This was, imo, the most responsible way to handle the accusations. Kudos to the mods. "Believe Women" isn't just a slogan you can discard when it's inconvenient. Yeah, there were reasons to doubt the claims but that's the point of having an investigation - to determine if there is substance to the claims.

I don't get the arguments some people are making here. It would've been terrible for this community if things were not handled maturely or if from the start the mods were acting as if the accusations were false - that is what would've hurt our perception outside this community, and it would have hurt the trust of many of our users too. Now everyone knows that no one here, no matter how much power they wield, will be allowed to abuse their authority. We should consider this entire investigation as a success and wear it like a badge of pride.

There'll be people who'll deliberately lie and tarnish our reputation, but that's okay - we can counter them with facts and showing them how our mods actually dealt with the situation. And this would give comfort to the people in this community if/when they feel there are actual abuses of power and harassment.

On a final note, kudos to @Beatnik for being a champ throughout the investigation. It must've been emotionally draining to face such accusations and then to read the constant criticism of your opsec or whatever. Hopefully you'll back kicking ass soon.