The English Wikipedia has a “plain language” wikipedia, the Simple English Wikipedia. It’s targeted not only towards children, but also towards people who aren’t fluent in English and/or have learning disabilities. A few “internet hack” memes say “If you can’t understand the Wikipedia article, change en to simple!” Basically, the English Wikipedia community has two very general-to-slightly-specialist encyclopedias.

Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed in years past that the Simple English Wikipedias’ activity level was, shall we say, wanting. I hope that’s changed; I suspect kids would enjoy learning to research for the purpose of writing on Simple before moving on to the so-called “real” English Wikipedia, but that might require some assistance that might not always exist offline. I think Simple would certainly be a good place to start making Wikipedia more accessible to 8-10 year olds.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 23, 2022, at 11:40 AM, Mathias Damour mathias.damour@gmx.fr wrote:

Hi,

De: "WereSpielChequers" werespielchequers@gmail.com 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?

There is one thing that is sure, that "one single childrens' encyclopaedia" is a great step for children (and often teenagers and older people) than having just Wikipedia available, and they love it.

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.

Yet there is not realistic hopes that the language of Wikipedia will change to be easier. That wouldn't address the fact the articles on general subjects are among the longest ones. It sounds a bit weird that a content for 12 yo would not fit well for a 8 yo, and then that Wikipedia could fit to children. The "reading level" of articles on Vikidia is not perfectly homogenous, nor their developpment is. They can be usefull for adult beginners on a subject just as a child can prefer Wikipedia on a subject he's fond of and allready informed. That was developped in this post (in english): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Documentation_and_Vikidia https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Documentation_and_Vikidia

De: "Ziko van Dijk" zvandijk@gmail.com mailto:zvandijk@gmail.com 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.

Most language don't have a single wiki encyclopedia for children or an under-developped one. So I guess that's not realistic nor wise to wish such a division in this work. So let's work on the allready allready launched ones ! (Especially the one of the Vikidia family of course ;) see https://www.vikidia.org/ )

You actually do not need millions of articles for a good encyclopedia, some thousand well written articles are enough.

Vikidia in French and Wikikids in Dutch are by far the biggest wiki encyclopedias for children, with about 35000 articles each. Yet young reader on the Vikidia's guestbook still ask for "more content", which certainly mean both enought developped articles (not just a few lines) and more subjects. So yes, we need, if not millions of articles, at least several dozens of thousands articles. Of course, we see that (as everywhere) 20 % of the articles make more than 80 % of the pageviews. But you can't really guess in advance which subject will be in the top 20 %.

De: "Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga" galder158@hotmail.com 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.

(...)

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.

Just as on Wikipedia, article don't have only one author. That makes them better, more accessible and accurate.

You can't just test an average child to write on such a wiki to tell if children and teenagers are able to participate to a wiki encyclopedia for several reasons : the 1% rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule) fully apply there (or less than 1%) regular editors are few but very motivated, they typically learn and are engaged for months and years, which is VERY different than having been trained to edit for one or two hours. A 12 yo with 2 years of participation, or a 15 yo with 3 years of experience are often very valuables editors, either as writer of for maintenance and community tasks.

Adults as well have to learn to write on Vikidia, be they educators or not. Just as it is well know that a journalist or a scientist, which are supposed to be skilled is writing articles, often don't fit immediatly with the style that is expected on Wikipedia.

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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

The thing is, as the main English Wikipedia more specialist, and therefore more complicated, we have a Simple English Wikipedia that we shouldn’t let languish in the hopes of creating a children's encyclopedia out of whole cloth.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 23, 2022, at 12:35 PM, Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga galder158@hotmail.com wrote:

I'm reading your points with great interest, and I don't want to become this a (literal) Encyclopedia selling. All the solutions (Klexikon, Vikidia, Wikimini, Wikijunior, Txikipedia) are part of the same reasoning: we can't write an Encyclopedia fitting all the readers at the same time. It's plainly impossible. And the trend for Wikipedia is to be more and more thick, specialized and complex, not the opposite. That's why children Encyclopedias are needed. Is not only about children writing, is considering them readers who can't understand some articles not because of the language used, but because the topic is explained for University level students and adult public with some previous knowledge on the topic.

