User talk:Dev920/Comments on Esperanza

Esperanza was a Wikipedia project founded on August 12, 2005. Its goals were to support the encyclopedia indirectly by encouraging a sense of community. It was the belief of Esperanza that a friendly, supportive community within Wikipedia would help the encyclopedia by keeping editors happy, productive, and on the project. The name is derived from the Spanish word for "hope," and the original goal was to offer hope for the Wikipedia community and bring it together. When proposing the association, the founder wrote the following:

Esperanza or Esperanza Association is a proposed association of wikipedians [sic] dedicated to strengthening wikipedia's [sic] sense of community through establishing a support network for wikipedians [sic] in an environment that is often hostile and apathetic. Esperanza takes its name from the Spanish word for hope. We have taken this name the in spirit of offering hope to wikipedians [sic] who feel isolated and ignored. Spanish is used in the hope that a segment of the wikipedia [sic] community will never again feel so isolated that it breaks away from the community as did a portion of the Spanish wikipedia [sic] community did to form Enciclopedia Libre.

Towards those goals, Esperanza attempted a number of initiatives, such as:


 * A stress alerts page that would alert Esperanza if someone was ill or feeling highly stressed due to issues on Wikipedia or in real life, or if someone left Wikipedia.
 * Admin Coaching, where newcomers could get assistance from Wikipedia administrators.
 * Reach Out, which provided consolation.
 * Tutorial Drive, which aimed to write a series of tutorials for using and editing Wikipedia
 * A calendar for members to list their birthday, first-edit day, etc. Esperanza tried to send out birthday wishes to Wikipedians.
 * The to-do list, where editors could request Esperanzians for help.
 * Trading Spaces, where Wikipedians could request help for designing their user page.
 * The coffee lounge for casual discussion.
 * The User page awards for well-designed user pages.
 * The Barnstar Brigade which gave out barnstars to users for good work.
 * Stressbusters, which investigated the source of wikistress.

Esperanza received wide support at first for its commitment to the community through these programs. It was then, however, opposed by an equal number of editors for its bureaucratic, cabal-like, exclusionist qualities. Some of these projects now survive independently.

In addition to having programs to improve the community, Esperanza was governed by a charter, which stipulated an Advisory Council with staggered terms, as well as an Administrator General who was selected by the council to lead the project. Amendments to the charter could be made through week-long discussions held on Wikipedia talk:Esperanza. This was criticized as being heavily bureaucratic; Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy.

Esperanza was first nominated for deletion in November 2006. Critics of the group argued that Esperanza distracted people from contributing to the encyclopedia by providing an environment for social interaction. Esperanza was also criticized for having regular Council elections, which were seen as nothing more than popularity contests. Following a no consensus result in the first motion to delete Esperanza, the organization engaged in a series of reforms, which resulted in the deletion of the coffee lounge, the user page awards, Stressbusters and the Barnstar Brigade. The group also promoted participation in the article namespace by creating an Esperanza Collaboration of the Month. Two Miscellany for deletion nominations were submitted here and here due to the overhaul discussions; these resulted in "Delete" consensuses. While most of the reform discussions ultimately reached a consensus, the overhaul discussions related to Esperanza's goals, its charter, its governance, what constitutes membership, and the noticeboard weren't completed. In the end, the Esperanza Reformation ultimately failed in fixing up the organization as a whole.

Exactly six weeks and two days later, Esperanza was once again nominated for deletion. Noted complaints against the organization included:
 * The overhaul proved to be unsuccessful in reforming Esperanza as a whole. The participants in the discussions promised to fix Esperanza: this, however, was felt to be done purely to avoid deletion, and not out of conviction. Little reform took place.
 * In addition, its members also believed that Wikipedia depended wholly upon the existence of Esperanza, and would break down without it.
 * Likewise, there had been other comments that Wikipedians who were not members of Esperanza were treated as inferior by those who were. Officially, members and non-members alike were invited to participate in Esperanza's programs; in practice, non-members had been set apart through Esperanza's activities, such as the Esperanza Collaboration of the Month.
 * Esperanza was a well-intentioned idea but hard to implement; additionally, a large project isn't needed to spread hope and good cheer.

After long discussion, it was ultimately decided that Esperanza was to be decentralized and disbanded; see Wikipedia talk:Esperanza for a list of now-independent projects. All Esperanza-subpages were redirected to this main page, which was replaced with the summary above.

More debates followed on various pages in the Wikipedia namespace, including on a deletion review filed to review aspects of the MfD closure. The closing admin declared the consensus to be that the original MfD decision was endorsed.