User:SchuminWeb
It's hard to say goodbye to a community that I have been a part of for seven years. During my time as a contributor to Wikipedia, I have grown tremendously as a writer, and have added in many ways, large and small, to countless numbers of articles, and have participated in countless numbers of discussions. However, I have come to realize within the past year that I have reached both the limits of what I can accomplish within the Wikipedia community, and also the limits of my patience in interacting with other members of the Wikipedia community. Thus I feel that it is time for me to move on.
While I still believe in Wikipedia's mission to amass the sum of all human knowledge, I fear that the project may fail because the community will, over time, destroy itself due to what I perceive as constant infighting, the holding of long-term grudges by many users, and general rudeness and incivility on the part of many, which has an alienating effect on other users, both new and seasoned. As an administrator, I received more abuse than I would ever wish on anyone that is doing volunteer work, and this often extended beyond Wikipedia to my website, my Facebook, my Twitter, and my personal email, despite my best efforts to direct all Wikipedia-related inquiries back to Wikipedia. Because of this, I was never really able to escape from Wikipedia, even when using it for research, and it took a toll on me, turning what might otherwise have been an enjoyable activity into a chore, causing me to dread seeing the orange "You have new messages" bar come up, because it inevitably meant having to listen to more whining.
I soon found it increasingly difficult for me to justify to myself why I was still doing volunteer work for a project that I no longer found enjoyable. When I logged out of Wikipedia by choice and left it logged out, I soon came to realize that by not participating in Wikipedia, my stress levels went down, and I generally found myself to be much happier.
I believe that my best days are still ahead of me, but now it is time for me to forge my own path, endeavoring in new works and projects separate from those of the Wikipedia community. I wish all of you the best in your future endeavors, and perhaps our paths will cross again some day. SchuminWeb (Talk) 06:49, 20 December 2012 (UTC)