I'm going to lead with the important part and then wax poetic for a bit. Since we're ultimately a community of authors, if you keep reading you'll have to indulge me a couple of paragraphs after the headline.
I am resigning from wiki staff in totality. I've already discussed anything that need transferring with my fellow admins and thankfully that list was very short. Naepic has been running Licensing effectively and without any need for intense oversight for several months now, so I think the disruption to routine will be minimal at this time.
Back in February before a certain incident occurred, I was preparing to go to Florida with my family for a week on the beach. I had fully intended to go on this vacation, reflect, return, and then immediately resign - but dealing with two simultaneous crisis at that time (one here, one personal) made it clear to me that I could still provide beneficial experience and leadership to the wiki that really made a difference. After that feeling cooled back down, however, the calculus I was running before still came out to the same total.
I am not a serious person but I take my work, my passions, and some of my hobbies pretty seriously. The difference between who I am in private chats and other servers vs who I am with a staff hat on is genuinely night and day. Unfortunately for that dichotomy and unfortunately for me, the site I was enjoying writing fun, absurdist things for seemed to have a great opportunity for me to contribute to as staff. Make no mistake, I am genuinely proud of the vast majority of thing we have accomplished as part of teams I've been on. We've done a lot of good for authors, for the hobby, for the community. But those same things that drive me to contribute to it have eroded my existing connections to the people that make it up, and stopped me from forging new ones.
I am isolated, and I am lonely in my hobby.
Do you know that in 5 years, aside from two contests where such a thing was mandatory, I've never even been *approached* about collaborating with someone on an article? In spite of having written more than 50 pieces myself over 5 years?
I have written some things I am extremely proud of. The comments on my 001 proposal and even seeing it show up in some YouTube videos has been among the most dopamine-generating moments of my entire life. Make no mistake, I understand that this isolation is *largely my own fault*. I act in a detached and often times "too professional" sort of way that can just be not-awesome to imagine hanging around with during your free time. Makes me appear unapproachable, like a brooding manager at the end of the hall. That's not me, but that's who I choose to be "at work" on the wiki. And these are the consequences of it. You can't see me "outside of work", since we exist 24/7 in the discord and wiki world. There is no out of office. There is no off switch for the way I am wired to behave while staff.
So to those of you I've met along the way, it's been my pleasure to be your resident admin pragmatist and work with a great many of you on a great many things. I've enjoyed our disagreements as well as our collaborations, and hope you will continue to guide this community while always, above all else, keeping in mind that we exist to serve the people that write here.
I am hopeful that my disconnection from staff will see to some renewed energy to put back into writing, but, in the event it does not…I sincerely thank the readers, editors, voters, detractors, and supporters I've engaged with along the way. It's been really cool.
I will remain available in spaces you can reach, but advise you to poke my discord first. I am very much looking forward to not having ten thousand applications in my wiki inbox.
ManyMeats