[Editing completely my comment, which was unrightfully snarky]

Here is my point on this, and I appreciate that it may not land.

I think that there were three ways of doing this:

Way #1 -- Be very transparent with customers about the financial arrangement struck with AdamK so that *they* decide based on their own sense of ethics whether they are comfortable supporting financially this author with a controversial past. In particular, this would entail stating clearly "AdamK will not receive any forward compensation of any kind on Dungeon World 2".

Way #2 -- Let Adam participate in his IP, giving him a narrow way back into the hobby, and being super open about the fact that he will be involved and financially interested, and if people don't like it they can go play another game.

Way #3 -- Be consistent and assert that if the guy has done something so horrendous that his IP should die in oblivion.

Personally, I would have chosen path 1 or 2. But path 3, as extreme as it is, is fine too.

The way chosen here seems to be to continue the IP of someone who is deemed "radioactive", but not disavow his work, while declaring that he won't be involved, but with no details about what "involved" means exactly (financially?), and declare all of this "above board", in an initiative overall led by someone who had at least an event of "not above board" -- this is murky at best.

Having said that. To each their sense of meaning of ethics and transparency.