Leaving WordPress (.org or WPF, still unsure which one)

Posted

Update Oct 21: To avoid any possible ambiguity, this is not me formally requesting deactivation or deletion of my WordPress.org account.

I’ve decided that I want to prioritize my mental (and physical) health and will no longer contribute to the WordPress open source project. The constant worry about the stability of the project and never-ending influx of WordPress-related news has contributed to worsening anxiety symptoms for me and it’s no longer worth it.

The hardest thing to step away from is my work in the Incident Response Team. I’ve been fortunate to work alongside some amazing people on this team and I’ve worked on challenging, yet rewarding Code of Conduct cases. (Special thanks to Angela Jin, Kevin Cristiano, Julia Golomb, Aaron Campbell, and Katie Richards for being so great to work with through the years.) Had it not been for my involvement in this team, I would have probably left WordPress sooner to focus on side projects that are more personally meaningful.

Due to the makeup of the IRT, it’s been increasingly difficult lately to form incident teams that do not have conflicts of interest. This has placed an immense strain on the volunteer contributors of this team. Although I’ve been proud to have worked on difficult cases, the work can sometimes feel like staring into the abyss. 

My ability to focus has been degrading since returning from WordCamp US and although I have a strong desire to do this important work (IRT work) to protect community members, I cannot do it at this time.

If I’m gonna spend time worrying about something, it should be about something actually important like ending US complicity in the genocide in Gaza, the invasions of the West Bank, and the bombing of civilians in Lebanon.

The WordPress world is simultaneously large and small, so I won’t comment further on my rationale for leaving.

My WordPress(.org) profile might still show that I dedicate 5 hours per week to the Community Team, but from this point forward that will be inaccurate because I don’t want to pay an attorney hundreds of dollars an hour to determine if the new required login checkbox applies to me. It doesn’t feel worth it when that money could be doing literally anything else, including just sitting in my low-yield savings account so that I can maybe retire before I die. At some point, I’ll request that my WP.org profile (and Gravatar) get deleted so that I don’t have personal information that I’m not in control of floating around on the Internet.

This is something that makes me very sad and is a decision I’ve been contemplating for a couple of years.

I will still attend WordCamps as part of my work at Codeable.

PS: Please be kind to the Incident Response Team members! They are all very impressive contributors and have a very high degree of integrity. (I’ll miss working with you all!)

Disclaimer: WordPress is a trademark that is not and has never been owned by me. I have no personal affiliation with the trademark or the foundation. No one on Earth has endorsed me or this message, including but not limited to Automattic, The WordPress Foundation, WordPress.org, WordCamp.org, WordPress.tv. I have no idea who I’ve been doing this work for from a legal perspective, so please don’t sue me if you’re the beneficiary of my extensive free labor from 2016-2024. Also none of this is endorsed by my employer, past employers, clients, past clients, or any of my other loose affiliations. Also I am not a lawyer. I think that covers everything? I’m just trying to quit a volunteer job here.