Hi all,
I subscribed to that mailing list since its beginning, but didn't
get involved in it yet. I've just checked about all the previous
messages ;-)
I am a French wikipedian, and would like to tell you about a pretty
old project: a wiki encyclopedia designed for children.
It seems that this list mainly focus on Wikipedia-editing in higher
education and to a lesser extent, offline content from Wikipedia for
children, with the "Wikipedia for Schools" selection.
However, I noticed this message:
Le 20/04/2011 03:31, Nikhil Sheth a écrit :
The 2008/09 edition of Wikipedia for Schools is very
good, but also limited in that it has only 5500+ articles
(contrast with Wikipedia en latest selection that has 45000+) and
many times topics we need aren't there.
(...)
I got Okawix and downloaded Simple Wikipedia package
for offline - it's got many articles in simpler language and can
be very useful for lower-age children. But it's uncensored and so
unusable. Is it possible to start a simple wikipedia project to
collect the for-schools articles, or better yet just filter out
inappropriate ones?
The idea of a equivalent of Wikipedia for children was discussed in
particular in 2005-2006 on this page :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids
Although it had no continuation as a Wikimedia project, wikis with
such a feature were launched first in Dutch: WikiKids;
in french a few month later: Vikidia
(article on Wikipedia)
and then in Spanish Vikidia in
spanish. I opened Vikidia.
WikiKids and Vikidia in French are doing well and are quite alike in
size and activity, whereas Vikidia in Spanish doesn't make it so
well.
On Vikidia in French, we currently have a guest-book opened, and the
comments
left on it are quite encouraging.
Children say they appreciate the article to be more readable for
them than on Wikipedia, their main reserve being that some article
are not developed enough, or that there isn't articles on every
subject they would like to know about... They clearly expect (and
claim) some substantial content, though it has to be easier than the
wikipedia's content.
We have yet a bit more than 10 000 articles in Vikidia in French,
and about 220 000 unique visitors a month.
This "Wikikids" question was mentioned again in the Wikimedia scope
one year ago there: meta:2010
Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content: Part
Two#Recommendations: Controversial Text:
************************************
Because of the considerations outlined above, our recommendations
surrounding text in WMF projects are the following:
It is recommended:
(...)
3. That, however, the Foundation investigate the creation of a
“WikiJunior” version of the Wikipedias, aimed at children under
the age of 12, either as a stand-alone project or in partnership
with existing and appropriate educational institutions.
Explanations:
(...)
Recommendations 2 and 3
(...) Much more successful, in our opinion, is a project
specifically targeted to children, and to the quite different
needs of children in different age groups. Some projects of this
nature have already been begun in the WikiJunior section of
WikiBooks,[3] but it is our feeling that the scope of such a
venture might necessitate the formation of partnerships with
institutions who have experience and resources already devoted to
this area.
************************************
...to which I had this
response on meta:User talk:Sj.
Another feature of WikiKids/Vikidia is of course that it let
children be involved in building the content, and does not "only"
aim to produce and offer content for children, for the same benefits
that you can find in Wikipedia-editing workshops for students. There
is both some school projects and volunteer children editing on
Vikidia along with teenagers, students and adult writers.
My question is of course: why is there no equivalent in
English yet ? ;-)
(And if you are Spanish speaker or if you know people that would be
interested in it, please tell them about http://es.vikidia.org ; I
would be glad that there is new people involved in it, or even take
it in charge.)
Greetings,
--
Mathias Damour
[[User:Astirmays]] on fr:wp, en:wp and Vikidia
49 rue Carnot
74000 Annecy
France
00 (33)4 57 09 10 56
00 (33)6 27 13 65 51
mathias.damour@laposte.net