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YOUR ARTICLE'S DESCRIPTIVE TITLE HERE

When someone reads Wikipedia:Cabals they often think of how preposterous it would be if Wikipedia had a cabal. There is so much discussion as to making Wikipedia less bureaucratic and tons of proposals are rejected at the village pump just because they promote bureaucracy and/or a unnecessary hierarchy. This is the story of what happened when a WikiProject intended to promote WikiLove and kindness became a cabal that overshadowed the rest of Wikipedia. Someone who has been reading the Signpost for a while might have read the 2019 reruns; however, few know the intricacies of Wikipedia's former cabal, Esperanza.

Beginnings

[edit]

The Esperanza Association, was a WikiProject was created in a proposal by JCarriker as a way to spread WikiLove/Kindness and was first mentioned in the Signpost on September 2005 in an article that would eventually run again in in February 2019. Esperanza was created with a huge unnecessary hierarchy from the start as a way to make the group seem like a miniature version of the larger English Wikipedia in order to make the project more "approachable". However, the project would be doomed from the start because the project's membership requirements would prohibit new users from joining; thus, the bureaucracy actually made the project less approachable because it was so exclusive and cabal-like.

Esperanza's Bureaucracy

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The defining bureaucratic element of Esperanza was its Charter. The Charter was created the cabal, not what governed it; meaning although the Charter was supposed to act as a constitution, it was so overly broad that the Esperanza Bureaucracy could do whatever it wanted.

The membership of Esperanza is one of the first things that the Charter mentions and it states that editors must have made at least 150 edits and has been at Wikipedia for 2 weeks. These stringent rules for membership were enforced because membership of Esperanza was supposed to be exclusive. Although only less than 1% of all editors on Wikipedia were eligible to be an Esperanza member on January 1st, 2007 (when the project was decentralized), at least 10-20% of all editors in this range were apart of the project. This data reflects an astounding amount of eligible editors being involved in just one project.[1] There were 724 members and 10 members-to-be on January 1, 2020, when the project was decentralized.

In the first and second MfDs of Esperanza, the superiority and exclusivity of Esperanza was called into question by many non-members. Ultimately, the Charter had created clique.

Esperanza's bureaucracy was made up of two parts the Administrator General ("AdminGen") and the Advisory Council. The Advisory Council was made up of four members and two tranches (similar to the Arbitration Committee, but smaller). It isn't exactly clear how the Administrator General was elected, but it was likely a position elected by the Advisory Council (with the AdminGen being a member of the Advisory Council as well as holding their position as the coordinator of the project, similar to a Council-manager style of government). The Council ultimately made every decision in the project because its power was so broad (though proposals had to be made by a member of the project, which could be any).

One of the most problematic parts of Esperanza's Council meetings were help on a private IRC where only the council's members were allowed to communicate; thus giving no room for members/non-members to speak at the meetings. The logs of the IRC were only made available after the meeting was held, however there were two caveats to this. First, per Esperanza's Code-of-Conduct, users were never allowed to post the logs of the IRC, otherwise they risked being banned from the IRC; effectively censoring anyone who wished to speak out against any council decision on the IRC. Second, per Esperanza's Charter, the AdminGen controlled and owned the IRC by which the council communicated on.

Finally, critics of Esperanza often mentioned the project's democratic system that was detailed in the Charter which stated:

The Council can amend the charter, provided that discussion is held on the Esperanza talk page for one week prior to the amendment. Should there be dissent in that amendment from three or more Esperanza members, the amendment will require a straw poll of the membership.
— Esperanza Charter

The consensus building process was never used. To emphasize the importance of consensus, rather than voting, consensus requires a near-unanimity where people build off the ideas of others. In addition, only the members of Esperanza and its bureaucracy could make any decision pertained to the project; which ultimately disenfranchised those who the project pertained to and affected (ex. non-members and new users). Like all things in Esperanza, decisions were made only by the bureaucracy and members of the project, which is really just against every one of Wikipedia's values. To put in perspective, there are currently no community decisions (or otherwise community-affecting decisions) on Wikipedia that are only made by one group of people, excluding decisions by ArbCom and the WMF.

