Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Esperanza

Wikipedia:Esperanza

• Prior MFD (No Consensus)
• Note to closing admin: Included in this MfD are all subpages, except for the smile templates on WP:EA/I. The MfD notice is located on Wikipedia:Esperanza/Header, transcluded to every major Esperanza subpage.

I am aware that in renominating Esperanza, I am potentially making myself a hate figure among certain sections of Wikipedia, but I think the deletion of Esperanza is something that is ‘’vital’’, not just for Wikipedia, but for Esperanzans themselves. The Overhaul is now effectively at an end, and Esperanza is little different. This could get quite lengthy, but I want to pre-empt as many arguments as I can, so hang on in there. There are many other good reasons to delete Esperanza, which I’m sure others will lay out below, but these are mine.

Many of the extremely valid reasons for deletion in the previous MfD still hold. The very first comment on the MfD was that Esperanzans had an arrogant belief that without Esperanza, Wikipedia would meltdown. I wrote this to one EA user:

“ "Esperanza is necessary because, without it, I seriously doubt that anyone would do what we do without it." Well, I do for start, without ever having been a part of Esperanza. It's this "Wikipedia would collapse without us" mentality that garnered you so many delete votes at the MfD. You keep implying that every editor without the omnipresence of Esperanza is some sort of hardhearted firebreathing deletionist who want to chain everyone to their desks and have them edit fourteen hours a day. ”

The recent reforms I think have shown some Esperanzans that that is not true, but many Esperanzans have argued, and continue to argue that Esperanza is needed because “we are not robots”. The implication is that non-Esperanzans are somehow less than human: we have been called (and I am lifting this straight from the MfD and EA pages) “obsessive nerds”, “geek”s, “stark impersonal monolithic bureaucracy”, “A soulless coldhearted group of people”, “emotionless editor”s, “made of stone”, “have no feelings”, “robots”, among others. Other comments made are “People can't work nonstop”, “All this nomination shows is the sheer boredom of such nominators”, “without it, the community would just be...well, hopeless”, “Maybe all the delete "vote"-ers should go find something useful to do instead of trying to make happy editors unhappy”, and “Without Esperanza, I would feel like there is no-one to turn to on Wikipedia”. Make of this what you will.

Several users have pointed out that Esperanza has useful programs, like Collaboration of the Month. To quote Quadell, “The Esperanza CotM is a marginally good thing, I suppose, but it's the only collaboration type that is defined by who edits the article, not by what article is about, and I don't see that as a good precedent.” The same goes for the Esperanza barnstar, only awarded to good Esperanzans. This simply sets the Esperanzan community further apart from the rest of us, for no reason. It works by who people are, not what they do, which goes utterly against Wikipedia’s principles. The Tutorial drive is creating and keeping helpful information that would be easier to find if it were placed in the Help articles for the rest of us.

This highlights a perennial and worrying problem about Esperanza: that they constantly set themselves apart. They say they give Wikipedians hope – but who has any interaction with Esperanza who isn’t Esperanzan? Why is there even a special term for someone who's in Esperanza? This organization ought to be deleted because they’re targeting new and vulnerable users, who then see everything on Wikipedia through green-tinted lenses, and it is not good. It does lead to superiority complexes, regardless of what the front page says. Esperanzans, at least the active ones, see themselves as Esperanzans first and foremost. We have to delete Esperanza for their own good, to show them what Wikipedia is like outside the wall of their sub-culture.

When the first MfD happened, Esperanza immediately started an Overhaul. Seriously problematic programs such as User Page Awards, the Coffee Lounge, and the Barnstar Brigade were quickly deleted, a welcome development – except that they were deleted for the wrong reasons. I have seen multiple statements indicating that people accepted the deletion of these programs, not because they were distracting, or a bad idea, but because Esperanza would be deleted otherwise. They never accepted the arguments behind the deletions. I find that concerning.

The overhaul continued, and many programs were chucked or kept. I had a large part in that. However, as I had predicted, the momentum of change died and many of the overhaul discussions have been effectively abandoned without ever reaching a consensus. Little reform of the kind promised at the MfD has happened, and now seems unlikely to, with many members of Esperanza now having left.

