Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español

WorldBrand briefing

AI supplement

Original synthesis to sit alongside the encyclopedia article below. Not part of Wikipedia; verify facts on Wikipedia when precision matters.

Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español (ELUE), often shortened to Enciclopedia Libre, is an independent Spanish-language free online encyclopedia. It originated as a fork from the Spanish Wikipedia in 2002, driven by community concerns about potential commercialization and a perceived English-centric governance structure within the Wikimedia ecosystem.

Key moments

February 2002Founded as a fork from the Spanish Wikipedia by Edgar Enyedy and other contributors, citing fears of future commercial advertising and lack of control over the Spanish edition's direction.
October 2002Participants of ELUE voted against a proposal to merge back with Wikipedia, choosing to remain independent while leaving open the possibility of future reunification.

Ideological Drivers of the Fork

ELUE's creation was rooted in core concerns about the autonomy and non-commercial integrity of free knowledge projects. Spanish Wikipedia contributors were wary of ties between Wikipedia's early parent entity (Bomis, a commercial web portal) and the risk of advertising being introduced to the platform. They also criticized an English-dominated decision-making framework that sidelined non-English language communities, arguing that local contributors should have full control over policies relevant to their language edition. This led to a deliberate split to build a community-governed alternative centered on Spanish-language content and values.

Impact on Wikimedia Governance

The ELUE fork had lasting effects on the Wikimedia movement. It highlighted the need for greater representation and autonomy for regional language editions, prompting structural reforms that granted more decision-making power to non-English Wikipedia communities. While ELUE remained independent, its existence served as a reminder of the challenges of balancing global coordination with local needs in collaborative online knowledge initiatives, influencing how multilingual open content projects approach governance and community engagement.

Overview

Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español

registration
screenshot	Portada El spanish 01-04-06.png
url	http://enciclopedia.us.es/
type	Wiki, online encyclopedia
language	Spanish
author	Edgar Enyedy
owner	University of Seville
commercial	No

History

content license	Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike 3.0

num users	3,921 registered users, 1 active (September 2023)‡R1R‡‡R2R‡

programming language	MediaWiki, made in PHP

current status	Inactive

The Enciclopedia Libre was founded by contributors to the Spanish Wikipedia 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 for free, with the freely licensed articles of the Spanish Wikipedia.

The reasons for the split are explained on Enciclopedia Libre.[3] Key issues included concerns about censorship and the possibility of advertising on Wikipedia.[4] 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.

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

The project largely failed to catch on, but was successful in convincing Wikipedia to make several changes, such as its migration from wikipedia.com to wikipedia.org. In 2011, Enyedy said that the sole reason for the failure of Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español 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.[5] By late 2024 the site had ceased operations altogether.

Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español

WorldBrand briefing

Ideological Drivers of the Fork

Impact on Wikimedia Governance

History

Post-split history

See also

External links

References