I am mostly withdrawing from Wikipedia for now.

I have enjoyed bringing several articles to FA and GA and have enjoyed working with many wonderful editors who believe in Wikipedia's vision and purpose. I truly believe that Wikipedia has already served a useful purpose in the world and believe that it has the potential to do much more.

Unfortunately as rewarding as I have found it to work on non-controversial topics, dealing with controversial topics has been somewhat the opposite experience for me. Despite Wikipedia's policies I have commonly stumbled across the fact that popular culture often trumps scholarly research. And Wikpedia's aim to be consensus-based frequently gives way to the reality that the loudest opinions are often the ones that win. And the volunteer nature of the administration sadly results in uneven policy enforcement and even periodic abuses.

As I have watched some of the topics that I have considered particularly important gradually improve only to be undone by personal agendas and lax policy enforcement I have had to ask myself if Wikipedia has reached the limits of what it can be even with its theoretical potential to be more. Though has been fun to research some of the less central topics, if it is so difficult to help bring the same quality to more central topics I have to ask myself whether this is really time well spent.

Thanks to all the editors that have helped me on my projects and provided invaluable assistance.