Discussion has since now intensively focused on the creation of the new charter. This brings up another impetus for my nomination for deletion: Esperanza is thoroughly unwikipedian in its desire for endless bureaucracy. At the time of the MfD, Esperanza has a seven member council who held closed meetings on IRC that made binding decisions about Esperanza. Any contentious decision was to be passed up to them. There was no consensus building, no discussion, nothing. This has been a problem from Esperanza’s founding, and it seems to be a intrinsic part of Esperanza that cannot be removed. When these points were raised in the overhaul, which you can see here and here, it was repeated over and over again by virtually every Esperanzan that they needed the leadership, that bureaucracy was needed and that Esperanza would collapse into a mess without it. They do not seem to inhabit Wikipedia, where we seem to function just fine without it. One person even said “I just believe that we cannot all decide policies, we need leadership”. I endorse deletion to disabuse Esperanzans of this notion, most of whom seem to genuinely believe this, and are being sheltered by Esperanza to the detriment of us all.

The biggest issue with Esperanza is the members themselves. I wrote this to someone, and I think it sums up what I want to say: “Esperanza only has 700 members (and I bet under half of them are in any way active) but Esperazans believe they are completely indispensable, and insult the rest of us accordingly. I am "robotic", "cold-hearted", "heartless", "made of stone" and in some way inhumane because I do not agree with Esperanza's existence and do not participate in it. I cannot do anything about this, just like I cannot do anything about Esperanza's constant belief that bureaucracy is good. And that, I think, is the true problem. I can advocate deleting the council, but I cannot stop an Esperanzan thinking it is a marvellous idea. I can insist massive disclaimers be put everywhere saying "ESPERANZA IS NOT BETTER THAN WIKIPEDIA", but I cannot stop an Esperanzan thinking me "made of stone" because I act on my beliefs rather than join an organisation that stands for them. I can change Esperanza, or try to, but I cannot change an Esperanzan. I can edit their pages, but not their hearts.” Esperanzans are deluding themselves about Wikipedia, and will continue to do so as long as Esperanza exists.

I want to end with this: What does Esperanza do? Never mind the criticism above, look at the positive aspects. What is Esperanza for? Spreading hope? How do you spread hope? Ultimately, Esperanza, at its core, is just like Concordia – nice idea, impossible to implement. And the bad side of Esperanza, the bad faith, the bureaucracy, the superiority complexes, I think, means it should be deleted and salted. This organization has gone badly, badly wrong, and its members need to be brought back into the Wikipedia fold with a fresh start. I urge you to delete. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Co-nomination from Moreschi

Most relevant is the comment at the last MFD from Admin, Arbitrator, and Checkuser Dcmedevit. "To be blunt, but, I think, entirely justified; If this is the civility parade, I'd rather stay at home. Esperanza aims to enhance the encyclopedia by improving the community. If so, the poor conduct abounding on this very page is astounding. I think it's time for all participants to rethink their participation." Esperanza lost its way a long time ago. It degenerated into an organisation that detracted from the encyclopedia (see the Coffee Lounge and the associated Games) and all attempts at reform have proved futile. The overwhelming bureaucracy, detailed in excellent details by Dev - closed meetings on Skype for the Advisory Coucil? - shows just how out of touch EA became. A worrying element of cabalism also became present with many complaints made at RFA about "Esperanza votes" for editors particularly associated with EA. True or not, the fact that such a perception could exist is perturbing. Since reform has failed, it is time for deletion. Moreschi ^Deletion! 22:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Note to closing admin: if consensus is to tag as historical I recommend deleting all the useless subpages [1] - my word, there are a lot - and only tagging the main page as historical. Moreschi ^Deletion! 22:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Co-nomination from Ed

It turns out that I left Esperanza on the same day that it was MfD'd. (How coincidental!!!) This is the final message I left the Esperanza community as a member:

Unfortunately, I will no longer be a member of Esperanza. I have been debating whether to leave since last night. This was a hard decision to make, but I feel that I could no longer be a part of this organization.

This organization was dedicated to the improvement of the Wikipedia community. Since the first day I added my name to the members' list, I have seen no overall effect on the rest of Wikipedia. Our efforts have only been centered on the members of Esperanza. In no way have I seen a successful organizational effort to reach out to the rest of the Wikipedian community.

