The reputational damage to Less Wrong has been done. Is there really anything to be gained by flipping moderation policy?

Answering the rhetorical question because the obvious answer is not what you imply [EDIT: I notice that J Taylor has made a far superior reply already]: Yes, it limits the ongoing reputational damage.

I'm not arguing with the moderation policy. But I will argue with bad arguments. Continue to implement the policy. You have the authority to do so, Eliezer has the power on this particular website to grant that authority, most people don't care enough to argue against that behavior (I certainly don't) and you can always delete the objections with only minimal consequences. But once you choose to make arguments that appeal to reason rather than the preferences of the person with legal power then you can be wrong.

At this point, let's not taunt people with the right kind of mental pathology to be made very uncomfortable by the basilisk or meta-set of basilisks.

I've had people come to me who are traumatised by basilisk considerations. From what I can tell almost all of the trauma is attributable to Eliezer's behavior. The descriptions of the experience give clear indications (ie. direct self reports that are coherent) that a significant reason that they "take the basilisk seriously" is because Eliezer considers it a sufficiently big deal that he takes such drastic and emotional action. Heck, without Eliezer's response it wouldn't even have earned that title. It'd be a trivial backwater game theory question to which there are multiple practical answers.

So please, just go back to deleting basilisk talk. That would be way less harmful than trying to persuade people with reason.