN'T be discussing openly on these boards) was in the general section that all contributors could see. The conversations regarding moderations happen in boards that only mods and admin can see. Larger site discussions (which is where these mod-conversations have occurred the most) happen in areas that only admins can see. And if you're not sure who is 'admin', click the little 'Staff' link at the bottom of this page. 

That's that and I'll say no more on the subject.

On a different note, congratulations BengaBenga and Sqrl - let's see those moderation skills put to work!! ;)