The silence started even before the ban was made. Kaj asked for community input and at that point Eliezer could have simply said: "Kaj, I trust you to do what's right on the issue." That would have made Kaj's job easier. Especially given what Kaj wrote on facebook over his own emotional state, that would have been a nice thing to do.
I don't think silence means that there's a unified front. To the extend that a unified front is high value, Eliezer could have said: "Hey, I like it that Kaj has taken action on this issue."
Not counting months of silence while people whined about mass downvoting in open threads.
I like it that Kaj took action on this issue. The trouble was that there was nothing obvious for me to do that didn't require programmer actions; I didn't know how to reverse Nier's downvotes or prevent him from downvoting further. I have not been putting heavy attention into moderating LW and I don't personally know how to use the more complicated moderation tools.
I do however know how to click "Ban" when Will Newsome tests the limits of LW's tolerance for crap, and it's upvoted to 7 points and I don't trust that Newsome isn't using sockpuppets to upvote.
My stupid fanfic chapter was banned without explanation so I reposted it; somehow it was at +7 when it was deleted and I think silently deleting upvoted posts is a disservice to LessWrong. I requested that a justification be given in the comments if it were to be deleted again, so LessWrong readers could consider whether or not that justification is aligned with what they want from LessWrong. Also I would like to make clear that this fanfic is primarily a medium for explaining some ideas that people on LessWrong often ask me about; that it is also a lighthearted critique of Yudkowskyanism is secondary, and if need be I will change the premise so that the medium doesn't drown out the message. But really, I wouldn't think a lighthearted parody of a lighthearted parody would cause such offense.
The original post has been unbanned and can be found here, so I've edited this post to just be about the banning.