During the MfD, as most of you know, there were many votes to "delete" Esperanza. I voted "keep", which I now realize was not the best vote to make. The delete voters were actually trying to help all of EA's members, seeing the faults with our community. We have remained blind to the cries of our fellow editors regarding the problems Esperanza's been having since the past few months.

Since the MfD, the overall community has weakened. In several different places were effors to revive Esperanza. Decisions have never been made. The AC has participated in Esperanza a little bit less than usual (which I understand to be due to numerous Wikibreaks). Less Esperanzians have been giving Happy Birthday wishes to its members. Face it, we have failed Esperanza. More than that, we have failed the Wikipedian community. (Note that I say "we", I feel that I am guilty of not carrying out EA's ideals).

Please do not misinterpret this long speech that I'm giving. I fully support the goals and ideals of Esperanza. There have been several exceptional non-Esperanza-affiliated editors I've seen that promote Wikilove in the best possible way. I have seen many respected members of Esperanza that fulfill the goals of Esperanza to their highest limits. Unfortunately, these respected members, noticing the flaws of this bureaucratical organization, have listened to those non-Esperanzians who supported the MfD, and left. Esperanza's best influential editors are leaving one by one, our actively participating members slowly decreasing. Our member population will get lower, and lower, and lower...

...until there were none

Everything I would have said I already said above.....--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?}Reviews? 22:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion Subsection 1

• Delete as nominator. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep-mark all pages as "historical Although Esperanza is in effect "dead", we would want to keep its pages for historical reference--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?}Reviews? 22:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

