A few more responses for the pile.
(this I was actually writing yesterday but lost in the edits)
The important conversations are the ones that concern the direction of the project. Obviously we don’t need to get into fights over, like, favorite sports teams or whatever, but there are hard conversations that we should be having - like this one.
A few good points were already brought up against this, but I’ll add another one: as soon as you remove official discussion spaces, what happens is that people go to unofficial spaces instead, and those spaces become the community, and the policies in those communities become the community policy. This in most cases just leads to an even bigger mess, as multiple subcommunities with conflicting ideals clash publicly.
Just to respond to this entire post, really - the reason moderation decisions are kept private are to protect the safety of those involved. People reporting issues should not have to drag themselves through the court of public opinion, possibly for months on end.
Once again, my DMs are open, if you have specific questions. However, I’d still prefer not to share any identifying details, which understandably makes things hard, but the last thing I want is to put the people affected in the line of fire even more.
Also, I’d like to remind everyone of the initial policy declared by the SC towards the moderation team, specifically the last two points - this was what we initially agreed on, and it has never changed.