The Spanish Wikipedia ( es, Wikipedia en español) is a

Spanish-language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...

edition of

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

, a free online

encyclopedia An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

. It has articles. Started in May 2001, it reached 100,000 articles on March 8, 2006 and 1,000,000 articles on May 16, 2013. It is the -largest Wikipedia as measured by the number of articles and has the 4th-most edits. It also ranks 12th in terms of depth among Wikipedias.

History

In February 2002,

Larry Sanger Lawrence Mark Sanger (; born July 16, 1968) is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded the online encyclopedia Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined the name and wrote much of Wikipedia's original governin ...

wrote an e-mail to a mailing list stating that

Bomis Bomis ( to rhyme with "promise") was a dot-com company best known for supporting the creations of free-content online-encyclopedia projects Nupedia and Wikipedia. It was co-founded in 1996 by Jimmy Wales, Tim Shell, and Michael Davis. ...

was considering selling advertisements on Wikipedia. Edgar Enyedy, a user on the Spanish Wikipedia, criticized the proposal. Jimmy Wales and Sanger responded by saying that they did not immediately plan to implement advertisements, but Enyedy began establishing a

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...

. Enciclopedia Libre was established by February 26, 2002. Enyedy persuaded most of the Spanish Wikipedians into going to the fork. By the end of 2002, over 10,000 articles were posted on the new site, and the Spanish Wikipedia was inactive for the rest of the year.

Andrew Lih Andrew Lih (; born 1968)Andrew Lih
"

Lih Lithium hydride is an inorganic compound with the formula Lithium, LiHydride, H. This alkali metal hydride is a colorless solid, although commercial samples are grey. Characteristic of a Hydride#Ionic hydrides, salt-like (ionic) hydride, it has a ...

, p. 138. The general popularity of Wikipedia attracted new users to the Spanish Wikipedia who were unfamiliar with the fork and these users came by June 2003. By the end of that year the Spanish Wikipedia had over 10,000 articles. The size of the Spanish Wikipedia overtook that of the fork in the northern hemisphere in the fall of 2004. Lih stated in 2009 that the concepts of advertising and forking were still sensitive issues for the Wikipedia community because "It took more than a year for the Spanish Wikipedia to get back on its feet again" after the fork had been initiated. After the spin-off, the Spanish Wikipedia had very little activity until the upgrade to the Phase III of the software, later renamed

MediaWiki MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for MediaWi ...

, when the number of new users started to increase again. Both projects continue to co-exist, but the Spanish Wikipedia is by far the more active of the two. Estadísticas

Key dates

Enciclopedia Libre and Spanish Wikipedia article count

* March 16, 2001: Jimmy Wales announced the internationalization of Wikipedia. * May 11, 2001: The Spanish Wikipedia is established along with eight other wikis. Its first domain was spanish.wikipedia.com. * May 21, 2001: The oldest known article, Anexo:Países (English translation: Countries of the world), is created. * February 26, 2002: many contributors left to form the

Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español (English: Universal Free Encyclopedia in Spanish) is a Spanish-language wiki-based online encyclopedia, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. It uses the MediaWiki software. It started as a fork of the Spa ...

, rejecting perceived censorship and the possibility of advertising on the Bomis-supported Wikipedia. * October 23, 2002: the domain spanish.wikipedia.com is changed to es.wikipedia.org. * June 30, 2003: the mailing list for the Spanish Wikipedia is created (Wikies-l). * October 6, 2003: first bot created on this Wikipedia. Its user name is SpeedyGonzalez. * July 18, 2004: the Spanish edition switches to

UTF-8 UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit'' ...

, allowing any character to be used directly in forms. * December 9, 2004: it is decided that Wikipedia in Spanish will use free images only. * August 24, 2006: three checkusers are elected. Votaciones/2006/Creación del Comité de resolución de conflictos They can examine

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

es. * December 11, 2006: following a vote, the Arbitration Committee, whose local name is ''Comité de Resolución de Conflictos'' (CRC) is created. * June 11, 2007: last local image was erased, so all media are retrieved from

Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...

