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by tene 3081 days ago
The most comprehensive document I've happened to personally encounter discussing complaints with Esperanto is http://jbr.me.uk/ranto/index.html . I am not an Esperanto speaker, so I can't speak to the veracity of the complaints there, but when I've seen it linked before, I don't recall seeing people contradict it or claim it's from an inaccurate perspective.
3 comments

Again as an Esperanto-speaker, I can say that my only problem with this document is that it can come across as a bit snarky and mean-spirited, but this is pretty well addressed by the disclaimer http://jbr.me.uk/ranto/#00e

I have heard other Esperantists describe the document as maybe harsher than it needs to be, grouping in the mountains with the mole-hills, but I think most of the things it describes are pretty uncontroversially considered to be flaws with respect to the language's original intent. Most of the speakers I interact with would say, "Yes, but what's your point?" But on the other hand, neither I nor the Esperantists I interact with regularly tend to be the types that think Esperanto still has a viable chance of becoming a true international language: we simply think it's a fun language to learn and speak. So it's possible that more radical Esperantists would disagree with our position there!

I found it interesting the last time this came up on HN (not very long ago) to see http://jbr.me.uk/ranto/j.html, which includes several examples of the "boato" phenomenon.
I am an Esperanto speaker. Before I started learning Esperanto, I read that document. Now, I can say that a lot, if not most, of that document is FUD.