Thank you for the work by this time, and good luck!

After reading your blog post, I must agree with this: "And I'd like to [...] exclude destructive communication from my life (yes, there's some amount of burnout on toxic people and entitlement)."

I wish that in your new environment you find a better environment to grow professionally with less attrition.Perhaps here someday we'll realize that the problem was not the software, not the money, not the organization, and not the lack of contributors, but the failure to understand in our community that humanity, wisdom and virtue have to be above everything else.

All the best in you new job, Micru

On Fri, Sep 12, 2014 at 6:09 PM, Sumana Harihareswara <sumanah@wikimedia.org

wrote:

I write this email with regret to let you know that I've decided to leave the Wikimedia Foundation after nearly four years working here, and that my last day will be 30 September.

I go into my reasoning and plans in this personal blog post: http://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2014/09/12/0

I'm grateful for what I've learned here and will take these lessons wherever I go. And I've made many friends here; thank you. I'll remain [[User:Sumanah]] in any volunteer work I do onwiki. Quim Gil will be the person to contact for any loose threads I leave behind; still, if you have questions for me, the next two weeks would be a good time to ask them.

best, Sumana Harihareswara ​was Volunteer Development Coordinator, then Engineering Community Manager, now Senior Technical Writer Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Hey Sumana,

Thanks for writing that up and the bits of helpful advice you gave me over the years.

And like Micru, I have to agree with this part:

And I'd like to [...] exclude destructive communication from my life (yes,

there's some amount of burnout on toxic people and entitlement).

This is such a tragic waste on many levels. It's very hard to make real progress towards an organizations goals and have fun in doing so, if the environment contains to much of this. Even if every single person involved is putting effort towards those goals. You are definitely not the first person to leave the WMF (in part) because of this.

Cheers

-- Jeroen De Dauw - http://www.bn2vs.com Software craftsmanship advocate Evil software architect at Wikimedia Germany ~=[,,_,,]:3

It was a privilege to have meet you at Wikimedia events and you will be missed

"And I'd like to [...] exclude destructive communication from my life (yes, there's some amount of burnout on toxic people and entitlement)."

Sad to read this, but so so understandable unfortunately.

KTC

Hi Sumana,

Sumana Harihareswara schreef op 12-9-2014 18:09:

I write this email with regret to let you know that I've decided to leave the Wikimedia Foundation after nearly four years working here, and that my last day will be 30 September.

I'm sorry to see you leave. I really liked working with you and enjoyed the constant enthusiasm and positivism you bring. I wish you all the best for you new endeavours and I hope you keep being involved as a volunteer.

Maarten

Thanks Sumana for sharing this with us and for all your work in the past years.

I have to agree with many things said and it is always sad to see someone go. Everything ends at some point and every ending also bears a new start of something else. This applies to you as it does apply to us, the Wikimedia movemenet and Foundation.

I wish you all the best for your future.

Manuel

Am 12.09.2014 18:09, schrieb Sumana Harihareswara:

I write this email with regret to let you know that I've decided to leave the Wikimedia Foundation after nearly four years working here, and that my last day will be 30 September.

On Friday, September 12, 2014, Sumana Harihareswara sumanah@wikimedia.org wrote:

I go into my reasoning and plans in this personal blog post: http://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2014/09/12/0

Sumana, more than wishing you good luck (being luck a random factor by definition) I wish you a new phase in which you reach to a point where you feel with excitement that you are giving literally the best of you.

I will not insist in the "destructive communication" aspect that others have resonated, but I would like to quote the rest of that very same sentence in your blog post:

And I'd like to try out what it's like to get better at making software,

to have more of a blank slate

and perhaps less of a public spotlight, to work face-to-face with a team

here in New York City

This looks like a very good list of ingredients for a radical change of context in your career, keeping Sumana's "assets" almost intact, just re-purposed. Especially for Foundation employees, today Wikimedia is the opposite of a blank slate or a calm and private place to work. It probably has to be this way, although sometimes I wonder whether we the community and we the Foundation shouldn't allow to ourselves more freedom to experiment simply and explicitly out of our gut feelings. Well, you tried creating such spaces through 20%, LevelUp, and other mechanisms for individuals to work on whatever they felt it was worth trying.

Anyway, back to the ingredients: I'm sure they will do good for you. Wikimedia will be always just a click away. I have learned a lot with you, and I have no doubt that I will keep learning from you as we keep working on making this community an interesting, welcoming, useful, and productive place to be.

On 9/12/14, Sumana Harihareswara sumanah@wikimedia.org wrote:

I write this email with regret to let you know that I've decided to leave the Wikimedia Foundation after nearly four years working here, and that my last day will be 30 September.

I go into my reasoning and plans in this personal blog post: http://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2014/09/12/0

I'm grateful for what I've learned here and will take these lessons wherever I go. And I've made many friends here; thank you. I'll remain [[User:Sumanah]] in any volunteer work I do onwiki. Quim Gil will be the person to contact for any loose threads I leave behind; still, if you have questions for me, the next two weeks would be a good time to ask them.

best, Sumana Harihareswara ​was Volunteer Development Coordinator, then Engineering Community Manager, now Senior Technical Writer Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

I'm saddened to hear that. I remember when your hiring announcement was posted to wikitech-l - it hardly seems like almost 4 years ago. In that time you've become so integral to the MediaWiki community, it will be hard to imagine what it will be like without you - although I'm sure that things will be in good hands with Quim.

I wish you the best of luck with whatever you have planned next and am sure you'll find the opportunities for growth, etc that you are looking for.

--bawolff

I am so sincerely sorry to see you leaving. I learned from you so many good things that I shouldn't start listing them. May I keep poking your amazing mind for links to useful blog posts on an endless variety of relevant topics? :)

Будем песню беречь, До свиданья, до новых встреч.

-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com ‪“We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬

2014-09-12 19:09 GMT+03:00 Sumana Harihareswara sumanah@wikimedia.org:

I write this email with regret to let you know that I've decided to leave the Wikimedia Foundation after nearly four years working here, and that my last day will be 30 September.

I go into my reasoning and plans in this personal blog post: http://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2014/09/12/0

I'm grateful for what I've learned here and will take these lessons wherever I go. And I've made many friends here; thank you. I'll remain [[User:Sumanah]] in any volunteer work I do onwiki. Quim Gil will be the person to contact for any loose threads I leave behind; still, if you have questions for me, the next two weeks would be a good time to ask them.

best, Sumana Harihareswara ​was Volunteer Development Coordinator, then Engineering Community Manager, now Senior Technical Writer Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

Le 12/09/2014 18:09, Sumana Harihareswara a écrit :

I write this email with regret to let you know that I've decided to leave the Wikimedia Foundation after nearly four years working here, and that my last day will be 30 September.

I go into my reasoning and plans in this personal blog post: http://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2014/09/12/0

I'm grateful for what I've learned here and will take these lessons wherever I go. And I've made many friends here; thank you. I'll remain [[User:Sumanah]] in any volunteer work I do onwiki. Quim Gil will be the person to contact for any loose threads I leave behind; still, if you have questions for me, the next two weeks would be a good time to ask them.

best, Sumana Harihareswara ​was Volunteer Development Coordinator, then Engineering Community Manager, now Senior Technical Writer Wikimedia Foundation

Hello Sumana,

I am definitely lagged out in my mail processing and I definitely sad to see you go. Although we had some disagreement, your tireless work to coordinate all the volunteers and grow our volunteer developers base has paid off very well. I dont have metric to back it up, but you definitely had a huge impact on MediaWiki!

Thank you!