Featuring announcements and discussion questions for only one day misses the entire point. No one (to within rounding error) will see them.

The whole reason we feature these things is to ensure that they are visible to the community at large. Only the most highly dedicated members of our communities visit the site *every day*. This level of dedication is, in fact, so exceptional that we recognize it with two different [badges](https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/badges): "Enthusiast" and "Fanatic". Featuring a post for only a day would mean that only this most dedicated subset of users see the announcement, effectively hiding it from everyone else.

Furthermore, these highly motivated users who visit the site every day are not who we're targeting with featured posts anyway (here I'm speaking of posts featured on per-site Metas; the global Meta may be different), since these highly invested users tend to read Meta anyway. **The reason we feature posts is to ensure that folks who *don't* visit the site and read Meta every day will still hear about and be allowed to share feedback on the topic.**

On Stack Overflow, when we have proposals to make major modifications to the tagging system (a process called ["burnination"](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/324070/what-is-the-process-for-tag-removal-burnination), which implies a cleanup and retagging effort), we feature those discussion posts in order to ensure that the tag experts out there and others with a stake in the process will be sure to see them and, if they chose, provide their input. This input is extremely valuable to us as moderators, since we are not subject-matter experts on all topics covered on our site, and we want to know if what is being proposed would cause hardship or other inconvenience to the users who are actually providing answers to questions. In effect, it gives people a chance to say "no, don't do this" and/or to propose alternatives that we had not considered. **At an absolute *minimum*, we require that these proposals be featured for 36–48 hours, not counting weekends.** If they are controversial (*i.e.*, strong consensus is not immediately obvious), then we will leave them featured even longer.

On Stack Overflow, when we announce things like the results of moderator elections, changes to site features, and so on, we typically leave them featured for 2 weeks. I don't know if this is just a custom, or if it was formally enshrined in site policy at any point, but it is definitely the custom that the Stack Overflow moderators follow.

You might argue that this duration of featuring is unnecessarily long, but I regularly see users showing up at the *end* of this two-week period posting new answers/feedback, obviously seeing it for the first time. Plenty of people don't even see it after two weeks. Not everyone is deeply committed to the site: some people just use it as a tool to get their job done. Yet, we should not assume that these people do not care about the site. Their voices still matter.

And that's Stack Overflow, without question the largest and highest-traffic site on the network. On smaller sites, visits are going to be even more sporadic.

**For a company that claims to be dedicated to [inclusivity](https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/10/10/iterating-on-inclusion/) and [community](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/335646), [the policy proposed by Juan](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/342363) seriously misses the boat.**

Juan claims that:

> We still value people posting these when they're stepping away from the team. We also value folks being able to say their goodbyes and we want to continue to feature these resignation posts.

…but this rings hollow.

By insisting upon unfeaturing [Madara Uchiha's resignation post on Stack Overflow](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/392889/i-am-resigning-as-moderator-on-stack-overflow) over the strident objections of the current moderator team, Juan has disrespected, in particular, Madara himself, but also the rest of the community who has tirelessly built, nurtured, and advocated for these communities over the past decade.

Salt is rubbed into the gushing wound by the fact that "thank you" posts for [Shog9](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/342031/thank-you-shog9) and [Robert Cartaino](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/342079/thank-you-robert-cartaino) continue to be [meta-tag:featured] here on Meta Stack Exchange. As much love as I have for both Shog and Robert, and as much as I'll miss them, I'll never be able to understand why they deserve more time in the spotlight than a long-serving, community-elected Stack Overflow moderator.

Shog and Robert aren't the only people to get special treatment, either. [A post from called2voyage, announcing their "leave of absence from moderating"](https://astronomy.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/553/im-taking-a-leave-of-absence-from-moderating) on the Astronomy Meta site has been featured for 2 full days. As has [El'endia Starman's resignation announcement](https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6815/i-am-stepping-down-as-moderator) on the Christianity Meta site.

**When the all of the evidence is considered, this is laid bare as nothing but a direct, *shameful* personal attack on Madara Uchiha** and perhaps the rest of the Stack Overflow moderator team, who were [previously told](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/387546/we-re-removing-hot-meta-posts-from-stack-overflows-sidebar-for-now-moderator) that they would have direct control over which posts were featured on their site.

As an attempt to justify this new "policy", Juan notes:

> resignation posts […] have served to host combative and hurtful words to attack Stack employees, other mods, and teammates.

It's unclear to whom his use of the word "teammates" refers, but as other answers have pointed out, "combative and hurtful … attacks" are not appropriate in response to moderator resignation announcements or anything else. If these appear, they will—and, indeed, *are*—removed by moderators. I have been quite diligently monitoring Madara's resignation post on Meta Stack Overflow, and I think that the overall reception has been abundantly positive. Consider, for example, the following excerpt from [ndugger's answer](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/392894), among the top-scoring answers:

> You have been the best moderator that I have interacted with on SO. I could always count on you to make the right decision, even when it came to kicking or muting me. You've done everything you could to hold down the fort. I have been generally impressed with how you deal with pressure, and how you decided to moderate a rowdy group of programmers.

High praise, indeed. It's difficult to see how content like this is creating a problem. Perhaps the concern is the posts that cite missteps on the part of Stack Overflow management. However, these are *not* personal attacks on any individual. One of the purposes of Meta has always been to discuss site policies, and that includes disagreement with them, as long as said disagreement is civil. I submit that it has been.

Even putting on my cynic's hat for a moment, trying to put aside any emotions that this brings up for me and think about it strictly from the perspective of financially-motivated stakeholders in the company, the desire to suppress criticism of and negative publicity for the company is an understandable instinct. Yet, a policy like the one Juan announces serves only to make the problem worse. The phenomenon is well-documented, and known as the [Streisand effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect). By trying to censor these posts, Juan's actions have created a veritable *firestorm*—including this very discussion, [this other one](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/342364/moderator-resignations-are-now-being-un-featured-early-is-this-the-only-solutio), and [several](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/392991/do-so-moderators-still-have-exclusive-access-to-the-featured-tag) [more](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/392951/why-is-in-case-you-missed-it-shog9-and-no-longer-featured) [others](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/392972/what-are-legal-consequences-of-featuring-a-question) on Meta Stack Overflow—all of which reflects far more negatively on the company than the resignation post itself.