About Txikipedia: the age range is 8-12, but is more 10-12 than 8-9. The problem is that some of the writers are 8-9 years old, so their content is quite simple.

Basque language readers are concentrated in a narrow area. We are in two different states, and three different education administrations, but we share a common curriculum and things may be different from a school to another, but not so different as Alabama-London (following your example).

When I read French Vikidia I think that most of the contents are still too difficult for 8-9 years old students, but French education system maybe more advanced in some issues. Or it might be that Vikidia is centered in 8-13 years old, and 13 years old readers are way better reading and understanding texts. Klexikon seems very suitable, but it's logical, since it is written by educators, and not children or whoever wants to write. When we make courses with university students who will be the next primary school teachers, they write longer articles, but not necessarily better. The main goal there is to explain things as easily as possible, and not granting anything for known. We advise them to write shorter sentences, without dependencies and to explain all technical concepts inline, if possible. Also, they normally add boxes of "did you know?" so they can add a layer for curious children.

The last issue is accuracy. When you simplify a text, you might sacrifice accuracy, but these shouldn't collide with truth/neutrality. A good example would be: "Nearly all animals have a mouth, you have a mouth, so you are an animal. There are some animals that don't have a mouth: sponges. You may know sponges from cartoon, and there they have a mouth, but not in reality. Be aware that the sponge you use at home may be human-made.". Well, this is an example from the article about animals that is both correct and simple.

Best

Galder
From: WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2022 3:56 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia
 
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

WSC

On Thu, 23 Jun 2022 at 13:03, <wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to
        wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit
        https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikimedia-l.lists.wikimedia.org/

You can reach the person managing the list at
        wikimedia-l-owner@lists.wikimedia.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Wikimedia-l digest..."

Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Small joyy: Txikipedia  of the da(Neurodivergent Netizen)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2022 17:13:33 -0700
From: Neurodivergent Netizen <idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com>
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <8C62ADA1-09EE-46FF-B27D-389B6BB3E54C@gmail.com>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
        boundary="Apple-Mail=_9EEB7F4B-E2E5-42FB-AED5-C7C07107CEF2"

>> That wouldn't be a wise choice that WMF host such a wiki if it brings the risk of being legaly attacked on that ground, even for bad reasons and unsuccessfully, whereas it never happened to Vikidia in 15 years (and very few kind of bad buzz like "look what they teach to the children").

And of course, any WMF-affiliated wiki would be more at-risk simply because of the association with the more well-known Wikipedia.

> The document is not really public yet. :-)

I think I can wait until it’s public and proofread. :-)

From,
I dream of horses
She/her





> On Jun 22, 2022, at 1:45 PM, Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
> At the moment I am working on a document that extensively explains how
> we work on the Klexikon. If someone is interested, please send me a
> private message. The document is not really public yet. :-)
> Kind regards
> Ziko
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Klexikon
>
> Am Mi., 22. Juni 2022 um 19:27 Uhr schrieb Mathias Damour
> <mathias.damour@gmx.fr>:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> De: "Neurodivergent Netizen" <idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com>
>> I think a particular hurdle for a standalone WMF-affiliated kidipedia project is the COPPA, and other similar laws both in the US and elsewhere that could potentially increase civil liability. Another hurdle is that America is very aware, perhaps overly aware, of the potential safety risks when children are involved in websites. Then you add in the fact that kids are likely to continue editing Wikipedia instead of Kidipedia, and it’s not worth the extra effort.  This effort would include hiring/reassigning staff so you can have a team of people for just Kidipedia, along with the background checks and identity verification needed. None of that are obstacles that aren’t in the way of kids editing the existing projects.
>>
>> I predict a WMF-affiliated kidipedia would largely be abandoned quite quickly.
>>
>> You are probably right. I would say COPPA may not be the biggest hurdle, yet the british "UK Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006" is another one, and moreover the fact that "America is very aware, perhaps overly aware, of the potential safety risks when children are involved in websites" (and I would also say that "America" weight more the right of parents to control what is taught to their children and less the right of the children to inform themselves - the latter being upheld by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the US didn't ratificate - compared to other countries).
>> We reviewed it on https://en.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Legal_matters
>>
>> That wouldn't be a wise choice that WMF host such a wiki if it brings the risk of being legaly attacked on that ground, even for bad reasons and unsuccessfully, whereas it never happened to Vikidia in 15 years (and very few kind of bad buzz like "look what they teach to the children").
>>
>> You tell about "hiring/reassigning staff so you can have a team of people for just Kidipedia", well, that's quite exactly the point I adressed on this blog post :
>> Vikidia, l’anti-professionnalisation
>> https://www.wikimedia.fr/vikidia-lanti-professionnalisation/
>> ...to tell that the vision of children needing to be only alongside their closed family and professionals workers - and that it should be the same if a wiki for children is set (that we would need professionnal educators either to write the articles, to design the project or to manage the community or all that together) - did cause much delay to the wiki encyclopedias for children, and how we do otherwise on Vikidia.
>>
>> Reminder, the Wikikids project was developped on this page and subpages :
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids
>>
>> Envoyé: mercredi 22 juin 2022 à 12:37
>> De: "Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga" <galder158@hotmail.com>
>> À: "Wikimedia Mailing List" <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
>> Objet: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia
>> From our experience, is just the opposite: Wikipedia is not asking any extra step nor age confirmation, and legally you can have an account even if you are underage. Children are consulting Wikipedia without limits, and they can find adult content easily. We don't have any advice about that, nor filters at Commons, where you can find even porn using words that were not intended for that. The place is open, and we have massive visits from children, so providing them a better place, thought for them (as our strategic direction says) is better that not providing at all.
>>
>> I can only agree!
>>
>>
>> Mathias Damour
>> [[User:Astirmays]]
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>> Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/HS4SV6YSS5G7M4R53YJGFPGWHX24GMP3/
>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/IZDXGSZXB7ZPMLCNVBISGRI5XP7EAQHS/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

-------------- next part --------------
A message part incompatible with plain text digests has been removed ...
Name: not available
Type: text/html
Size: 7679 bytes
Desc: not available

------------------------------