Our point for Txikipedia is only that children are using Wikipedia, teachers are using it and their parents are using it. So making the effort in Vikidia or something like Klexikon would be fine, but it is more difficult for them to discover, because they need an adul that would tell them that it exists. And this is not so easy. When we launched Txikipedia we wanted to use the momentum of Wikipedia to make it easier to discover. This may be easier in an external website for large languages (where Google makes great), but for small languages is more difficult, especially when most of the computers in the schools are not configured in Basque (because Chromebooks aren't available in the language students are using in their classroom). So having both entry points (Txikipedia directly or Wikipedia in Basque and then Txikipedia) makes it easier. I don't know how much visits Vikidia has, I hope they are millions, but we are quite happy with nearly half a million visits year-to-date: https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/massviews/?platform=all-access&agent=user&... https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/massviews/?platform=all-access&agent=user&source=category&start=2022-01-01&end=2022-06-22&subjectpage=0&subcategories=0&target=https%3A%2F%2Feu.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FKategoria%3ATxikipedia&sort=views&direction=1&view=list&target=https://eu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategoria:Txikipedia.

At the end of the day, we need to talk about the big picture: how are we, as wikimedians, providing content for those who need it more and can't understand our great work.

Have a good solstice,

Galder From: Neurodivergent Netizen <idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com mailto:idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com> Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2022 9:15 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia

The English Wikipedia has a “plain language” wikipedia, the Simple English Wikipedia. It’s targeted not only towards children, but also towards people who aren’t fluent in English and/or have learning disabilities. A few “internet hack” memes say “If you can’t understand the Wikipedia article, change en to simple!” Basically, the English Wikipedia community has two very general-to-slightly-specialist encyclopedias.

Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed in years past that the Simple English Wikipedias’ activity level was, shall we say, wanting. I hope that’s changed; I suspect kids would enjoy learning to research for the purpose of writing on Simple before moving on to the so-called “real” English Wikipedia, but that might require some assistance that might not always exist offline. I think Simple would certainly be a good place to start making Wikipedia more accessible to 8-10 year olds.

From, I dream of horses She/her

...

On Jun 23, 2022, at 11:40 AM, Mathias Damour <mathias.damour@gmx.fr mailto:mathias.damour@gmx.fr> wrote:

Hi,

De: "WereSpielChequers" <werespielchequers@gmail.com mailto:werespielchequers@gmail.com> 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?

There is one thing that is sure, that "one single childrens' encyclopaedia" is a great step for children (and often teenagers and older people) than having just Wikipedia available, and they love it.

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.

Yet there is not realistic hopes that the language of Wikipedia will change to be easier. That wouldn't address the fact the articles on general subjects are among the longest ones. It sounds a bit weird that a content for 12 yo would not fit well for a 8 yo, and then that Wikipedia could fit to children. The "reading level" of articles on Vikidia is not perfectly homogenous, nor their developpment is. They can be usefull for adult beginners on a subject just as a child can prefer Wikipedia on a subject he's fond of and allready informed. That was developped in this post (in english): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Documentation_and_Vikidia https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Documentation_and_Vikidia

De: "Ziko van Dijk" zvandijk@gmail.com mailto:zvandijk@gmail.com 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.

Most language don't have a single wiki encyclopedia for children or an under-developped one. So I guess that's not realistic nor wise to wish such a division in this work. So let's work on the allready allready launched ones ! (Especially the one of the Vikidia family of course ;) see https://www.vikidia.org/ https://www.vikidia.org/ )

You actually do not need millions of articles for a good encyclopedia, some thousand well written articles are enough.

Vikidia in French and Wikikids in Dutch are by far the biggest wiki encyclopedias for children, with about 35000 articles each. Yet young reader on the Vikidia's guestbook still ask for "more content", which certainly mean both enought developped articles (not just a few lines) and more subjects. So yes, we need, if not millions of articles, at least several dozens of thousands articles. Of course, we see that (as everywhere) 20 % of the articles make more than 80 % of the pageviews. But you can't really guess in advance which subject will be in the top 20 %.

De: "Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga" <galder158@hotmail.com mailto:galder158@hotmail.com> 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.

(...)

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.

Just as on Wikipedia, article don't have only one author. That makes them better, more accessible and accurate.

You can't just test an average child to write on such a wiki to tell if children and teenagers are able to participate to a wiki encyclopedia for several reasons : the 1% rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule) fully apply there (or less than 1%) regular editors are few but very motivated, they typically learn and are engaged for months and years, which is VERY different than having been trained to edit for one or two hours. A 12 yo with 2 years of participation, or a 15 yo with 3 years of experience are often very valuables editors, either as writer of for maintenance and community tasks. Adults as well have to learn to write on Vikidia, be they educators or not. Just as it is well know that a journalist or a scientist, which are supposed to be skilled is writing articles, often don't fit immediatly with the style that is expected on Wikipedia.

