In follow-up to my earlier suggestion of hiring an attorney, in most cases just the threat of legal action causes parties to seriously reevaluate their positions, which in this case they seem to have boxed themselves into by publicly stating they would not change.
It could very well be by the way that Sarah is asserting her own power here, since she previously wrote a blog indicating that she did not like others questioning her ability to manage. In fact, her actions very much seem to be in response to a challenge to that.
So you might actually be doing the other employees there a favor, who could be afraid to speak up against her. They're an inexperienced company as a whole and are likely very afraid of litigation, including from their own staff. I believe this is why the CEO has been completely absent - he walked right into a minefield and is likely letting Sarah take the reins and consequential fallout, instead of stepping in to try to repair the rift with the community so it doesn't escalate further, as he should.
In terms of how to fund it, I'd suggest having someone start a GoFundMe or similar campaign. Just the attention from that alone might serve as enough pressure to get Stack Exchange to bend and become more flexible. It would be very easy for them to just say, "We heard you, we saw the errors in our ways, and we're going to try to work things out for the community's sake."
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In follow-up to myself...
Date: 2019-10-06 11:43 pm (UTC)It could very well be by the way that Sarah is asserting her own power here, since she previously wrote a blog indicating that she did not like others questioning her ability to manage. In fact, her actions very much seem to be in response to a challenge to that.
So you might actually be doing the other employees there a favor, who could be afraid to speak up against her. They're an inexperienced company as a whole and are likely very afraid of litigation, including from their own staff. I believe this is why the CEO has been completely absent - he walked right into a minefield and is likely letting Sarah take the reins and consequential fallout, instead of stepping in to try to repair the rift with the community so it doesn't escalate further, as he should.
In terms of how to fund it, I'd suggest having someone start a GoFundMe or similar campaign. Just the attention from that alone might serve as enough pressure to get Stack Exchange to bend and become more flexible. It would be very easy for them to just say, "We heard you, we saw the errors in our ways, and we're going to try to work things out for the community's sake."