Another Stack Overflow Moderator Resigns in Protest
meta.stackoverflow.com
meta.stackoverflow.com
This resignation coupled with the overwhelming sentiment from the tech community that the recent actions of this company are "bad" makes this newsworthy, at least in my opinion.
From a biz perspective, SO will get someone else to volunteer, or pay someone to do the same job. Posting on the site saying your resigning is childish. Its a temper tantrum.
>They were a volunteer and are stopping/resigning in protest of the actions of the company they provided free labor for.
That was their decision to provide free labor, they did not have to. That was their mistake and now they are made because of how much free time they provided. The volunteer's have no say in anything the business does or their business decisions. If they were employee's that is another story.
These people can cry all day, and keep posting on the site they are "protesting" against, but it will do nothing. I have no symphony for people that provided free labor, and now crying because they were removed. I dont care about the reasons, because its pointless.
Without taking sides...
When an organization relies on goodwill and volunteers in order to function properly and then squanders said goodwill that seems to me to be a problem and potentially news worthy.
In the end though I suppose you are right. SO is as unlikely to backtrack on this course of action as Blizzard is on it's own PR issue.
I guess a different way to look at this might be to ask if protests are only newsworthy if they are likely to change behavior.