I just got an email from Github and thought it is pretty much a excellent PR template for the situation SE has ended up in. Their response:

• is timely (reversal - 1 day, response - 7 days),
• the tone is much more respectful,
• the actions (particularly "we reversed course the next day" and encouraging collaboration) far more clearly describe both the thinking, reflection, and new plan to include more people in the decision, and
• communicates directly with the user base, rather than waiting for them to find our/back down/disappear.

I have removed context so you can fill it in in your head. :-)

This is probably copyrighted but the email was not marked as private or confidential. Nevertheless, I have duplicated it here for educational purposes only.

Dear [platform-name] users and customers,

On [date of incident], we [describe action]. Based on considerable feedback from our customers, users, and the broader community, we reversed course the next day and removed those changes before they went into effect. Further, [company] will commit to not [negative action]. This clearly struck a nerve with our community and I apologize for this mistake.

So, what happened? In an effort to [describe intended positive outcome], we decided to [describe intended action]. Clearly, our evaluation and communication processes for rolling out a change like this were lacking and we need to improve those processes. But that’s not the main thing we did wrong.

Our main mistake was that we did not live up to our own core value of collaboration by including our users, contributors, and customers in the strategy discussion and, for that, I am truly sorry. It shouldn’t have surprised us that you have strong feelings about [proposal] and many other topics, and we should have listened first.

So, where do we go from here? The first step is a retrospective that is happening on [date] to document what went wrong. We are reaching out to customers who expressed concerns and collecting feedback from users and the wider community. We will put together a new proposal for improving the user experience and share it for feedback. We made a mistake by not collaborating, so now we will take as much time as needed to make sure we get this right. You can be part of the collaboration by [reference for forum/chat/meta-article]. If you are a customer, you may also reach out to your [company] representative if you have additional feedback.

I am glad you hold [company] to a higher standard. If we are going to be transparent and collaborative, we need to do it consistently and learn from our mistakes.

Sincerely, [name] [title] [company]

I just got an email from Gitlab and thought it is pretty much a excellent PR template for the situation SE has ended up in. Their response:

• is timely (reversal - 1 day, response - 7 days),
• the tone is much more respectful,
• the actions (particularly "we reversed course the next day" and encouraging collaboration) far more clearly describe both the thinking, reflection, and new plan to include more people in the decision, and
• communicates directly with the user base, rather than waiting for them to find our/back down/disappear.

I have removed context so you can fill it in in your head. :-)

This is probably copyrighted but the email was not marked as private or confidential. Nevertheless, I have duplicated it here for educational purposes only.

Dear [platform-name] users and customers,

On [date of incident], we [describe action]. Based on considerable feedback from our customers, users, and the broader community, we reversed course the next day and removed those changes before they went into effect. Further, [company] will commit to not [negative action]. This clearly struck a nerve with our community and I apologize for this mistake.

So, what happened? In an effort to [describe intended positive outcome], we decided to [describe intended action]. Clearly, our evaluation and communication processes for rolling out a change like this were lacking and we need to improve those processes. But that’s not the main thing we did wrong.

Our main mistake was that we did not live up to our own core value of collaboration by including our users, contributors, and customers in the strategy discussion and, for that, I am truly sorry. It shouldn’t have surprised us that you have strong feelings about [proposal] and many other topics, and we should have listened first.

So, where do we go from here? The first step is a retrospective that is happening on [date] to document what went wrong. We are reaching out to customers who expressed concerns and collecting feedback from users and the wider community. We will put together a new proposal for improving the user experience and share it for feedback. We made a mistake by not collaborating, so now we will take as much time as needed to make sure we get this right. You can be part of the collaboration by [reference for forum/chat/meta-article]. If you are a customer, you may also reach out to your [company] representative if you have additional feedback.

I am glad you hold [company] to a higher standard. If we are going to be transparent and collaborative, we need to do it consistently and learn from our mistakes.

Sincerely, [name] [title] [company]