It seems almost surreal that I'm writing this. It's hard to believe that after over three years of regular contributions in the form of articles, SVG highway shields, and late-night debates over what color the bikeshed should be, I became little more than a Wikignome almost overnight. I'm not one for making a big fuss over something like this, but I think those who I worked with here deserve to know why I'm no longer a regular contributor, especially the members of the U.S. Roads WikiProject (USRD) since it would otherwise appear that I left due to bad feelings with them.
It started in September of 2008, when I was involved in discussions at USRD relating to the relationship between that project and projects on roads in particular states, such as one that I founded, the Roads in Maryland WikiProject (MDRD). It's no secret that I believed in a looser relationship between the state-specific roads projects and USRD, so when the New York State Routes WikiProject (NYSR) announced that it would be working independently from USRD, I naturally took part in the resulting discussions since the result of them could have had an impact on MDRD as well. Those discussions consumed much of my time during September, however, they led to little change in the relationship between the projects as NYSR was absorbed back into USRD. Even though I was upset by this decision, under normal circumstances I would have accepted it and continued to contribute, but something happened in October that changed that.
On October 4, a plan to revive The PokéMasters, a Pokémon fansite that I once frequented was unveiled at that website's forums. After spending over three years working on Wikipedia, I was well prepared to tackle another project. After taking part in the early planning, and making some proposals for the site's layout, I was quickly made moderator of the forum dedicated to the project. The site itself launched on June 19, 2009, and can be found at http://www.thepokemasters.net.
Since taking a part in that project, I've spent much of my time there. After three years of Wikipedia being my main "home" on the internet, I returned to my original home, the first site I ever joined, The PokéMasters.
Despite that, I still make occasional edits to Wikipedia, and can still be contacted at my talk page.
See everyone around, and as always, happy editing!
-Jeff