Those details don't really matter, because the point it's not realistic to expect a company with so many projects and users like GitHub to be making those kind of individual calls.

You don't really own part or any of the project if you don't have administrative access to it. It's that simple. If you feel like you should, then you need to arrange that with the person who currently does.

These are project organizational issues that GitHub shouldn't be expected to waste their time on.