The thing about a train wreck is that it usually ends. It's like the train wrecked and then they brought in a big claw to pick it up and drop it over and over. The train was full of horses and no one knows if they're alive or dead, so they just keep kicking them. - Scott Hannen, 2019-11-10

Yup, that's about right. Stack Overflow Inc. has blown a simple misunderstanding (that's the most charitable interpretation I have) into full-blown personal attacks and libel in violation of their own code of conduct, causing a bunch of power users to leave, then doubled down on the attacks instead of retracting and apologizing, and throughout has refused to so much as discuss a resolution, so now we're at the lawyer stage.

Meanwhile, they've been refusing to answer questions about the probably-illegal license change they made two months ago, and somebody else finally decided to seek legal counsel about that. Would that have happened now without the other profound failures, or would there have been more discussion and collaboration first? Hard to know. And somebody else brought up New York labor law, which Stack Overflow might or might not be in violation of; I wonder when that will escalate.

It would have been hard for Stack Overflow to mess this up more badly if they'd tried. No employees have (publicly) left yet, but given how top management is treating the community team, I won't be surprised if that happens.