Enciclopedia Libre

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The Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español is a Spanish language wiki encyclopedia, released under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses the MediaWiki software.

Enciclopedia Libre screenshot of April 1, 2006.
Enciclopedia Libre screenshot of April 1, 2006.

Contents

[edit] History

The Enciclopedia Libre was founded by contributors to the Spanish-language Wikipedia who decided to start an independent project. Led by Edgar Enyedy, they left Wikipedia on February 26, 2002, and seeded the new website, provided by the University of Seville for free, with the freely licensed articles of the Spanish-language Wikipedia.

[edit] Reasons for the split

The reasons for the split as explained on Enciclopedia Libre are listed at Enciclopedia:Por qué estamos aquí y no en es.wikipedia.org (in Spanish, under GFDL). Key issues included concerns about censorship and the possibility of advertising on Wikipedia.

Below is a translation of this page from Enciclopedia Libre:

The principal motive for the project's separation lies in our rejection of censorship, of an editorial line, and of including advertising.

Critical voices were censored and the opinions of editors with administrative power continually used personal wording.

The commercial venture Bomis, Inc., owner of the wikipedia.com domain name, announced the possibility of hosting advertisements on wikipedia's pages. Moreover, this idea struck us as unfortunate, as it implied the existence of a commercialization of the selfless work of volunteers to profit Bomis, Inc.

Bomis, Inc. was asked for explanations, and for a promise not to include advertising in the Spanish wikipedia.

They neither gave explanations nor made any sort of promise and, in addition, they maintained an arrogant attitude out of line with what we understand should be respect among people and cultures, given that it was based on a supposed superiority.

In the face of this attitude, we have preferred to abandon that project and begin another from scratch, basing it on the following platform:

  • This encyclopedia is protected under GFDL.
  • This encyclopedia will not host any advertising.
  • This encyclopedia will not be directed by editors who censor and impose an editorial line.
  • Culture should not be a commercial object.
  • Everybody has the right to access culture freely.
  • Having been born in one society or another depends not on individual merit, but only on chance.
  • The chance of place and time of birth cannot serve as basis for any negative discrimination.
  • No culture is superior to any other.

[edit] Possibility of a merger

In October 2002, an effort led by Wikipedia editor Daniel Mayer (who goes by the username Maveric149) and others was made to reunite the projects, but the participants of Enciclopedia Libre voted against reunification before Wikipedia could offer a reunification proposal. The users of Enciclopedia Libre did, however, leave open the possibility for a future merger and expressed an interest in maintaining lines of communication. This episode also sparked a great deal of discussion about the role of the non-English speaking Wikipedias and has led to several changes and planned changes wanted by the non-English speaking Wikipedia communities.

Several talks have been made to make a merger. There also have been changes on Wikipedia and Enciclopedia Libre that may contribute to a merger:

  • Creation of a non-profit Wikipedia organization, known as Wikimedia Foundation;
  • Multilingual portal
  • Installation of MediaWiki software on Enciclopedia Libre

Like Wikipedia, the Enciclopedia Libre uses the GNU Free Documentation Licence, so material can be freely copied between the two provided attribution is preserved. In October and November 2003, the Spanish Wikipedia used a Wikipedian-designed bot to import articles from a dump of Enciclopedia Libre, but when the creator of this bot left Wikipedia due to a personal conflict, she took the bot with her.[citation needed]

[edit] Statistics

While Enciclopedia Libre initially grew much more rapidly than the Spanish Wikipedia, the Spanish Wikipedia overtook it in 2004. Since then, the Spanish Wikipedia has grown at a much greater rate, possibly because of greater media focus on the English Wikipedia and thus related projects. Currently, the Spanish Wikipedia hosts approximately eight times as many articles as Enciclopedia Libre.

Date Number
of entries in Enciclopedia Libre		 Approximate number of
entries in Spanish Wikipedia		 Date
11 March 2002 3,036 1,300 28 February 2002
2 April 2002 5,972 1,300 31 March 2002
1 May 2002 7,540 1,400 30 April 2002
27 May 2002 7,837 1,500 31 May 2002
13 June 2002 8,125 1,500 30 June 2002
13 July 2002 8,519
4 August 2002 8,658 1,500 31 July 2002
31 August 2002 8,996 1,500 31 August 2002
3 October 2002 9,362 1,600 30 September 2002
26 October 2002 10,258 1,900 31 October 2002
17 June 2003 14,250 3,700 30 June 2003
8 July 2003 14,428
2 August 2003 14,662 4,600 31 July 2003
6 September 2003 15,116 5,900 31 August 2003
2 November 2003 15,572 8,900 31 October 2003
6 December 2003 16,039 11,000 30 November 2003
20 March 2004 19,688 19,000 31 March 2004
6 November 2004 25,038 33,573 13 November 2004
25 September 2005 28,709 66,984 25 September 2005
27 February 2006 30,455 97,568 27 February 2006
9 April 2006 30,776 108,012 9 April 2006
3 July 2006 31,980 130,939 3 July 2006
1 October 2006 33,367 157,061 1 October 2006
3 January 2007 34,342 186,022 3 January 2007
1 April 2007 34,551 218,690 1 April 2007
1 July 2007 35,703 248,775 1 July 2007
2 October 2007 36,860 283,630 2 October 2007
1 January 2008 38,012 315,611 1 January 2008
2 April 2008 39,478 348,217 (source) 2 April 2008

[edit] See also

Other wiki and wiki-like encyclopedias:

[edit] External links and references



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