I don’t see it that way, or where you’re getting that detail from.
Those flavors are specifically mentioned as items made it into the Notes have items that were actually discussed for inclusion and remembering. I suspect Edubuntu was mentioned (Amy may have been there; alas I can’t recall who I saw in the meeting I attended as it was awhile ago now) even if Edubuntu was only mentioned briefly, and I do recall Xubuntu was specifically covered (passing on the apology that Sean being key in that). To me apologies in advance qualify as participation, even if they don’t make it into the notes (they’re notes & not minutes for a reason!)
What I just said may not impact your point (being specific to Ubuntu MATE), but many flavors were talked about including Ubuntu MATE (I mentioned that here on this site), alas without Ubuntu MATE representation, it was of more generic nature as all flavors continue to work towards 26.04 (which was the purpose of the part of the meeting I’m referring to).
The beta release was a mandatory release for all flavors, Ubuntu MATE did not achieve that for 25.10 and missed out. Thus the final release of Ubuntu MATE 25.10 is now no longer certain, though its still possible for that to occur. The lack of an official 25.10 release may also impact the next official LTS (26.04) release; but I’d have to check requirements on that (those requirements are being revised now in fact, and still in review), but I’m only an observer in those processes.