Mathias Damour [[User:Astirmays]] _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/UHX6EVQUI233NCUHK2HE54HDOYOSSCUB/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

---

Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/W2I32LYX4BXDBD3USDCGBGMLESRUCQDZ/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

I think that SEWP was created like it is, partly by fear of creating a project openly directed to children, and I'm afraid it precisely make it not so compelling for them.

I think the solution is to make the Simple Wikipedia more appealable to kids, or at least more well-known to them and their parents, and not have a separate Wikipedia. Primarily, we could probably do a better job of promoting Simple internally, and it most likely wouldn’t hurt to double the SEO.

They may be a way to promote a existing (or to be launched) wiki encyclopedia for children, to "use the momentum of Wikipedia to make it easier to discover"

You can’t use the momentum of Wikipedia to promote a non-WMF wiki, when we have trouble getting momentum going on the WMF wikis that exist.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 23, 2022, at 2:59 PM, Mathias Damour mathias.damour@gmx.fr wrote:

Ok, I did read your message too fast... I nevertheless know Simple English Wikipedia.

I think that SEWP was created like it is, partly by fear of creating a project openly directed to children, and I'm afraid it precisely make it not so compelling for them.

...

The thing is, as the main English Wikipedia more specialist, and therefore more complicated, we have a Simple English Wikipedia that we shouldn’t let languish in the hopes of creating a children's encyclopedia out of whole cloth.

Actually, Vikidia in english does exist, with 4,035 articles ! https://en.vikidia.org Unfortunately, the developpment of the wikis for children is very uneven, and it seems hard to overcome the delay when they were launched later one than another or missed their launch. For exemple I know about two or three unlucky attempts in german before Klexikon* (and I beleive German had or has a very good potential for such a project - demography and cultural ground favourable to children participation and their freedom of information). Yet it was in Dutch that Wikikids was launched early and is now quite big and active.

They may be a way to promote a existing (or to be launched) wiki encyclopedia for children, to "use the momentum of Wikipedia to make it easier to discover" as just said Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga, but somewhat different from the way they chooses on the Basque Wikipedia : That would be to let appear the kid equivalent article in the "In other projects" section.

Or maybe a very active work both in promotion and gathering a substantial set of core articles (picking the best/most usefull, most viewed articles from several kids wikis and Simple English Wikipedia, translating...)

---

*- the original "Wikikids" proposal as a Wikimedia project was made by german speaking wikipedians in early 2005 : https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-January/015108.html https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikikids&oldid=89757 but was chilled down by the reactions on this list...

• Grundschulwiki was launched in december 2005, it still exists but is restricted to works done in primary classroom and therefore is not much developped : https://grundschulwiki.zum.de/index.php?title=Hauptseite&dir=prev&ac...
• a 2010 project ended as they were told to request a Simple German Wikipedia and then denied to open it: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redaktion_Medizin/Projekt_Kinderleic... https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Simple_...

Meanwhile Wikikids.nl was launched in March 2006 and Vikidia in French in November 2006.

Envoyé: jeudi 23 juin 2022 à 21:15 De: "Neurodivergent Netizen" idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com À: "Wikimedia Mailing List" wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Objet: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia The English Wikipedia has a “plain language” wikipedia, the Simple English Wikipedia. It’s targeted not only towards children, but also towards people who aren’t fluent in English and/or have learning disabilities. A few “internet hack” memes say “If you can’t understand the Wikipedia article, change en to simple!” Basically, the English Wikipedia community has two very general-to-slightly-specialist encyclopedias.

Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed in years past that the Simple English Wikipedias’ activity level was, shall we say, wanting. I hope that’s changed; I suspect kids would enjoy learning to research for the purpose of writing on Simple before moving on to the so-called “real” English Wikipedia, but that might require some assistance that might not always exist offline. I think Simple would certainly be a good place to start making Wikipedia more accessible to 8-10 year olds.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 23, 2022, at 11:40 AM, Mathias Damour <mathias.damour@gmx.fr mailto:mathias.damour@gmx.fr> wrote:

Hi,

De: "WereSpielChequers" <werespielchequers@gmail.com mailto:werespielchequers@gmail.com> 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?

There is one thing that is sure, that "one single childrens' encyclopaedia" is a great step for children (and often teenagers and older people) than having just Wikipedia available, and they love it.

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.

Yet there is not realistic hopes that the language of Wikipedia will change to be easier. That wouldn't address the fact the articles on general subjects are among the longest ones. It sounds a bit weird that a content for 12 yo would not fit well for a 8 yo, and then that Wikipedia could fit to children. The "reading level" of articles on Vikidia is not perfectly homogenous, nor their developpment is. They can be usefull for adult beginners on a subject just as a child can prefer Wikipedia on a subject he's fond of and allready informed. That was developped in this post (in english): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Documentation_and_Vikidia https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Documentation_and_Vikidia

De: "Ziko van Dijk" zvandijk@gmail.com mailto:zvandijk@gmail.com 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.

