mathias.damour wrote:
I don't think that "fragmenting community and leaders" is a real danger now that several Wikipedia have reached such a huge size both in articles and in editors.
Some people have had the idea to make either special articles or a special wiki for children of each grade, or even for each grade AND each school. (because you would have to explain in a different way to a 9 years old child than to a 12 years old) see this discusion: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:Wikis_for_children) I feel that it would be "fragmenting community" and that one single encyclopedic wiki for 8 to 13 year old children and for one language is a fair middle.
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