Thankyou David for this genuine apology. It was sorely needed.

And thankyou to all the diamond mods and other users who took a principled and caring stand, without which this apology would not have appeared.

Third, we hurt the moderators and members of our communities. Community moderation is the backbone of Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, and our moderators are a vital part of us creating a more welcoming and inclusive place.

This acknowledgement is, appropriately, listed third in order of importance, but I'm glad it's been said. Our diamond mods certainly do the heavy lifting, but I'm one of the thousands of regular non-diamond users who contribute our time and effort in helping keep SE running. Flagging spam, abuse and CoC violations; voting on review queues to close bad questions, delete non-answers, approve suggested edits, and reopen worthwhile questions; editing posts to improve them; adding comments to provide useful guidance (and a positive welcoming message) to new contributors; putting thought into site management and improvement, via site meta; and doing many more generally unnoticed little things that keep our favourite sites humming along.

I have been "on strike" since last week, withdrawing from all the community moderation tasks I would normally do on the four sites I'm most active on. I'm on strike both as the best statement of support that I could give to Monica and to the mods who had resigned or taken other action, and as a response to my own feelings of discouragement and vicarious abuse as a SE volunteer.

Your apology is a significant first step towards rebuilding my trust, but I need more than words: owning your mistakes is necessary but not sufficient. There are important actions you need to take, some of which I expect to happen urgently - your direct communication with Monica being one.

I'm hoping these actions over the next few weeks will be enough to demonstrate to people like me that there really is a genuine intention by the company to improve its game and to treat our community with real respect. I am, cautiously, looking forward to ending my strike action and returning to "normal duties" in community moderation. But you need to entice me back, and if you don't do so quickly and decisively, there's a real risk that I won't come back at all.

It's important for you to know this, not because I'm a key user, but because there are dozens - perhaps hundreds - of other users like me: passionate about our SE community, deeply disillusioned with the company, and on the verge of walking away.

Going forward, we will be working with the community to overhaul how we gather input and feedback from our moderators and members of the community to make sure that your voices are heard and involved in the process, not just informed after decisions have been made.

A key test will be the new CoC. Will you involve us ordinary users in reviewing the draft, or will you simply inform us of the new rules we must abide by "after decisions have been made"?

I desperately hope we can take you at your word.

Thankyou David for this genuine apology. It was sorely needed.
[Update 23 Oct 2019: This "apology" turns out to be a well-worded PR stunt: there's no admission of error in removing Monica, the second blockquote below has not been honoured, and Monica has not been reinstated. I withdraw my praise, and I've downvoted your post.]

And thankyou to all the diamond mods and other users who took a principled and caring stand, without which this apology would not have appeared.

Third, we hurt the moderators and members of our communities. Community moderation is the backbone of Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, and our moderators are a vital part of us creating a more welcoming and inclusive place.

This acknowledgement is, appropriately, listed third in order of importance, but I'm glad it's been said. Our diamond mods certainly do the heavy lifting, but I'm one of the thousands of regular non-diamond users who contribute our time and effort in helping keep SE running. Flagging spam, abuse and CoC violations; voting on review queues to close bad questions, delete non-answers, approve suggested edits, and reopen worthwhile questions; editing posts to improve them; adding comments to provide useful guidance (and a positive welcoming message) to new contributors; putting thought into site management and improvement, via site meta; and doing many more generally unnoticed little things that keep our favourite sites humming along.

I have been "on strike" since last week, withdrawing from all the community moderation tasks I would normally do on the four sites I'm most active on. I'm on strike both as the best statement of support that I could give to Monica and to the mods who had resigned or taken other action, and as a response to my own feelings of discouragement and vicarious abuse as a SE volunteer.

Your apology is a significant first step towards rebuilding my trust, but I need more than words: owning your mistakes is necessary but not sufficient. There are important actions you need to take, some of which I expect to happen urgently - your direct communication with Monica being one.

I'm hoping these actions over the next few weeks will be enough to demonstrate to people like me that there really is a genuine intention by the company to improve its game and to treat our community with real respect. I am, cautiously, looking forward to ending my strike action and returning to "normal duties" in community moderation. But you need to entice me back, and if you don't do so quickly and decisively, there's a real risk that I won't come back at all.

It's important for you to know this, not because I'm a key user, but because there are dozens - perhaps hundreds - of other users like me: passionate about our SE community, deeply disillusioned with the company, and on the verge of walking away.

Going forward, we will be working with the community to overhaul how we gather input and feedback from our moderators and members of the community to make sure that your voices are heard and involved in the process, not just informed after decisions have been made.

A key test will be the new CoC. Will you involve us ordinary users in reviewing the draft, or will you simply inform us of the new rules we must abide by "after decisions have been made"?

I desperately hope we can take you at your word. [Update 23 Oct 2019: it turns out that David's words were as empty as the company's ethics. The new CoC was imposed on us with no opportunity for broad community input, the farcical implementation has further alienated the SO/SE community and, most ironic and concerning of all, the process has created even greater difficulties for many of the diverse users the new CoC was supposed to protect.]