Hello WSC,
It is even more complicated: two 10 year olds may be not on the same level with regard to reading or knowledge of the world. The Klexikon has a "little sister", the MiniKlexikon with articles that are even more simple and targetted to beginning readers and people with specific challenges.
Ideally, one would have * an encyclopedia for the very young, that parents read to them, * an encyclopedia for the 8 to 13 year olds, the target group for many of the existing kids' wikis, * an encyclopedia for juvelines, 14 to 18 years * an encyclopedia for everyone; this is what "regular Wikipedia" should be, * an encyclopedia for specialists; this is what "regular Wikipedia" actually develops into. And maybe encylopedias for people with specific challenges such as dyslexia. You actually do not need millions of articles for a good encyclopedia, some thousand well written articles are enough.
It is sad that there is no more support for encyclopedias other than Wikipedia. As when it comes to news or fiction, there is not "one that fits everything/everybody".
Kind regards, Ziko
Am Do., 23. Juni 2022 um 15:57 Uhr schrieb WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com:
Hi,
I'm curious as to what level of reading skill you are writing this for and also what level of understanding/adulthood.
I see these as two different issues and both are likely to vary sharply especially between different countries with very different education systems.
A childrens' encyclopaedia written for nine year olds would surely be very different than one written for thirteen year olds. And content that parents of fourteen year olds thought was age inappropriate in Alabama might be thought appropriate or even bowdlerised by parents of ten year olds in London.
In other words, are you sure that one single childrens' encyclopaedia is the answer to either the problem of reading age or age appropriate content?
Where I think that Wikipedia could and should change re this is in our use of jargon. To my mind a "general interest" english language encyclopaedia should be written in plain English. I suspect other language versions have similar issues. Perhaps if we focussed more on this we would make it easier for those who wish to create childrens' versions.
Regards
WSCail to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org