As an occasional contributor and regular reader I'm upset by this draconian decision that punishes everyone for the actions of one fellow or a few individuals at most.

Certainly it took longer than what would have been ideal to delete that batch of arts from that particular artist, but I don't remember that "almost all posted there" belonged to him. Even if that were the case you could have deleted only his art. There was no need to take down the whole thing just because it's been requested.