Stack Exchange Apologizes, Offers 'Possible Reinstatement' To Moderator Removed Over Pronouns Policy

In October the Register reported that 20 Stack Exchange moderators had distanced themselves from the geeky Q&A site to protest policy changes and the removal of moderator Monica Cellio "over alleged violations of as-yet unpublished Code of Conduct changes."

Cellio just posted an update to the GoFundMe page where she'd raised $25,314 for legal action -- a new announcement from Stack Overflow:
Stack Overflow and Monica Cellio have come to an agreement. We believe that Ms. Cellio was not acting with malicious intent. We believe she did not understand all of the nuances and full intent and meaning of our Code of Conduct and was confused about what actions it required and forbade.

We acknowledge our responses to her requests for clarification were not satisfactory. The verbiage in our Code of Conduct could have been more explicitly detailed about what was expected. We always valued Ms. Cellio's contributions to the community and respect her intelligence, integrity, and professional writing skills.

While our initial statement did not address her specifically, we regret that we used her name when responding to a reporter's follow-up. We regret any damage to Ms. Cellio's reputation and any other damage she may have suffered.

We have since updated some of our policies and processes to help ensure we are more careful in our public communications, and that there is a clearer process anytime a moderator's status is revoked as well as a process for reinstatement.

We respect Ms. Cellio and believe she is a good person with much to offer and contribute. We sincerely hope she remains an active member of our community. In recognition of the mistakes that led us here, we invited Ms. Cellio to apply for possible reinstatement on all six sites following our new reinstatement process. Ms. Cellio expressed concerns about the new process and has not applied."

That announcement was also published at Meta.StackExchange.com -- where it's been downvoted 886 times.

At GoFundMe, Cellio posted only that "No further donations are needed. Thank you everybody for your support!" And she plans to honor earlier pledges to donate all funds raised in excess of costs to The Trevor Project, "an organization providing crisis-intervention services to LGBTQ+ youth and related resources to everyone."