In May I wrote a letter to Tim Doyle. Four pages, on LakeDrops letterhead. I told him I was worried about where the Drupal Association was heading. I said my advocacy for the DA depended on seeing real change.

That letter matters now, because when I tell you I believe in the future of the DA, you know it's not coming from someone who agrees with everything. It comes from someone who complained, in writing, formally, with receipts.

Tim has stepped down. Tiffany Farriss is stepping in as interim CEO - six to twelve months, with a mandate to strengthen finances and operations and prepare the Association for permanent leadership. The community reacted the way it always does to change: loudly, thoroughly, with old grievances and new arguments.

I'm not here to relitigate any of it. Some concerns are fair. Some are settled history being reheated. Sorting them out isn't the point.

The point is the energy. Look how much engagement a transition produces. Long threads, careful arguments, people who normally lurk showing up with sources and timelines.

Now imagine that energy on a normal Tuesday.

Democracy is exhausting, and that's the deal

Here's something we don't say often enough: almost every real decision disappoints close to half the people it touches. That's not a bug in leadership. That's what leadership is.

Pick a DrupalCon location, and one half is relieved while the other feels excluded. Change the partner program, and you please the agencies you courted and annoy the ones you didn't. There is no decision that makes everyone happy. There never was.

I know this from my own letter. I raised hard concerns about venue choices and the DA drifting toward a business-serving-customers model. I still hold those concerns. But I never confused disagreeing with a decision for hating the people who made it.

The people in charge live with this every day. They knew, before announcing the transition, that a large part of the community would be unhappy. They did it anyway, because someone has to steer. Acknowledge that job for what it is: exhausting, thankless, necessary.

Disagree with decisions. Argue substance. But don't turn decision-makers into enemies. Once we start doing that, nobody sane will want the job, and then we're in real trouble.

Faith is a choice you make on purpose

Tiffany has been in this community for over a decade. On the board. On the finance committee. Organizing DrupalCons. Running Palantir.net inside this ecosystem. She published a conflict-of-interest framework, vetted by counsel, before anyone asked her to. Dries has given her his full backing.

None of that makes concerns disappear. It doesn't have to. Faith in leadership isn't the belief that people are perfect. It's the decision to assume they are trying, and to hold them accountable without assuming the worst about their motives.

That's the same standard I asked of the DA in my letter. It only works if I apply it to the DA in return.

Engagement is not a fire alarm

The thing that actually worries me is not the controversy. It's that this is when we show up.

We get hundreds of comments when there's drama. We get silence when there's a budget to review, a strategy to shape, a board seat to fill. Engagement that only appears when we're angry isn't engagement. It's a smoke detector.

You can't run a community on smoke detectors.

So this is the ask, and I'm making it to everyone, myself included: be engaged on the boring days. Be constructive when you're frustrated. Show up before the alarm goes off, not only after.

The election is the most useful thing you can do right now

There is a concrete way to convert all this energy into something that matters. The Drupal Association is holding its 2026 board election. One seat on the board is elected directly by us - the community - to represent us.

Here's what you do:

If you are not a member yet, become one now. Membership is what gives you the right to vote.

If you are already a member, vote. Read the candidates. Pick the one who represents your view of where the DA should go.

This is not symbolic. This is the mechanism. All the concern in the comment threads, all the "someone should do something" - it channels into exactly this: choosing who sits at the table on our behalf.

If you were angry enough to write a comment this week, you are engaged enough to cast a vote. Do both.

Let's start the new chapter together

I wrote a letter of concern in May because I care about this Association. I'm writing this in July for the same reason.

A transition is rare: a moment where the direction is genuinely open. We can spend it tearing at each other, or we can spend it building the case for what comes next and electing people to carry it.

I know which one I'm choosing.

Become a member. Vote. Stay engaged when it's quiet. Give the people who took on an exhausting job the benefit of the doubt while you hold them to account.

Come on. Let's do this together.