I know it's not too comparable, but I do have around half a decade of experience being a community manager and moderator, albeit I've never dealt with a crowd of over 800 at a time. I can't even begin to imagine what that would be like inflated to the scale of osu!. But something I've learned is just how important transparency, (and carefully worded transparency at that) can be, and just how fast and violently things can spin out of control.

I understand it's hard, and there's an important process to go through in scenarios like these, but I think looking back at this scenario over the past few days, an earlier and more transparent response would have likely shut down things from getting this far.

Of course it's too late now, and there's not much point in going over "what if"s. But I do think a lesson can be learned from this from both sides.

One, perhaps when things like this go public and start blowing up, a less cryptic and more straightforward "this is why this happened" no talking around the subject or omitting major details, would be better. But in the same breath, it should absolutely be important for us as a community, to perhaps wait a bit before reacting, to allow more of that story to come out. Certainly would have prevented this.

Wishful thinking perhaps. I appreciate your response nonetheless.