Esperanza at its peak

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Esperanza had many programs that it maintained; one of its most popular were its outreach programs that targeted new users like those similar to the Welcoming Committee. There, Esperanza members would help new users getting started with Wikipedia. These programs were the subject of scrutiny in the second MfD by the nominators: "... they’re targeting new and vulnerable users, who then see everything on Wikipedia through green-tinted lenses...". Programs like these possibly gave Esperanza fuel for new members; by the end of Esperanza, there were still 10 members-to-be listed on its members list (which has since been deleted), even though most of the outreach programs had already been deleted prior to the last MfD.

Although most of these programs already existed, Esperanza also had its own programs that were spinoffs of the Welcoming Committee, Kindness Campaign, etc. Esperanza should be given due credit, though, for a few programs that would eventually serve as the forerunners to the modern Birthday Committee and Editor Retention program.

Editors Bytes
Springeragh
129,212
DoomsDay349
99,982
GroovySandwich
92,661
The top 3 editors of the Coffee Lounge by bytes.


Esperanza also had a "Coffee Lounge" for casual discussion. The Lounge was the subject of criticism in its first and second MfD and would become a symbol of Esperanza's clique. The Coffee Lounge was supposed to a forum for casual discussion among the members of Esperanza. The Coffee Lounge also contained games (like tic-tac-toe, hangman, etc.) that the members could play. However, this page quickly became a forum that would distract Wikipedians from editing, instead of just a place to relax. According to the page statistics of Esperanza's Coffee Lounge, 903 edits were made only by the top 3 editors by edits. In addition, 321 kb of text were added only by the top 3 editors by bytes of the Coffee Lounge.


Editors Edits
Springeragh
396
GroovySandwich
266
DoomsDay349
241
The top 3 editors of the Coffee Lounge by edits.

Esperanza also may have functioned as an policy-determining group, as the revision history of the Esperanza news page suggests that Esperanza at least attempted to change policy on personal attacks.

Why Esperanza failed

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Esperanza failed because it undermined Wikipedia's core values. The point of Wikipedia was never to create a democracy and clique. In the end, Esperanza had turned into a dysfunctional political system.

Many users say that Esperanza failed because there was merely no need for such a WikiProject. However, in perspective, there was a need for such a WikiProject that would spread kindness during the time of Esperanza. In reality, the problem eventually became that the project's goals became to broad and the beaurocracy weighed down the project; thus causing the project to become sidetracked.

Hypothetically, a WikiProject without bureaucracy and without such large goals such as Esperanza but with the same intentions as it could probably stay around.

References

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It should be noted that there is not a lot we know about Esperanza since most of its pages (all pages except WP:ESP, WT:ESP,WP:ESP/P, WP:ESP/N, and a few others [possibly]) have been deleted in accordance with this MfD that decentralized the project however, because of Internet Archive, we are able to view just the most popular pages:

These pages are only a limited set of the pages archive.org has to offer: see here. You can find all of the former Esperanza pages by clicking on the links on the main page.

The Signpost was granted special access to some of these pages by Arbitration Committee Member GorillaWarfare that did not survive the MfD (and were not redirected). This page is a draft for the next issue of the Signpost. Below is some helpful code that will help you write and format a Signpost draft. If it's blank, you can fill out a template by copy-pasting this in and pressing 'publish changes': {{subst:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Story-preload}}


Images and Galleries
Sidebar images

To put an image in your article, use the following template (link):

TKTK
I understand the primacy of pure feeling in creative art.
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler image-v2
 |size      = 300px
 |fullwidth = no
 |alt       = TKTK
 |caption   = 
 |image     = 
}}

This will create the file on the right. Keep the 300px in most cases. If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes.

Inline images

Placing

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Inline image
 |size     = 300px
 |align    = center
 |alt      = TKTK
 |caption  = 
 |image    =
}}

(link) will instead create an inline image like below

TKTK
The significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth.
Galleries

To create a gallery, use the following

<gallery style="float:right;" mode=packed | heights=200px>
|TKTK
|TKTK
</gallery>

Each line inside the tags should be formatted like File:Whatever.jpg|Caption). This creates:

If you want it centered, remove tstyle="float:right;" from the first line.

