It is my understanding that RobLa's departure was not entirely unexpected,
so there were plans in place. He will be missed! But Brion and I are
taking up some of his responsibilities for the dev summit, and I understand
there are other folks stepping up to fill other gaps. I think those of us
who know him well are trying to respect his desire for a bit of a
wikibreak. If you see some task Rob's been maintaining which seems like it
could use attention, I think the best thing to do right now is to pitch in
and help out for a while. I strongly suspect he'll be back after a bit,
and I'm hoping he'll find his gardens as well tended as we are able.
--scott
On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 6:48 PM, Florian Schmidt <
florian.schmidt.welzow(a)t-online.de> wrote:
Thanks Brian!
That's exactly what this e-mail was for. I was also wondering, what
happened to him personally, however, it's more than ok and his own decision
to not say anything about it. However, like Brian wrote already, Robla had
(as far as I know) a very good standing in the community and it would be a
good communication about what happened (in any way), instead of "just"
disabling his account.
However, this e-mail is (and wasn't at any time) to make anyone sad about
anything, and it makes me sad, that the thread resulted in this feeling for
some people :(
Best,
Florian
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Wikitech-l [mailto:wikitech-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] Im
Auftrag von bawolff
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 3. November 2016 21:07
An: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Betreff: Re: [Wikitech-l] What happened to RobLa?
Robla obviously deserves his privacy if he wants that. However I think its
rather natural for people to wonder "What happened" when an employee who is
as much in the public spotlight as robla is, suddenly and unexpectedly
leaves.
Obviously just because it is "natural" doesn't mean we deserve answers. I
think Wes's short email was sufficient in terms of answering the what
happened question. However, simply putting a global lock on someone's
account (Which was the state of things before this
thread) is not good communication and bound to raise eyebrows.
There is also the more pragmatic question of how Robla's responsibilities
will be transferred. Robla did a lot for MediaWiki, and transitions are
scary. Transitions with no information are even scarier. How will Robla's
initiatives be carried forward? Is the architecture committee mature enough
to continue on purely its own steam without Robla pushing it forward? How
does this affect the "vision" for MediaWiki (emphasis on MediaWiki, not
Wikimedia)? Will development of Wikimedia's technology further devolve into
independent fiefdoms without Robla balancing the architecture needs of
different groups? All these concerns are in my mind, and I think the minds
of others. It would be nice to get some reassurance about what is going to
happen next.
--
Brian
[To be 100% clear, posting with my volunteer hat firmly on]
On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 4:17 PM, Jonathan Morgan <jmorgan(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
+1 Petr. This thread makes me sad and
uncomfortable.
- J
On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 9:03 AM, Toby Negrin <tnegrin(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> Thank you Petr. Well said!
> -Toby
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 2:39 AM, Petr Bena <benapetr(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I don't like to sound like a bad guy, but I really find it quite
> > inappropriate to discuss this sort of stuff on a public mailing list.
> > This really is a personal matter. If he didn't post any dramatical
> > announcement perhaps he wanted to "leave quietly"?
> >
> > You know, people sometimes do this sort of stuff for very personal
> > reasons, they just don't want to discuss with public, and who
> > knows, maybe he would return back one day? He wouldn't be first to
> > do that :) Or maybe he is going to stick around as a volunteer?
> > Let's be optimistic!
> >
> > If you really want to know the details, you can always ask him
> > directly. Fortunately he is not dead, so no need to mourn him. As
> > an employee of WMF, he was always very friendly and extremely
> > useful, so indeed I /do/ hope he will stay with us, at least as a
volunteer.
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 10:16 AM, Tilman Bayer
> > <tbayer(a)wikimedia.org>
> > wrote:
> > > On Tue, Nov 1, 2016 at 3:54 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <
> nemowiki(a)gmail.com
> > >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> As a reminder on goodbyes, WMF HR used to announce everyone's
> > >> last day
> > at
> > >>
https://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork (can't take more than a couple
> > >> minutes); then the announcements became monthly, then quarterly;
> > >> then
> we
> > >> lost this courtesy as well
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik
> > >> i/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_reports#Staff .
> > >
> > >
> > > As already noted higher up on that talk page, that's a
misconception.
> Timely updates now happen on the WMF wiki
instead, where RobLa's
departure
> had already been recorded by HR before you sent this email:
>
https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Staff_
> and_
> contractors&action=history
>
>
>>
>
>
> --
> Tilman Bayer
> Senior Analyst
> Wikimedia Foundation
> IRC (Freenode): HaeB
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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Jonathan T. Morgan
Senior Design Researcher
Wikimedia Foundation
User:Jmorgan (WMF)
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)>
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