As I have discovered with Concordia, Ed, that doesn't work. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess you're right...I'm a little bit too concerned about all of the red-links that will pop up across Wikipedia--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?}Reviews? 22:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Might have been nice in the past, but useless now. And no, don't keep for historical reference. --Majorly (Talk) 22:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - as co-nom. Moreschi ^Deletion! 22:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Hear hear, Dev! One of the best essays I've seen in quite some time. A much more thorough nomination than last time, and preempts many arguments. Per everything in your nomination which ultimately echoes my exact feelings, I vote to delete. I don't know about the merits of historically tagging, but I wouldn't be opposed to it, so long as Esperanza is taken off-line, so to speak. DoomsDay349 22:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - It's a failed project - there is nothing much of any value, at the least move it to the WikiProject space and tag as historical. (Side note: The nominator deserves a pint for the exhaustive and well written nomination.) thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 22:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete :(- It seems like everyones given up at fixing Esperanza. It was MFD'd by a former member. Esperanza has stopped with the community aspect. I don't see anything that can be moved. I'm taking the green out of my sig and deleting my subpage. TeckWiz^TalkContribs_@ 22:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Naconkantari 22:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, but I'd encourage the "co-ordinators" of various programs in Esperanza to userfy them (or just move them over to WP: space) and keep the particularly useful ones running (admin coaching, I've have to say (being a coach)). I don't feel that any of the projects under ESP need the pointless bureaucracy that it brings. I'll also be removing the green from my sig, like TeckWiz. Martinp23 22:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC) And kudos on the excellent nom!
• (edit conflict x7)Delete. Everything else can go, but admin coaching seems to be one of the few beneficial parts of the whole Esperanza concept. I suggest we move this to some other page? Userfy? Nishkid64 22:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Userfying doesn't seem like the right solution...maybe it could be a subpage of WP:RFA? DoomsDay349 22:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Kill with Fire and Brimstone - (edit conflict) This project is reduced to squabbling amongst itself, whining, and complaining. PTO 22:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Amen to that, brother/sister. DoomsDay349 22:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete It is sorry to see. I, unlike Dev, do think that the overhaul did well, especially when it was "decided" to stop membership. However, like Dev, I feel that Esperanza thought too much about how to not get Esperanza MfD'd again, rather than how to make changes for the better. In the end we were left with something which didn't help the community, as the people who wanted to keep Esperanza believed in the original MfD, and something which continued to make the same mistakes. I wouldn't be opposed to the historical tags, though only so the same mistakes were not made elsewhere. Thε Halo ^Θ 22:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Weak delete My support in the last deletion discussion was more for the idea behind Esperanza than the reality. I think the nominator now did a good job of demonstrating that the Esperanza train has gone so far off its track that the reality can never come close to matching the idea. Perhaps the idea can be salvaged in a new program; we'll see. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 22:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • A possibility, but it's best to delete it, and let people regroup from it, and maybe in a year or so (if Citizendium hasn't dethroned us..laugh, chortle, titter, giggle) we can rebuild it. Maybe. DoomsDay349 22:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Tag as historical and inactivate per above. f(Crazytales) = (user + talk) at 22:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, regretfully. So many of its members are leaving, and is it really that useful for Wikipedia? The overhaul has been going on for quite a while now, and not much has changed for the better. Nobody seems to care anymore, nor does anyone seem to be trying to fix it. –The Great Llama^{sign here} 22:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete- I'm sorry, but this has to go. Do not keep it for historical reference; this is haunting and pretty painful, why keep something that'll make us remember the bad days when more than half of the best programs were deleted? Esperanza ya no tiene esperanza. Translated: Esperanza has no hope. --Tohru Honda13^{Sign here!} 22:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, actually, not to be a smart-ass but it means Hope has no hope. A chilling prophecy indeed... :) DoomsDay349 22:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Even if many don't like it, it isn't harming Wikipedia to keep it around. Why delete something there's no harm in keeping? -- Chris is me 22:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The whole point of all three nominations is that Esperanza is harming Wikipedia. Moreschi ^Deletion! 22:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I...can't even respond to that (Chris's message). Read the nominations. It's doing absolutely nothing, is totally defunct, has no purpose anymore and is reduced to squabbling amongst itself. DoomsDay349 22:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I still don't think it's harming Wikipedia, but I guess it is pretty dead. Give the programs their own pages, then delete the rest. Keep the IRC channel though as a less-topical #Wikipedia. -- Chris is me 22:57, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete/Historical. bureaucracy + large size + lack of tangible mission + other factors mentioned in nomination = problems that it would seem were too large to resolve. Ah, well. I say historical, too, however, because it seems like someone might try this again down the road, and it would be helpful to keep a record of what went wrong. As I said on the EA talk page, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." —George Santayana. Dar-Ape 22:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• In the first MFD, I voted that Esperanza would recover if it followed my advice for refactoring. Unfortunately, they had not taken heed, and they are lost forever. I would suggest that all the Esperanza pages (except Wikipedia:Esperanza itself) are blanked and made into redirects to Wikipedia:Esperanza, which is replaced with a notice on how it's closed down. This way, the history is still around, but it is effectively deleted. Feel free to shorthand/refer to this as the Messedrocker Solution. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 22:49, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem, you will always have well-meaning but misguided users trying to start it up again exactly as it was before. I really don't think a historical tag, or the messedrocker solution, is a good idea - it'll just lead to more problems down the line. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly the problem with it. Best to smash delete rip maim kill destroy burn with fire and brimstone delete. If we ever really need to restore it, admins can access the page history. DoomsDay349 22:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, I think the continued existence of the pages will detatch some of the romanticism from restarting Esperanza by provided a concrete record of why it failed and act to make recreation less likely. Dar-Ape 22:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Salting would make recreation absolutely impossible! Moreschi ^Deletion! 22:57, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The redirects could be locked, so it'd practically be like salting the articles. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 23:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Or we could actually salt them... Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 23:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Going along with this idea for a moment - to hide the contents of the old subpages from non admins, we cold delete them and create redirects in place (which would then be protected). I have a feeling this goes against MessedRocker's original idea, but I'm throwing it in anyway. I'd also like to see the main ESP page deleted and a short piece of info provided in place, which would then be protected (again, hiding past revisions from users). Hopefully this would take away some of the cannon fodder for those who may wish to recreate ESP in the future, yet avoid nasty redlinks. Martinp23 23:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion Subsection 2

• Why Bother? When every Esperanza member is going to come here and vote Keep and this will turn into another no consensus again. semper fi — Moe 22:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

  Actually, I don't think they are. The climate there has changed remarkably since the last MfD. -- SCZenz 22:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

  (response to Moe Epsilon)If you had bothered to read the comments above, you would find that most of the users above are actually members or former members of Esperanza. PTO 23:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

