Sumana Harihareswara wrote:
How about a little email thread for us to say nice things about each other? Rules: be kind, thank someone, and say why you're thanking them.
I know a few people have thanked you for starting this thread, but I actually came to appreciate you and your work much more in your absence earlier this month. It wasn't as obvious how much you do (particularly in bug wrangling and poking and prodding) until you were taking a well-deserved vacation. "The reward for a job well done is another three jobs," as David Gerard says. Your ever-growing portfolio shows the truth in this. :-)
I'm also very grateful for the patience of the wikitech-l community (and more broadly the MediaWiki development community), who choose to put up with me and other Wikimedians. It's no secret that Wikimedians are a pain in the ass to work with: they're quite often hyper-critical, needy, insolent, and stubborn. They complain loudly and congratulate softly. And this of course doesn't get into the problems they cause by speaking far too many languages and wanting MediaWiki to do everything under the sun. ;-) But the developers take it all in stride and they do their best to make the user experience (software, hardware, and everything in between) better each iteration, all while dealing with a sometimes painfully unsociable lot of people. For that, I'm have a deep amount of appreciation and respect.
MZMcBride