Well, I wouldn't expect anyone to object, and maybe "permission" is too big a word, anyway (I don't think I used it, though, did I?) - but I think in such a case it's nicer to tell people before you do it - just something like: "I thought I'd unsticky your thread if you don't mind". Not sure whether you'd call that asking permission or not - I think it's just polite, and I think in most cases there'll be no hurry in cleaning up, so there's no problem to wait a day for a reply.
If the person does mind, I agree we should respect it if they have a good reason.
Hmmmh - I stickied the thread before asking - just posted in the thread saying "hope it's ok". If Pips had said it wasn't ok, I'd have unstickied it again.
I guess I think that doing positive things (sticky kind of heightens the status of the thread, doesn't it?) and doing negative things (taking that status away) ask for a different approach.
I couldn't really tell without looking it up what we said admins can do independently in order to "clean up" - I just know that I'd rather err on the side of caution, and I myself would react pretty strongly if I found, for example, my thread moved to a more appropriate forum and no one told me even afterwards.
I think informing people is one of the main pillars of this board - it might not be what we voted on for admin powers, but I remember campaigning for "only with the poster's approval" with respect to doing most things, so I guess that's still my personal approach.
I think this is because my reason for limiting admin power here is not only to protect the board from corrupt or power-hungry people (a pretty unlikely case anyway, IMO) but in order to remove that feeling posters have of being powerless. I just don't like the idea of admins doing stuff "at their discretion", when a simple communication would show everybody involved that the admin does not assume to have a different status.
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