Dear DaB,
as you've mentioned yourself in your mail, it was only last weekend that you came to Berlin for WMDE's general assembly. I hope you don't mind me adding that you stayed through Sunday in order to join our bar camp / open sunday. Well, and before that you and your fellow volunteer account auditors visited the WMDE office in order to prepare for the report to the general assembly, as you have done for so many years now.
It is with all these examples of volunteer enthusiasm in mind that I have read and re-read your fade-out notice. I can't help but notice that you'll probably have carried all your concerns not only through recent months but also through last weekend. And still, on all of the above mentioned occasions you've shown the same openness, scrutiny and dedication that many people surely have come to know you for.
I'd like to thank you for those years of continuous support you've been devoting to the Toolserver. The Toolserver would not have been the success it was and still is without your dedication and your know-how.
I think you've made yourself crystal-clear about your feelings and that's all the more reason for me to say how truly regretful it is when different expectations cannot be turned into acceptable solutions for all parties involved.
Your insights will be invaluable to amette and nosy, and I am grateful for your offer to reach out to them. This feels in line with the general attitude you've been displaying to everyone working with you over the past couple of years. Hopefully, you already know how much appreciated your passion, your time and your efforts have been and will be in the future. If you don't, let me please emphasize whole-heartedly that they are most appreciated. You are.
Sincerely,
Hello guys,
I just extended my personal account until 5. January of 2014 – it is the last
time I do this. At this day I will also remove my access as root of the
Toolserver. Beginning of 1. July I will start my fade out, doing less and less
work for the Toolserver until I am not longer visible. I announce that this
early because I think it is fair for you to know that will happen and I like
not just to vanish like some roots before.
There are 4 main factors why I decided to not continue my work until the end
of the Toolserver in December 2014.
Reason 1 is that the Toolserver now has a second paid root and 6 months will
be enough to teach amette and nosy what I know about the Toolserver.
Reason 2 is that there was no real investment in the Toolserver in the first 6
months of 2013 and I very doubt that there will ever be any in the second half
or beyond.
Reason 3 is that I learned during the last weekend that the support of the
Toolserver in the board of WMDE reached its minimum.
One board-member announced publicly during the general meeting of WMDE that it
is good that there is a timetable for the Toolserver now – I know only 1
timetable for the Toolserver and that’s Silke’s <s>plan of destruction</s>
roadmap for migration [1].
Another board-member told me during a chatting in the halls that ToolLabs (or
the move to) is "klasse" (~great).
It is impossible to improve the Toolserver against the CEO *and* the board of
WMDE.
Reason 4 are you, the tool-authors.
The participation in my survey [2] was pitiful low and the majority of these
few who voted, voted to leave the Toolserver as soon as possible or this year
– a trend that was already visible on the mailing-list before. So I conclude
that the most of you don’t care and whose care will leave this year.
While I asked for documentation (or at least correction) in the toolserver-
wikis for years, nearly nothing ever happened. But now that ToolLabs is on the
horizon you write documentation for THAT – freely.
And it is really a joke to compare the empty new database-servers of ToolLabs
with our old and heavy loaded servers for performance. Let’s see how fast they
are if 10 slow queries, which had run for hours, run in parallel.
With very few exceptions none of you helped to protect the Toolserver against
ToolLabs; all you were interested in was that ToolLabs provides the same
environment so your tools can continue to run there. When I read such phrases
like "we have to stabilize the Toolserver until Labs is ready" or now "we need
the Toolserver for redirects to ToolLabs" I could vomit!
I promised in November 2012 that I will stay for another year and I will
fulfill that promise – but not a day longer. There is no point in fighting for
something if the something has already surrendered and no support is there
(not from you, the toolusers, the board of WMDE, the CEO of WMDE or the
general meeting of WMDE).
These of you who are able to move to ToolLabs I wish luck. Let’s hope that the
WMF does not decide to "re-focus" again too soon. Let’s hope that the WMF does
not disable tools just because there are a little slow. Let’s hope that the
WMF does not restrict the database-tables even more. Let’s hope that the WMF
does not kick the volunteers out completely some days like they did with the
WMF-wiki-admins some weeks ago. And hoping is all we can do, because the WMF
is a undemocratic construct and ToolLabs is lead by paid roots, so whatever
the WMF staff decides will happen.
Maybe if one of these things happen you will remember the tiny, slow,
unstable, but free Toolserver — but it will not be there anymore.
Sincerely,
DaB.
[1] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Tool_Labs/Roadmap_en
[2] https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Labs-Moving-Survey
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Userpage: [[:w:de:User:DaB.]] — PGP: 0x2d3ee2d42b255885
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