Whether or not people will abstain on voting on an app isn't something you have control over-- voters shouldn't be vilified for abstentions. I believe the people who would not be voting on it if the discussion had not happened would still be abstaining regardless. (note that I'm not using the word 'wank' because for the most part, people have been pretty civil or tried to be in resolving problems with upset parties; I'll also note that the player who was close to tears said that the reason was because of Gandhi getting banned, though I think that was rescinded?) It isn't as though a hivemind has taken over and we're all following one single person who says we should be abstaining on all future apps from this canon; that's just not happening. Multiple people have come to the same opinion in regards to the canon all on their own, and I don't think it's fair to demand that they be responsible for an entire community's reaction/gif posts/tweets/what have you. We've had controversial canons apped into CFUD before, but it's been pretty clear that it's not okay to vote 'out' on a canon just because you don't like the canon in question. If you have a problem with it, you abstain-- and that's okay, and people shouldn't be criticized for that decision.

Also, it's entirely possible that the mods are still discussing this and trying to come up with a polite way to approach it. There are six of them, after all, and I don't have so little faith in the modteam to think there hasn't been communication, even if it hasn't all been public or as timely as we'd like. We will probably still be feeling tense about this until someone broaches the subject, but until then it just isn't fair to be blaming either the people who began the discussion, the players in question, or the mods for what could potentially happen in regards to apping/voting.