. * September 1, 2007: first local chapter of Wikimedia Foundation is created in a Spanish-speaking country (

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

). * December 13, 2008: it was decided to eliminate the stub template from Spanish Wikipedia. * March 25, 2009: the first oversighters are elected. They can delete edits so they cannot be seen even by regular administrators. * April 15, 2009: the Arbitration Committee is dissolved after a vote. Votaciones/2009/Sobre la disolución del Comité de Resolución de Conflictos * May 16, 2013: the Spanish Wikipedia became the seventh Wikipedia to cross the million article count. * January 20, 2019: the Spanish Wikipedia reaches the count of 1,500,000 articles.

Size and users

Most popular edition of Wikipedia by country

Wikipedia es - Page views by country over time

It has the second most users, after the

English Wikipedia The English Wikipedia is, along with the Simple English Wikipedia, one of two English-language editions of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was founded on January 15, 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition, and, as of , has the most arti ...

. However, it is ranked eighth for number of articles, below other Wikipedias devoted to languages with smaller numbers of speakers, such as

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

, French, Cebuano,

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

and

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

. In terms of quality, parameters such as article size (over 2 KB: 40%) show it as the second out of the ten largest Wikipedias after the German one. As of October 2012, Spanish Wikipedia is the fourth Wikipedia in terms of the number of edits, as well as the third Wikipedia by the number of page views. By country of origin, by September 2017, Spain was the main contributor to the Spanish Wikipedia (39.2% of edits). It is followed by Argentina (10.7%), Chile (8.8%), the Netherlands (8.4%), Mexico (7.0%), Venezuela (5.1%), Peru (3.5%), the United States (3.1%), Colombia (2.7%), Uruguay (1.3%) and Germany (1.1%). Note that a number of bots are hosted in the Netherlands. Among the countries where Spanish is either an official language or a ''de facto''

national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

have established local chapters of the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

Usage in Spain

Following a 2007 study by ''Netsuus'' (online market analysis enterprises) on the use of Wikipedia in Spain, it was revealed that most users consult Spanish Wikipedia (97%) compared to Wikipedias in other regional languages (2.17% for Wikipedia in

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

, 0.64% in Galician and 0.26% in

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

Differences from other Wikipedias

* The Spanish Wikipedia only accepts free images, and has rejected

fair use Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...

since 2004, after a public vote. :es:Wikipedia:Votaciones/2004/Usar sólo imágenes libres In 2006, it was decided to phase out the use of local image uploads and to exclusively use

for images and other media in the future. * Unlike the French and English Wikipedias, the Spanish Wikipedia does not have an

Arbitration Committee On Wikimedia Foundation projects, an Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) is a binding dispute resolution panel of editors. Each of Wikimedia's projects are editorially autonomous and independent, and some of them have established their own ArbComs w ...

. A local version was created in January 2007 (comprising seven members, chosen by public vote), and dissolved in 2009 after another vote. * Some templates, like the navigation templates, have been deprecated, being the only Wikipedia where it is forbidden to use these templates, instead relying on categories that perform the same function. * Terminology in Spanish: ** The equivalent to the English Wikipedia's

featured articles * For general information about "articles", see Article (disambiguation). * For the specific use in publishing, see Article (publishing) An article or piece is a written work published in a print or electronic medium. It may be for the purpos ...

and

good articles __NOTOC__ Click any of the topics above for a list of good articles on that topic. Good Articles ...

are '' artículos destacados'' and '' artículos buenos'' respectively. ** Following a vote in August 2004, administrators in the Spanish Wikipedia took the name of ''bibliotecarios'' (librarians). Other discarded options were ''usuarios especiales'' (special users) or ''basureros'' (janitors).

