strat has bugs that aren't always fixed in a timely way, and strat is dying. News at 11.
Hospitaller decided to cede the castle when they didn't have to. They did this because they felt that using the bugs to win a hollow victory wasn't worth it. They could have easily said "fuck it", and continued the cycle of bug abusing.
I think that's worth repeating, they (eventually) chose to give the castle up over winning. Afterall, what's the point of winning something when no one cares or plays?
People are bitching about how long it took to come to a decision; please realize that this was a shit situation that was one big gray area where no admin decision would have been received happily from everyone. Think of the end result as a compromise, both sides didn't get everything they wanted, but the end result of the battle was changed. Also blaming Canary is dumb, not only was he not the only one discussion things, admins shouldn't be put in a situation where massive strat bugs force them to choose who wins and who loses in the first place.
The light at the end of the tunnel is maybe both sides can try to stop abusing things like this for the sake of winning. Obviously we all want to win, but this is a situation where you have to ask yourself "at what cost?". We're the c-rpg community, and we aren't that big. If you are a dirty snake who abuses known bugs to win, you're going to find yourself short on playmates.