Kids of reading age have free access to all content of the world and decide on their own what is of interest for them. This is true now for at least one full generation. And the result? We have the least violence between kids and the most peaceful generation since humanity exists.

Specific educational content, aimed at certain age brackets does not invalidates my claim, because this content is produced to raise interest in topics. I speak of intrinsic motivation to learning and all of us remember how we went far beyond "age appropriate" content to learn, when we were motivated. I want our content to be available to everyone, who is actively searching for and reading it.

As soon as I could read, my parents put the family 20-volume Brockhaus encyclopedia on the lower shelves in the living room. And I was fascinated by the images of the human body that developed from page to page from the outside of the nude body over a skinned body with the muscles showing, the inner organs and arterial system to the bare skeleton. When I had read almost all the children and most of the youth books in our small branch library I ventured into the non-fiction section and read voraciously through whatever I wanted that day. The librarians knew me by then of course, and occasionally had to override the computer for me to borrow books that were marked for a higher age bracket (the Munich municipal library system has long since abandoned marking books for certain ages but back then they did).

Please do not even discuss this with law-makers, the communities will not follow you.

Henning

Am 01.06.2023 12:33 schrieb Dimi Dimitrov <dimi@wikimedia.be>:

Hi Henning,

Just to put you at ease: I am not making such a proposal currently, but I want to discuss options at Wikimania and other community events.

I must however correct you on "Educational content is per se suitable for all ages". This is simply not true. Most educational is written with very specific age groups in mind. A three year old will learn from a specific category of books (most of them clearly marked with an age recommendation), while certain other topics (including sexual education, drugs, violence) are introduced in educational materials targeted at older kids. I know of no educational system in the world that doesn't apply some sort of age appropriate structure.

Dimi

Le jeu. 1 juin 2023 à 12:23, Henning Schlottmann <h.schlottmann@gmx.net> a écrit :
Hi,

Am 01.06.2023 10:17 schrieb Dimi Dimitrov <dimi@wikimedia.be>:

Another general solution I personally like is to move age-verification to the device or browser. [...] In this scenario the community would need to provide metadata/categorisation for sensitive content. Not sure it is feasible, but this is a universal approach that doesn't require the hovering up of user data.

I don't want to consider this. Educational content is per se suitable for all ages and should be exempt from any such demand. There is no age for which educational content is "dangerous".

And Dimi, please do not support any such proposal towards law-makers, because the communities will not follow you. I promise you, and everyone on this list, that all mayor projects will not categorize content for "appropriate age". I for one will prefer to shut down Wikipedia over censoring access to our work.

Henning
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