The event that has been dubbed [panel-gate](https://meta.serverfault.com/questions/8054/abrupt-change-in-moderation-staff) by members of the community has sparked emotion and even outrage from the community with regard to the actions of some, and how the events unfolded.

The facts
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* The head community manager noticed a moderator account closing questions with a "canned" comment
* The community manager thought the closings were too close together and as a result, suspicious.
* Upon further investigation the community manager noticed some questions that didn't exactly fit the canned close reason, and became even more suspicious.
* The community manager searched meta but found no recent mention of a closing campaign, and only a single mention of what was happening in an almost defunct chat room.
* To protect the integrity of the site, the community manager suspended the moderator's mod status, pending an investigation into the event and communication with the moderator.

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* The moderator was closing questions that are explicitly off topic.
* The moderator believed he was acting on the consensus of the community.
* There are questions on meta that confirm the moderator's beliefs.
* A portion of the community has also confirmed these beliefs.
* The moderator has since resigned from his duties in response to this incident.

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Now that the situation has slightly died down, I wanted to create a question where the community can talk about what we should *take away* from this event. This question isn't about finger pointing or name calling, hopefully all of that is over. It *is* about what's left of the community can do better to ensure something like this doesn't happen again. We lost a very active moderator and other active high rep members over what appears to be nothing more than a communication disconnect. 

To clarify, by *community* I mean both the SF community and the community managers. Anyone who has something constructive to say has the floor.