There isare a number of things the company could do thatthat in my view would signal that it is actually willing to put its money where its mouth is:
Offer to unilaterally and unconditionally free Monica Cellio from whatever non-disclosure agreement is in her settlement, if this is something she wants to revisit. Right now, it is looking like she is being pressured to shut up by an authoritarian government threatening her loved ones or something. It's a terrible look, and as far as I'm concerned, I have no interest in contributing anything to the place, and would not shed a tear if it crashed and burned tomorrow, as long as this is not fixed. (If Monica then chooses to continue to not talk about how the legal action was resolved, that is perfectly fine and totally her right, of course. But then we will know it is because she wants to put things behind her, not because she is being gagged on pain of being driven into ruination.) Failing this... find some other damn way to make this truly right. Because as it stands, it doesn't really feel like it is.
Offer to unconditionally, retroactively increase severance pay for Shog9 and Robert, and possibly the other employees that were let go, to four weeks' wages and benefits per year worked, or whatever else is reasonable, and acknowledge the departure and momentous influence the two CMs two had on what Stack Overflow is today, in an official blog post. I know our preoccupation with this may look silly to you; parting ways with people when new leadership comes in is par for the course for any high-powered company, and obviously any business has the legal right to pay just as little severance to former employees as it absolutely has to. However, Stack Overflow has an unorthodox, symbiotic relationship with its community. A proper send-off both financially and in honouring their impact is important to that community because being a company that does right by its employees is part of the unwritten contract that motivates the often highly-paid professionals that keep the site running to donate meaningful slices of their time to a for-profit enterprise. That the company didn't look out for its employees and the volunteer community that helped build the place had to step in to help out is a disgrace, and it can't be good for the morale of the remaining employees, either.
In regards to not making the payment conditional on a non-disclosure agreement - this may look like a huge concession, but might actually work out to the company's advantage. The dirty laundry now being aired in public on Twitter (very responsibly, politely, and professionally, I might add) by some ex-employees who apparently didn't sign such a document may look ugly at first - but I am certain it will actually turn out to be a net long term benefit for company-community relations. Because everyone involved with the site sensed all this internal dysfunction all along. We just couldn't put it into words because they lacked information. Now it can be talked about... both inside and outside the company... and fixed. Well, maybe.
Give consideration to the idea of spinning off the public side of Q&A into a nonprofit. I know this probably looks insane to you. But it could (to stick with the Greek mythology) be the strike cutting through the Gordian knot: separating the concerns of the for-profit company and those of building a library of knowledge that is free and open to the world forever. Opening up the possibility of the public Q&A part becoming partly funded by donations or the communities themselves... while still serving the for-profit company's goals in a multitude of ways, as a prestigious flagship, funneling customers, showcasing the Q&A product, and many others.
Whatever you do, please have all community-facing employees continue this new, awesome, largely bullshit-free style of communication - even when having to announce stuff that people won't like. The Stack Overflow community is very intelligent, and can smell dishonesty from a mile away. Continuing the course of the last few months - of radio silence and insincere communication - would be a sure-fire way to destroy what little trust there is left.
