[edit] Wikipedia:Esperanza/Appreciation Week

[edit] Issues

• Sends editors attention away from articles

[edit] Discussion

This discussion was requested by Dev. I think that Appreciation Week should still be in existence to celebrate Wikipedia Day, but the events should be revised.--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 18:44, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the idea of a celebration in itself would be a good idea, but I don't think it should be run by Esperanza. Again, it seems exclusionist and too self-promoting, not to mention most of the events planned involved programs that have now been deleted. Which brings me to the question of what the week would do, and how it would help Wikipedia. So ultimately, while the plan is good in theory, in practice I have such reservations I would suggest it be deleted. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:56, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think the intentions are good. It's not everyday that Wikipedia celebrates its birthday. We definitely need the opinions of all Wikipedians, not just Esperanzians. I think that we should move this program out of Esperanza control and move somewhere else.--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 19:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed with Ed. I hope this is saved, as it's a good idea, just a bit too focused on Esperanza right now. Thε Halo ^Θ 19:07, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Propose the general idea as a policy at the village pump and delete the esperanzan page, and everyone's happy. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 19:09, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

In a shocking turn of events, I agree with Dev! Great idea; now vote! DoomsDay349 20:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vote

[edit] Keep as is

• Support per WP:SNOW. I don’t think it will be agreed for in Village Pump. --May the Force be with you! Shreshth91 12:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support - If any other group wants to celebrate the birthday, then that's fine. However, in its current form, this is part of the Esperanzian principle of community-building. Everyone is invited - Esperanzian or not - and I think it's a great chance to show how the community can be a cohesive whole when it tries. The point I'm very concerned about is Cyde's below, that we can spend 365 days a year editing. If so, Cyde, good luck. The rest of us, however, are not robots, and do have feelings. We're proud of our project and want to celebrate it. Reagrds, —Celestianpower ^háblame 13:17, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support Yep. Agreed. Thε Halo ^Θ 13:25, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose But don't you understand that it draws attention away from the encyclopedia? That's the entire point! We have an entire week not to work on the encyclopedia. Utterly ridiculous. DoomsDay349 17:58, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Take a look at the proposal. A lot of the original plans were for the coffee lounge and other deleted programmes. As these are not there, I don't see how jazzing up the EA main page and some good friends getting together on IRC will really detract that much from building the encyclopedia. No more, than say, a wiki-meet up would in London would, or wikimania would. Apart from jazzing up the EA main page to celebrate Wikipedia's birthday, everything else is held off-wiki. Thε Halo ^Θ 20:55, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Great, so the cabal of Esperanza gets its own holiday with no-one in Wikipedia involved. Brilliant idea, that. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:31, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

What happens off-wiki has nothing to do with anything. People (who happen to be in Esperanza) are having an online party in a chat room. Why is that objectionable? Regards, —Celestianpower ^háblame 22:33, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

No CP, don't you understand? We've made a huge mistake. The normall wikipedian is far to stupid to type WP:ESP into the search box, see that people will be on IRC, and click the link provided! Thε Halo ^Θ 22:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC) and for anyone who didn't know, that was some of the sarcasm which Elaragirl used so well ;)

I think that this concept is a good one. (It's a week in which we all take a moment, and show others our appreciation.) Consider this similar to a "Wiki-break", but in which you take some time to show others how much you appreciate what they do, etc. Yes, we all could do this all the time, but that's like saying that we could have office parties all the time, and everyone should often tell their co-workers how much they appreciate them. It doesn't happen that way en masse at the workplace, and I doubt it happens en masse that way here. The only part I would drop is the IRC party suggestion. It's nice, but may be seen as "too-inclusive". - jc37 00:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In regard to Halo; face it, no one aside from Esperanzans will ever see that link because there is no advertisement. And, if they did, I doubt they'd care; Appreciation Week is just a clever way of taking a week off for social networking. But hey, do what you want. When the next MFD rolls around, we'll see what they think. DoomsDay349 01:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Social networking applys to Wikipedia, not off it. If no one is allowed to social network off wikipedia, we really are getting into strange times. And, hopefully if the next MfD does role around, it will be said that a bunch off Esperanzians had a get together off wiki, in their own, personal time. They didn't socialize on the wiki, which is great, becuase that was a main concern at the last MfD. Thε Halo ^Θ 01:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that it very easily could be kept, provided that all the other groups in wikipedia are involved to a degree as well. A few ideas. (1) Ask every existing WikiProject to maybe hold a special WAW collaboration, hoping to get every member of the project involved in the collaboration to some degree, even if only proofreading, to try to bring at least one of their articles up to either good or featured article status. (2) With all of the members of the project involved hopefully at least once that week, they can then discuss what kind of awards that project wants to give out for the past year, probably on the project's talk page. Then, when they're done (3) at the end of the week, have Esperanza in effect MC an awards ceremony where the various projects can in the eyes of everyone give out their awards to the members of their projects. This way, the week could still focus on wikipedia work in general, while still allowing for discussion of whether to hand out awards, and, if yes, what kind of awards and how many. Maybe call it sometehing like Wikipedia Article Improvement and Appreciation Week, or WAIAW, which is still a palindrome. There is already one day a year when people are not supposed to contribute and try to pay attention to their personal lives, adding a few hours of inactivity on one Sunday afternoon/evening (for instance) wouldn't be that much of a sacrifice, particularly if we managed to involve all the other organizations in wikipedia as well, and if the ceremonies did not rule out any additions to wikipedia articles. Badbilltucker 17:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Keep 'd darn 'ting Esperanza shouldn't be holding anymore of these discussions, + it is property of the group. ~~•Sean•gorter• ^{Get a signature!} 07:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move to Village Pump as Proposed Policy