  No need to get nasty. I'm aware of that, what about when the other 700 members realize it's up on MFD? I'm sure not everyone is going to vote delete. Just saying, it could be a giant waste of time. No opinion on the matter BTW. semper fi — Moe 23:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflictx3)Were it not for the fact that 6 delete votes are from EA members themselves... 23:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, but tag the main page only as historical. Regrettably, Esperanza does not seem to have been able to re-define itself in a way more consistent with promoting Wikipedia's mission after the last MfD. I think many members understand what has gone wrong, and that is very heartening, because they will be able to re-commit themselves to the good things Esperanza was promoting and to the useful project pages that were originally created through the organization. But continuing to have a central organization page, at this point, will serve no purpose but to create a focus for people who value community-building and process creation for their own sakes. Let's move on with what we're all here for: the encyclopedia. -- SCZenz 22:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support giving the programs their own pages and then marking Esperanza historical. One can remove the beaurocracy of Esperanza and still retain the usefulness of the parts. One of the things that I think would be nice to keep the esperanza name on would be the esperanza newsletter. To be honest, my first experience with esperanza was seeing the newsletter on talk pages. That's all I thought Esperanza was, a friendly Wikipedian newletter, which also was informative about various discussions, birthday notices, and other things which might interest Esperanza members. In reading the nominations and other statements above, the concerns would appear to be the non-Wikipedian processes of Esperanza. So let's remove them and retain the rest as Wikipedian processes : ) - jc37 23:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete (edit conflict) - Anything I could possibly think of saying has been said already in the excellent nomination. Wikipedia is a project to write and refine an encyclopedia, not a coffee klatch. The project, as I see it now, isn't contributing much to the encyclopedia itself, and has "run its course". Crystallina 23:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Can I please point out to everyone voting to tag as historical that I have advocated full on deletion, not tagging. All it it takes is for one excitable user to remove the tag and this whole nest is kicked up again. Esperanzans need a fresh start, an opportunity to move on - if there is any remnant of Esperanza, this is not good. Please read my nomination. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 23:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete and Salt - The nominators for this MfD really summed up the concerns that I have gathered from Esperanza, ever since its nomination not so long ago. The mass bureaucracy, distance from Wikipedia and how it looks to be an exclusive club from the outside made me feel that it was inappropriate and against many of the ideals and principles that Wikipedia stands for. As well as the fact that many of the projects within Esperanza were so far disconnected with helping editors contribute to the encyclopaedia. To be fair, there is one or two things of good that Esperanza has done (an editor saying how the project helped two editors who were seriously stressed out did strike a chord with me), which could be implemented into the encyclopedia. However, in regards to Esperanza as a whole, the only recommendation in regards to keeping it for historical use is to show people in future a good example of what should not be placed in Wikipedia space. it is for those reasons, I vote delete and salt all pages. It's ironic that Esperanza is Spanish for hope, yet there is no hope left in Esperanza. --tgheretford (talk) 23:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per the outstandingly good nomination, and per my delete vote in the last MfD. Not much has changed since. – Elisson • T • C • 23:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. The seperate sub-pages accomplish everything just fine, and the only purpose Esperanza itself serves is to create a bureaucracy around it. And, of course, to foster the sense that belonging to Esperanza makes you special; witness the proposals that you must be a member of Esperanza to adopt a user. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 23:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I admit I have not been keeping up with the arguments for and against deletion, and I didn't participate in the overhaul of Esperanza. However I am !voting keep because I find value in the Stress Alerts, Admin Coaching, and Calendar. I simply find these useful and would be sad to see them go. If they can be moved elsewhere that would be fine. But I'd just like to say that I'm sad that the Esperanza community that helped me become a Wikipedian is dying. --Fang Aili ^talk 00:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The stress alerts are no longer used, admin coaching, as mentioned above, is going to be moved, and the calendar will no doubt by taken over by the Birthday Committee if Esperanza is deleted. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 00:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Delete all and nail the coffin. About every point that every Wikipedian needs is summarized in this nom. "Oh, but Esperanza means hope! That means we should keep it!" I don't see much "esperanza" in this, I'm afraid.--WaltCip 00:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, Per The Halo and Llama Man. But move the calendar to the Birthday Committee, and keep admin coaching. Sadly, there is really no hope for Esperanza anymore. The ship cannot be salvaged. I have enjoyed my time there immensly, but the condition of it has declined with many valued users leaving. Jam01 00:10, 29 December 2006 (UTC)