I alluded to this on Twitter just now, but I figured I should share some thoughts here too. When I took over stewardship of the community last year, it meant doing a lot of new, ongoing work all at once, and it ended up overwhelming me in ways I didn't expect. There were many discussions needed to arrive at a sense of how to moderate this community, and how to deal with two people who (despite their enthusiasm) were making many other folks feel unwelcome. When that exercise in diplomacy died down, I was in fact burnt out from it, but I didn't realize this at the time. I had thought to myself, "Now that that's dealt with, I'll be able to put my energy into more generative things, like the podcast, and some new tools for us to use to organize our discussions". But I actually didn't have any energy left. I really, really, really like making the podcast. I just don't have the capability to consistently do it at the quality level that I held myself to. The biggest challenge is the transcripts. Steve and I have been using a transcription service that is not great. Steve didn't edit his transcripts, AFAIK. I extensively edit mine. I add inline links and embeds, sure, but more than that — I rewrite what is said so that the ideas being discussed come across clearly, absent the inflection and timing of the speech. I remove aborted thoughts, or rearrange sentences, or otherwise capture the spirit of each thought, rather than the mechanical series of words robbed of their articulation. I love the result of this editing effort, but the work is.. exhausting, time-consuming, and not enjoyable in the slightest. This isn't my first time moderating a community, or doing a bunch of big side projects in addition to my day job. But it is my first time doing both at once, with a toddler, during a pandemic. I've spent the last 6 months figuratively rolling over and hitting the snooze button, feeling like "I need to get up and get back to work.. but.. not just yet." I have several interviews for the podcast recorded, one of which is mostly edited and almost ready for release. But I'm just dreading doing the transcript editing work. So in the interest of getting the podcast going again at all, here's my plan. The next few episodes are going to be rougher — a bit less editing, and an unedited transcript. (The transcripts are on github, and contributions are welcome, so I might lean on that a bit more than before.) I'm also not going to pressure myself to do any new projects for the community, not for the next 6 months at least. I'll continue moderating discussions and maintaining the website and otherwise being steward. But I'm not in the position to lead us to somewhere new. Finally, I haven't been posting about Hest at all, because I haven't been working on it. That's a long story, but I think I should probably rank it higher in my list of "things to get back to, when I can" than initiatives for this community (like some sort of wiki / zettel, say). After all, that's why I came here in the first place. I hope this post isn't too much of an indulgence in your attention. Hopefully the next thing you hear from me is an announcement about a new episode of the podcast, or maybe a little 2 minute video about what I'm doing with my days. I think I'm almost ready for that again. 🍻

I can help with the transcriptions. (Consider this an invitation to bug me about them, especially if you have an episode that you'd like to get out by some date.) Where's the repo?

Let us "see you trim the artichoke"! If unfinished work is accessible online and we know it's there, we can help you. https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z21cgR9K3UcQ5a7yPsj2RUim3oM2TzdBByZu

Ivan, your dedication to craft and community has been such a gift. I can absolutely relate to the "snooze button" and I have no doubt that the community, the listeners, and the interviewees would understand if you put out rougher cuts of the podcast henceforth. You've turned it into a magnificent product and any zeal you perceive to be absent will be taken in open arms by listeners who are content with even the scrappiest of edits. In short, the community remains grassroots, and blemishes only highlight the sparkle.

Thanks for your work! 🙂

Thanks for being so transparent Ivan and continuing to support FoC community! Have you thought about unbundling yourself a bit? I”m also in the Data Viz society Slack / community and they have a board of like 7 people, lots of moderators, etc. There’s some initial spin up work for that, but it prevents 1 person from burning out :O(

Thanks for the words of encouragement everyone, and the emojis of support. (— band name!) @Stefan and @Max Krieger, I really feel that. Hopefully this announcement (of a sort) lets me release some commitments, break up a bit of an emotional logjam, and gradually get back to posting silly GIFs. @Kartik Agaram — The relevant spot in the relevant repo is here. But there's nothing new to edit there yet. For the upcoming episode, I first have to finish editing the audio, then ship it away to the transcription service (which Repl.it pays for, since it's something like $150 per episode), run some regexes to clean up the formatting, and then it goes into the repo. And then it gets edited, and then I publish the episode. (And then I get to go back to the fun stuff of recording a new interview, and the mostly fun stuff of editing it.) I'm not sure exactly what the best approach to getting help with the transcripts would be. The way I work is by listening to the audio while I read the transcript, pausing frequently and making edits whenever I come across a mistranscription, an unclear bit of writing, or a spot where an inline link would be nice. I could announce the transcripts early, but then anyone offering to help wouldn't necessarily have the audio as a reference (if they wanted to work that way), and then it also wouldn't be clear to me when to actually release the episode. Or I could publish the rough transcript and show notes along with the episode, so that podcast subscribers would all hear the audio.. and then wait a while before announcing the podcast on social media (and in Mariano's newsletter), so that any interested folks could spruce up the transcript in the intervening time. Not sure what to do, open to suggestions. @Srini K — If I understand what you mean by unbundling myself, I've already done some of that whenever I've had the chance, and this post is me doing a bit more of that I think. • Moderating the community is totally painless, now. It takes a few seconds per day. I enjoy it. I just read the Slack as an enthusiast, and occasionally think to myself, this post belongs in a different channel, or, this link preview isn't adding anything to the discussion, and then take a second to fix that. If it ever becomes not painless again, I'm more prepared now. Our CoC is written assuming multiple moderators. The website is now in a Github org, rather than under Steve Krouse's personal account. All new services I've set up (like a Digital Ocean instance for Mariano to use for his Newsletter and tools) are intended to be easily handed over to other folks if needed. • Recording and editing the podcast is something I enjoy doing. It's a blast! I eventually want to do more podcasting, though with different formats, not just more interviews. But blocking me from finishing episodes at all is my commitment to great transcripts and show notes. So I'm letting go of that commitment. We will still have an transcript, and show notes, but I won't be doing the same writing and editing that I used to. I think this will be the unbundling that I need right now. • I had wanted to, starting in January, lead a community initiative to build some new tooling for us to capture and organize our thoughts — a wiki, or collaborative zettel. I'm bailing on that, at least until summer, possibly completely. It's something that'd help the community in a few ways (some folks here really could use a collaborative project), but I'm in no position to spearhead it. I think this will also be the unbundling that I need right now. • If you can point to other duties / projects that I'm currently sleeping on, that someone else really ought to pick up and run with, by all means!

You've done so much for the community! So please, move to more important stuff you enjoy: recording podcast, Hest, etc.!

im glad your staying Ivan

I hear you Ivan 😉 I've been quiet for a reason; doing my own recharge. Best to unplug sometimes, delegate work, and get some perspective.....