On Friday, September 12, 2014, Sumana Harihareswara <sumanah(a)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.
--
Quim Gil
Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil