FWIW, I think the Babel bug was waiting for several days for review from Niklas, the extension owner, who wasn't at wikimania. But the folks who ended up taking action and doing the revert we're at wikimania -- I think it's a general matter of lack of communication during wikimania, with folks distracted and assuming someone else is responsible, rather than a specific "X person is at location Y". Wikimania just disrupts normal communications and work patterns.
--scott
(To be clear, I'm not trying to pass blame, I'm just pointing out that the disruption is not as simple of who is where or whether "enough" people are at home.)