Do Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky still a say in how SE is run? If yes, now would be the perfect time to step in and moderate the discussion.
Jeff Atwood commented under the resignation: "It is definitely hard to see long time deep contributors go, but this is sometimes the way of life. I don't begrudge anyone after ~10 years wanting a change."
https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/389906/moderator-re...
Hardly seems helpful to me in calming down the heated minds.