Quotes
Framed quotes

To insert a framed quote like the one on the right, use this template (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler quote-v2
 |1         = 
 |author    = 
 |source    = 
 |fullwidth = 
}}

If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes.

Pull quotes

To insert a pull quote like

use this template (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Quote
 |1         = 
 |source    = 
}}
Long quotes

To insert a long inline quote like

The goose is on the loose! The geese are on the lease!
— User:Oscar Wilde
— Quotations Notes from the Underpoop

use this template (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/block quote
 | text   = 
 | by     = 
 | source = 
 | ts     = 
 | oldid  = 
}}
Side frames

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

A caption

Side frames help put content in sidebar vignettes. For instance, this one (link):

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler frame-v2
 |1         = Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
 |caption   = A caption
 |fullwidth = no
}}

gives the frame on the right. This is useful when you want to insert non-standard images, quotes, graphs, and the like.

Example − Graph/Charts
A caption

For example, to insert the {{Graph:Chart}} generated by

{{Graph:Chart
 |width=250|height=100|type=line
 |x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9
}}

in a frame, simple put the graph code in |1=

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler frame-v2
 |1=
{{Graph:Chart
 |width=250|height=100|type=line
 |x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9
}}
 |caption=A caption
 |fullwidth=no
}}

to get the framed Graph:Chart on the right.

If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes.

Two-column vs full width styles

If you keep the 'normal' preloaded draft and work from there, you will be using the two-column style. This is perfectly fine in most cases and you don't need to do anything.

However, every time you have a |fullwidth=no and change it to |fullwidth=yes (or vice-versa), the article will take that style from that point onwards (|fullwidth=yes → full width, |fullwidth=no → two-column). By default, omitting |fullwidth= is the same as putting |fullwidth=no and the article will have two columns after that. Again, this is perfectly fine in most cases, and you don't need to do anything.

However, you can also fine-tune which style is used at which point in an article.

To switch from two-column → full width style midway in an article, insert

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-end-v2}}
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-start-v2|fullwidth=yes}}

where you want the switch to happen.

To switch from full width → two-column style midway in an article, insert

{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-end-v2}}
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-start-v2|fullwidth=no}}

where you want the switch to happen.

Article series

To add a series of 'related articles' your article, use the following code

Related articles
Visual Editor

Five, ten, and fifteen years ago
1 January 2023

VisualEditor, endowment, science, and news in brief
5 August 2015

HTTPS-only rollout completed, proposal to enable VisualEditor for new accounts
17 June 2015

VisualEditor and MediaWiki updates
29 April 2015

Security issue fixed; VisualEditor changes
4 February 2015


More articles

{{Signpost series
 |type        = sidebar-v2
 |tag         = VisualEditor
 |seriestitle = Visual Editor
 |fullwidth   = no
}}

or

{{Signpost series
 |type        = sidebar-v2
 |tag         = VisualEditor
 |seriestitle = Visual Editor
 |fullwidth   = yes
}}

will create the sidebar on the right. If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes. A partial list of valid |tag= parameters can be found at here and will decide the list of articles presented. |seriestitle= is the title that will appear below 'Related articles' in the box.

Alternatively, you can use

{{Signpost series
 |type        = inline
 |tag         = VisualEditor
 |tag_name    = visual editor
 |tag_pretext = the
}}

at the end of an article to create

For Signpost coverage on the visual editor see the visual editor series.

If you think a topic would make a good series, but you don't see a tag for it, or that all the articles in a series seem 'old', ask for help at the WT:NEWSROOM. Many more tags exist, but they haven't been documented yet.

Links and such

By the way, the template that you're reading right now is {{Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue}} (edit). A list of the preload templates for Signpost articles can be found here.

  1. ^ Note: these statistics are not exact because the data gathered only compares the amount of editors that had made 100 edits to the total amount of active editors using stats.wikimedia.org: [1][2]. Therefore, there is no accurate way to know the percentage of editors involved in Esperanza, but the we do know more than 10% of all editors (who met the requirements for membership) were apart of Esperanza.