(English: Universal Free Encyclopedia in Spanish) was a
Spanish-language
Spanish () or Castilian () is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a world language, gl ...
wiki
A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...
-based
online encyclopedia
An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, is a digital encyclopedia accessible through the Internet. Some examples include pre-World Wide Web services that offered the '' Academic American Encyclopedia'' beginning in 1980, Enc ...
that started as a
fork of the
Spanish Wikipedia
The Spanish Wikipedia () is the Spanish-language edition of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. It has articles. Started in May 2001, it reached 100,000 articles on 8 March 2006, and 1,000,000 articles on 16 May 2013. It is the -largest Wikip ...
, released under the
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0 and using the same
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...
software.
History
The was founded by contributors to the
Spanish Wikipedia
The Spanish Wikipedia () is the Spanish-language edition of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. It has articles. Started in May 2001, it reached 100,000 articles on 8 March 2006, and 1,000,000 articles on 16 May 2013. It is the -largest Wikip ...
who decided to start an independent project. Led by Edgar Enyedy, they left Wikipedia on 26 February 2002, and created the new website, provided by the
University of Seville
The University of Seville (''Universidad de Sevilla'') is a university in Seville, Andalusia, Spain. Founded under the name of ''Colegio Santa María de Jesús'' in 1505, in 2022 it has a student body of 57,214,U-Ranking Universidades español ...
for free, with the freely licensed articles of the Spanish Wikipedia.
The reasons for the split are explained on Enciclopedia Libre.
Key issues included concerns about censorship and the possibility of advertising on Wikipedia.
Edgar Enyedy stated the main reasons for splitting at that time as:
* Perceived expectation that Wikipedia would soon start hosting advertisements.
* Non-English Wikipedias were running older versions of
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...
.
* When national groups offered help in software development and maintenance, access to theservers was denied.
* The downloadable database dumps of Wikipedia content were highly outdated.
* Wikipedia was hosted on a
.com rather than a
.org domain.
Post-split history
In 2011, Enyedy said that the sole reason for the failure of as a long-term project was that it "was not intended to last. It was merely a form of pressure. Some of the goals were achieved, not all of them, but it was worth the cost." He further said "Nowadays, the romantic point of view is that EL survived and is still going strong." He argued that while the viewpoint is positive, it is not factual.
By late 2024 the site had ceased operations.
See also
*
*
Susning.nu (former Swedish wiki)
*
Baidu Baike
Baidu Baike (; zh, c= 百度 百科, p=Bǎidù Bǎikē, l=Baidu Encyclopedia, also known as Baidu Wiki) is a semi-regulated Chinese-language collaborative online encyclopedia owned by the Chinese technology company Baidu. Modelled after Wiki ...
(Chinese wiki)
*
List of online encyclopedias
This is a list of well-known online encyclopedias that are accessible or formerly accessible on the Internet.
The largest online encyclopedias are general reference works, though there are also many specialized ones. Some online encyclopedias ar ...
References
External links
*
Old websiteEL Taller— fork of Enciclopedia Libre
* Alvarez, Carlo
"Enciclopedias en Internet" ''
El País
(; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA.
It is the second-most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . is the most read newspaper in ...
''. 29 December 2005.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Enciclopedia Libre Universal En Espanol
History of Wikipedia
MediaWiki websites
Spanish online encyclopedias
Wiki communities
Internet properties established in 2002
Spanish-language websites
2002 establishments in Spain
University of Seville
21st-century encyclopedias
Wikipedia controversies