mathias.damour wrote: Part of the complaint here falls in the "SOFIXIT" reply, but I would like to point out that you *can* provide links using Wiki markup to things like Aluminum like this: [[Wikijunior The Elements/Aluminum|Aluminum]]. It isn't quite so pretty looking or intuitive, but this is something that nearly everything on Wikibooks has to deal with. Certainly as a full blown Wikimedia sister project this wouldn't be as big of a problem, but it would be a problem even if you were using the Wikimedia incubator. I'm just trying to suggest an alternative that is already in development by individuals who are trying to develop content explicitly written for children. I have serious doubts about the ability of children to get involved in this process, other than to the extent that they already are involved with Wikimedia projects. There are minors (including some that have administrator access... as discussed in some earlier threads) who are involved with Wikipedia content (and a few I suspected on Wikibooks as well), but these tend to be kids that are exceptionally motivated. And they participate on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects as peers to everybody else who is a contributor, with no special distinction. While the idea of having kids write for kids sounds appealing on paper, a bunch of 4th graders write like... well... a bunch of 4th graders. They are still trying to learn the basic mechanics of writing, and ought to be learning how to write from those who have already mastered the skill, not from those who are still apprentices in the subject. I digress if you think some contributors on Wikipedia don't know how to write, but that more or less proves my point as well. What I'm trying to point out is that those who are involved with Wikijunior were not even contacted about this idea in the first place when the idea was originally brought up on Meta, and suggestions on Meta to look at the Wikijunior project as perhaps something to work with were met with incredible hostility by those suggesting this Wikikids project. This doesn't have to be an either-or situation, as I believe the sum is healthier than the individual parts alone. It is the leadership and communications that I'm talking about, for a very diffuse community that has shown some struggles in the past. That is not really fair for the Simple English community, and attempts have been made to create similar groups for other major languages, with Simple Spanish as one I've seen proposed on Meta as well. I would agree that your goals are quite a bit different than the Simple English community, as they are explicitly trying to write for adults who don't have a grasp of the English Language due to the fact that they are still learning the language. This is similar to adult literacy vs. child literacy teaching methods. I don't think they are quite so different in the end, but this is approaching the subject (simplified content) from very different directions. I hope that you have been to see the French Wikijunior project (http://fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior), while not as complete as the English Wikijunior, does have some content that can be used on Vikidia. And that is part of what I'm trying to suggest here is that there are content developers with Wikibooks (working on the French Language edition of Wikijunior) that aren't even aware of Vikidia. This is something that can and should change. I am presuming that you are writing about this because you want to seek input from the Wikimedia community, and would like to enlist support for those who might want to get involved with a project of this nature. I'm merely suggesting here that there are individuals who may want to join in this sort of project, and you should try to join with these efforts. There have been some attempts in the past to move Wikijunior to a completely separate project and domain name, including forming Wikijunior as a completely independent Wikimedia sister project. One of these proposals, and not rejected by the Wikijunior community, was to move to a more Wikipedia-like format of articles rather than the themed collections organized into books such as currently exist on Wikibooks. Please ask those involved with the development of Wikijunior to at least comment on your ideas. For English Wikijunior, the best place is at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Talk:Wikijunior What all this concept is lacking is a very motivated leader who is willing to take the next step and demonstrate that there is a large concensus among those want to go this route. And unlike the problems that existed with Wikiversity on Wikibooks, there is virtually nobody who wants to see Wikijunior "kicked off" of Wikibooks. Wikijunior enjoys a nearly independent existence without having to worry about the project overhead of maintaining a separate group of admins, and a strongly symbiotic relationship exists as well between Wikibooks and Wikijunior to bring new users and contributors to both projects. I think that Wikijunior would struggle with a great many issues if it had an independent existence at the moment that it doesn't have to worry about right now. Robert Horning

mathias.damour wrote: Having separate articles for kids in different grades, rather than having a single project covering a broad age range is not about the information; it's about reading levels which can change considerably between 8 and 13 years old. Where a child finds the material too difficult, he can be completely turned off from reading. A local school librarian explained to a meeting of parents how this can be a factor for choosing books for school libraries. One thing they try to do, in addition to stocking the library with Harry Potter books is to choose other books with similar themes, but with a less demanding vocabulary. These books can be recommended to poor readers so that they can feel involved in that type of story, and can be encouraged to keep reading. Ec