Dear all,
I want to start a new Wikiproject called Wikikids. After a starting phase
it should be a Wikipedia from children for children. The following proposal
I posted at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids an
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikikids but
there seems to be no reaction. It would be great if we can discuss this at
the projects discussion page at Meta.
Wikikids should be a Wikipedia-version for children aged between eight an
sixteen years. After a starting phase when adults will construct the Wiki
together with children it should be a Wikipedia from children for children.
The idea is to have articles in a simple language without much scientific
words and other stuff. The themes should be specific for children´s interests.
The idea occured in the german Wikipedia a couple of months ago. There are
a lot of ideas and problems to discuss as well. But there´s no way to solve
them in a theoretical way so it will be perfect to have a start and take a
look what will grow in it.
The starting phase
As a new project Wikikids will have the same starting problems any other
project has too. It is thought, that Wikikids will be a Wikipedia in the
full control of kids between 8 and 16 years old and also the sysos of this
project will be children too. At the starting phase there will be some
adults to help constructing the Wiki and get a start in writing the
articles, but that should be as long as there are enough children to take
control. From that time on, adults will be allowed to write articles
inbetween the rules of Wikikids (first of all: simple language), but they
will be users like any others under the control of children administration.
Problems
There are some problems to be discussed, but I think, it will be possible
to handle them. For example there should be the problems of
* what is an encyclopedia, what kind of aricles should be find in an
encyclopedia?
* how about the copyrights of articles and pictures?
* ...
Articles
A lot of articles should be interesting for children and should be found in
the Wikikids. Some examples may be:
* Information about school
* Sports
* Animals
* Collecting Stamps etc.
* Computer and Computergames
* Games like "Magic, The Gathering", "Pokémon" ...
* Musik and Bands
* Television
* Love (how about Sex fundamentals)
Internationality
Like all other Wikimedia projects this project should be an international
linkd one. For a start, there would be a german project (there are enough
people to start) an maybe an englisch one, bur it will grow like Wikipedia.
Interwiki should be able to other Wikikids and Wikipedia.
Greetings from Berlin, Germany
Achim Raschka aka Necrophorus