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