This thread has come to the moderators’ attention due to several flags – and, obviously, due to subsequent meta discussion resulting from inappropriate involvement of a moderator with a conflict of interest.
Moderating this is tricky because the bulk of the initial post consists of factual information. Even so, that post did not make any actionable suggestions, propose any changes, or ask any (non-rhetorical) question. Due to the way it is framed, it is unlikely to result in a productive outcome and would only serve to build negative sentiment against HOT by reminding us of something bad they did 5 years ago.
What ultimately convinced me that this thread would not result in a constructive conversation, however, is that it was was part of a pattern of multiple threads and posts by the same user on this same subject (which, at the time, was the sole subject the user had discussed on this forum). Additionally, one of these other posts had already been found to be in violation of the Etiquette Guidelines. After considering it as part of this larger posting campaign, rather than viewing it in isolation, I’ve come to the decision to close this thread.
However, I want to be clear that this should not be understood as a precedent against critical discussion of actions by HOT or other organizations from the OSM ecosystem; merely against the way this particular discussion was initiated and framed. It must be possible to have these important conversations on this forum, but I believe there are better ways to do it.