Wiki break

See also: Leaving and never coming back.

A wiki break, wiki holiday, wiki vacation, wiki sabbatical, or wiki absence is a period when even a wikiholic takes a purposeful parting from their editing or collaboration on a wiki site, or even the wider wikisphere, for a longer period of time.

Wiki breaks are the result of the decision of the wiki person departing; not the enforced disability to edit on a wiki, such as blocking or banning, which would be in every sense of the word involuntarily.

A mix of wiki break and banning is the suicide by sysop. If one has inherently decided to leave but somehow knows that one would not have the strength to stay away, one enforces ones own decision by allowing oneself to collide with one or more restrictive or overworked sysop to ensure one gets banned! By that way, one might draw a good amount of attention, disrupt the work of the wiki, may get a feeling of revenge and eventually regret after one succeeded. From the outside, suicide by sysop is indiscernible from getting banned.

The pain involved varies from user to user. Some find it easy to endure, whereas others find the separation agonizing.

The degree of coercion also varies. Some remarkable individuals are actually capable of taking a voluntary wiki holiday: they are to be admired for their strength of character. Others still are forced into it through circumstances beyond their control: it is often at such times that wikiholics discover their condition. Sometimes, a wiki break can be a tampo, by which one expresses hurt feelings.

reasons to take a wiki break	source of reason	occasions to come back
you are going on a journey	your life	you came back from travelling
you are a student and have exams or other pressing school work	your life	your exams are over / holidays
you marry	your life	honeymoon is over
you (get) divorced	your life	you decide that your divorce has left you more time to be a wiki person
you are neglecting your work and job	your mind	you catch up with your backlog, or get fired!
you get addicted to a new video game that you obsess over for the next few days	your life	you defeated the 'Boss' several times
you find yourself repeatedly assuming bad faith	your mind	you learned what Jiddu Krishnamurti meant saying: "To keep observation separate from evaluation is the highest form of human intelligence".
you are stressed to the point that it affects your editing	your mind	you've done all the relaxing you can do and besides, all that talk about relaxation and thinking clearer is baloney anyway
you have a new girlfriend or boyfriend	your life	you find out your new girlfriend or boyfriend is a wiki person, too
your old girlfriend or boyfriend wants you to spend more time with them	your life	especially when you find that now you've been spending a lot of time discussing, fighting over and making up with said friend
you have to look for a job	your life	what you where looking for was money actually; after you 'found' it, they found you; after you've been arrested and suddenly find yourself with nothing else to do while serving time in jail
you find yourself making minor edits, in order to use the recent changes page as a discussion	your mind	you found somebody in real life who really cares for you
you have to move to a new home	your life	you have finished moving
you have neglected to pay your internet bill and have been barred from accessing the internet	your mind	you decide to give up smoking so that you can pay your internet bill
you are injured or sick	your life	you've recovered from your sickness
your wiki stress is making it hard to work	your mind	you've let go of all your 'wiki stress
you need time to relax and think, so that when you do return to your wiki, you'll hopefully be refreshed	your mind	you finished the last self-improvement book and are eager to try it out in your not so real life first
your time on your wiki is having a drastic effect on your life outside of your wiki	your mind	you've decided to take a break from your wiki break
your computer has broken down	your life	since your computer is broken, you find yourself at the library or other publicly accessible computer every day, editing your wiki, or you get a new one
there is an emergency in your area	your life	you survived and your computer too :-)
it takes you several hours to make and perfect a single edit, because you're worried your edit will be corrected by someone else	your mind	you come to accept that your last awesome edit has actually been improved, and that no small children or animals were harmed
you find yourself checking your watchlist compulsively throughout the day to defend your edits against vandals and other ne'er-do-wells	your mind
you're giving up editing your wiki for Lent, Ramadhan, Hajj, or a similar religious observance	your life	your religious observances have been inspiring
you have been grounded by your parents, business partner, or significant other from using the computer	your mind	you found a way around that
you have got a baby	your life	your baby grew up
you are addicted	your mind	you are cured from being a wiki addict (it may never happen, most likely, you will never recover)
you become disillusioned with the project, or haven't received any satisfaction out of editing the wiki but don't wish to depart forever	your mind
you find yourself suffering from Adminitis	your mind	you feel like it
your relatives invaded / occupied / visited your house	your mind	your relatives (thankfully) left your house