Wikipedia:Esperanza

Esperanza was an association founded on 12 August 2005. Its goal was to indirectly support the encyclopedia by providing support and other assistance for Wikipedians in need, and by strengthening Wikipedia's sense of community. By doing this, it was hoped that editors would be encouraged to stay with Wikipedia. Esperanza was loosely governed by an Advisory Council, made up of two tranches and an Admin General, elected two times a year, who made binding decisions about Esperanza on IRC. This was felt by many as being counter to the open and transparent spirit of a wiki. Esperanza was nominated for deletion twice. A deletion request in November 2006 failed to reach consensus. A second deletion request in December 2006 resulted in a decentralisation of Esperanza, where those programs which were felt to be of merit were spun off as independent projects, and the main page was to be made into an essay about its fate. The deletion debate result was upheld in a deletion review in January 2007.

A list of Esperanza's programs can be seen on Wikipedia talk:Esperanza.

This essay serves as a warning to all editors that existing projects must be open and transparent to all editors at all times, not to be overly hierarchical lest they are to meet a fate similar to Esperanza's.