Evaluation and criticism

A comparative study by the '' Colegio Libre de Eméritos'', made by Manuel Arias Maldonado ( University of Malaga) and published in 2010, compared some articles with those of the English and

Wikipedias. It concluded that the Spanish version of Wikipedia was the least reliable of the three. It found it to be more cumbersome and imprecise than the German and English Wikipedias, stated that it often lacked reliable sources, including much unreferenced data, and found it to be too dependent on online references. During

Wikimania 2009 Wikimania is the Wikimedia movement's annual conference, organized by volunteers and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, other wikis, open-source software, f ...

, free-software activist

Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...

criticized the Spanish Wikipedia for restricting links to the Rebelion.org left-wing web site and allegedly banning users who had complained about what had happened. Participants in the Spanish Wikipedia responded that Rebelion.org is primarily a

news aggregator In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, podc ...

, that links to aggregators should be replaced with links to original publishers whenever possible, and that they considered the issue to be one of

spam Spam may refer to: * Spam (food), a canned pork meat product * Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages ** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages ** Messaging spam, spam targeting users of instant messaging ( ...

. According to a 2013

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

study, five of the ten most disputed pages on the Spanish Wikipedia were football (soccer) clubs, including Club América,

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Founded ...

, Athletic Bilbao,

Alianza Lima Club Alianza Lima, popularly known as Alianza Lima or simply Alianza, is a Peruvian professional sports club based in La Victoria District of Lima, Peru. It is widely known for having one of the most historical and successful football teams i ...

, and

Newell's Old Boys Club Atlético Newell's Old Boys () is an Argentine sports club based in Rosario, Santa Fe. The club was founded on 3 November 1903, and is named after Isaac Newell of the English county of Kent, one of the pioneers of Argentine football. A ...

.Gross, Doug.
Wiki wars: The 10 most controversial Wikipedia pages
."

''

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

''. July 24, 2013. Retrieved on July 26, 2013. In 2022, several Spanish cultural and political figures published a manifesto alleging a "lack of neutrality and ... obvious political bias in he SpanishWikipedia" and claimed that the Spanish Wikipedia is "edited by people who, hiding behind anonymous editor accounts, take the opportunity to carry out political activism, either by including data erroneous or false, or selecting news from the media with a clear political and ideological bias, which refer to controversial, distorted, insidious or inaccurate information". The Spanish Wikipedia has been criticized for offering a whitewashed coverage of

Cristina Kirchner Cristina is a female given name, and it is also a surname. Notable people with the name include: Given name *Cristina (daughter of Edward the Exile), 11th-century English princess *Cristina (singer), Cristina Monet-Palaci (1956–2020), American s ...

. In September 2022 a manifesto signed by Juan Carlos Girauta,

Álvaro Vargas Llosa Álvaro Vargas Llosa (born 18 March 1966) is a Peruvian-Spanish writer and political commentator and public speaker on international affairs. He is also the writer and presenter of a documentary series for National Geographic Channel on contempo ...

Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo y Peralta-Ramos, 15th Marchioness of Casa Fuerte, MP (born 15 October 1974 in Madrid) is a Spanish journalist, historian, and politician of the People's Party. She has served as Member of the Congress of Deputies sin ...

Joaquín Leguina Joaquín Leguina Herrán (born 5 May 1941) is a Spanish politician and writer. A member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) he became the first President of the Community of Madrid, serving from 1983 and 1995. He also was Secretary-Gen ...

, Albert Rivera, Daniel Lacalle and

Toni Cantó Antonio Cantó García del Moral, known as Toni Cantó (born 14 January 1965) is a Spanish actor, current People's Party politician and former Citizens deputy and spokesman, who represented Valencia Province in the Congress of Deputies from 20 ...

among others was published denouncing political bias in the Spanish Wikipedia.

References

Notes

* Lih, Andrew. '' The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia''. Hyperion,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. 2009. First Edition. (alkaline paper).

External links

* {{Wikipedias in Romance languages Internet properties established in 2001

Wikipedias by language Wikipedias in Romance languages