• Support Per above. DoomsDay349 20:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support for now, unless someone has another idea. I'd quite like to hear from CP one this one. Thε Halo ^Θ 21:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: CP? Forgive my ignorance, but what's that stand for? DoomsDay349 22:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Celestianpower, who runs it, I think. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Ah. Thanks. DoomsDay349 22:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support per above--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 01:59, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support - LBMixPro ^{<Speak|on|it!>} 07:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. People there can do what they like. This is an Esperanzian-led celebration, and should stay as such. It clearly fits our community-building goals, so I don't see why it should be cut, or moved elsewhere. Regards, —Celestianpower ^háblame 13:19, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. You have just so amazingly proved my point: "This is an Esperanza led celebration." In other words, it's a holiday for Esperanza! It promotes the idea of an Esperanza sub-community, rather than Esperanza as part of the general community. So, we should keep it basically because we get a week to social network. Yeah, cause that's within Wikipedia policy. DoomsDay349 01:16, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Social networking applys on wiki, not off. People are supposed to social network off wiki rather than on. Thε Halo ^Θ 01:27, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
      • As long as there is no celebration (that is, social networking) on-wiki, I could care less. As long as we say that we only do it on IRC, it's cool by me. DoomsDay349 01:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• Definitely. What better way to figure out what people want then to ask them? --Rory096 02:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support - chances are it'll get smashed in the Village Pump, but I don't know this for certain. This is a bad idea, full stop. Half the stuff it refers to has been deleted and it is just a distraction. Pointless rubbish IMO, but per Rory it's good to see what people think. Moreschi 18:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support a link on the community portal to section on the village pump to publicise it beyond esperanza members. . .--Banana04131 19:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support I don't think this should even be an Esperanza page; the week is meant to be for everyone. I think some non-Esperanzans may be turned off by the affiliation to Esperanza. However, let's link to it on the Village Pump and see what everyone thinks of it. Marialadouce | parlami 13:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Delete Permanently

• I don't think we should be organizing appreciation weeks, wiki holidays, or whatever. They just take time away from the whole point of everything we do here. Writing Wikipedia is a 365-day-a-year endeavour. We can't just take a week off to pat ourselves on the back. Besides, there are already enough real holidays in real life for people who need to take a break. Wikipedia itself should never take a break, and no matter what time of year, there should always be an environment on here that emphasizes the point that we're getting work done. I fear there's too much of a move on here to turn Wikipedia into a microcosm of the real world, with games, chatrooms, separate communities, holidays, and everything. But I don't want that. I have all of that in real life. The only thing I come to Wikipedia for is the encyclopedia, and I don't really like the distraction of trying to turn Wikipedia into a mini-society when it is in fact a freely redistributable online encyclopedia, nothing more, nothing less. Don't take your eyes off the goal! --Cyde Weys 01:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment - if that's the case, let's get the Wikimedia Foundation to do away with Wikimania as well. It isn't like people are going to go out of their way for the celebration. --LBMixPro ^{<Speak|on|it!>}

Wow, now that's a non sequitur if ever I heard it. Obviously you haven't been to Wikimania (I have), or you haven't even read any of the minutes or looked at the program schedules, because the whole thing is intensely focused on making Wikipedia better. It's not just an idle celebration. --Cyde Weys 01:13, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If it is proposed at the village pump, the Esperanzan page will be deleted permanently. At least, this was my understanding when I suggested it. Let the entire community decide on the holiday. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 01:44, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, Cyde. I don't personally think it's such a grand idea, but this is not an issue for Esperanza to decide; we can delete our page, but we can't say eliminate the holiday; that's no in our power. If it was proposed at village pump, I'd be there opposing it right with you! DoomsDay349 01:47, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• Delete (reluctantly).

We need to take a step back sometimes and ask ourselves, "How is this contributing to the encyclopedia?" I agree that there are a time and a place to celebrate wikipedia, but it shouldn't ultimately take time away from editing. Think about it: how much editing do we do in a week? How much gets done? A lot of stuff goes on. Wikipedia is always growing, but if we all "took a week off to pat ourselves on the back," that's a whole week of edits that don't get done. For one thing, what about all the cleanup that constantly needs to be done? Vandals and the like are always causing trouble, and they won't be the ones to take a break to celebrate. They could care less, obviously. It's the people that are dedicated to the wikipedia that are the ones that are doing the cleaning, and those are the people that would be celebrating.

While a sense of pride and community, and all that, are good and needed, it really should not be concentrated in one week. If there is going to be a celebration week, maybe there should not be as much of a commitee and activities and the like. Once again, too much of a distraction. ALSO, this is not at all something that could be covered by WP:SNOW. Before quoting that essay, step back and consider other viewpoints. SNOW is more applicable for things like speedy deletion of vanity pages or simple little things, not something this big! Like I said, this is a reluctant delete and I hate to admit it, but there are a LOT of things about esperanza do need to be kept, and I hate that we should have to defend it like this, but it kind of gives us and opportunity to step back and evaluate our priorities.

Phew! That was a mouthful! Feel free to comment as much as you want! :-) Laurən^whisper 16:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)