Most language don't have a single wiki encyclopedia for children or an under-developped one. So I guess that's not realistic nor wise to wish such a division in this work. So let's work on the allready allready launched ones ! (Especially the one of the Vikidia family of course ;) see https://www.vikidia.org/ https://www.vikidia.org/ )

You actually do not need millions of articles for a good encyclopedia, some thousand well written articles are enough.

Vikidia in French and Wikikids in Dutch are by far the biggest wiki encyclopedias for children, with about 35000 articles each. Yet young reader on the Vikidia's guestbook still ask for "more content", which certainly mean both enought developped articles (not just a few lines) and more subjects. So yes, we need, if not millions of articles, at least several dozens of thousands articles. Of course, we see that (as everywhere) 20 % of the articles make more than 80 % of the pageviews. But you can't really guess in advance which subject will be in the top 20 %.

De: "Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga" <galder158@hotmail.com mailto:galder158@hotmail.com> 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.

(...)

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.

Just as on Wikipedia, article don't have only one author. That makes them better, more accessible and accurate.

You can't just test an average child to write on such a wiki to tell if children and teenagers are able to participate to a wiki encyclopedia for several reasons : the 1% rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule) fully apply there (or less than 1%) regular editors are few but very motivated, they typically learn and are engaged for months and years, which is VERY different than having been trained to edit for one or two hours. A 12 yo with 2 years of participation, or a 15 yo with 3 years of experience are often very valuables editors, either as writer of for maintenance and community tasks.

Adults as well have to learn to write on Vikidia, be they educators or not. Just as it is well know that a journalist or a scientist, which are supposed to be skilled is writing articles, often don't fit immediatly with the style that is expected on Wikipedia.

Mathias Damour [[User:Astirmays]] _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/UHX6EVQUI233NCUHK2HE54HDOYOSSCUB/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto: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 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/KF426ALI77IUT6X7F6INLSAIBSD66Z2D/ 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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

We do, however, love when teachers use the Simple English Wikipedia as an educational tool (aka, supervised editing), though more often in user-space than article-space. For example, see: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Schools https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Schools

As a “regular” English WikiGnome, I also love it. I’ve often envisioned a high school after school class, with 14-21* year olds, a mixture of special ed, English Language Learners, and regular ed together editing English and Simple together.

*It’s not uncommon for developmentally disabled adults to stay in high school until 21 in America.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 23, 2022, at 4:02 PM, Rae Adimer via Wikimedia-l wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:

The Simple English Wikipedia is geared towards writing simple content for kids and others, but not specifically geared towards children as authors. Both because the majority of basic topics that they'd want to write about are already covered, and because only the content is simple, not the site's administration, writing, or policy. Writing on the Simple English Wikipedia involves simplifying complex topics, which can require a native or professional understanding of the language.

We do, however, love when teachers use the Simple English Wikipedia as an educational tool (aka, supervised editing), though more often in user-space than article-space. For example, see: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Schools https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Schools

Best, Rae

User:Vermont <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Vermont> on Wikimedia projects
they/them/theirs (why pronouns matter <https://www.mypronouns.org/what-and-why>)


On Thu, Jun 23, 2022 at 6:43 PM Neurodivergent Netizen <idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com <mailto:idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com>> wrote:
> I think that SEWP was created like it is, partly by fear of creating a project openly directed to children, and I'm afraid it precisely make it not so compelling for them.

I think the solution is to make the Simple Wikipedia more appealable to kids, or at least more well-known to them and their parents, and not have a separate Wikipedia. Primarily, we could probably do a better job of promoting Simple internally, and it most likely wouldn’t hurt to double the SEO.

> They may be a way to promote a existing (or to be launched) wiki encyclopedia for children, to "use the momentum of Wikipedia to make it easier to discover"

You can’t use the momentum of Wikipedia to promote a non-WMF wiki, when we have trouble getting momentum going on the WMF wikis that exist.

From,
I dream of horses
She/her





> On Jun 23, 2022, at 2:59 PM, Mathias Damour <mathias.damour@gmx.fr <mailto:mathias.damour@gmx.fr>> wrote:
> 
> Ok, I did read your message too fast... I nevertheless know Simple English Wikipedia.
>  
> I think that SEWP was created like it is, partly by fear of creating a project openly directed to children, and I'm afraid it precisely make it not so compelling for them.
>  
> > The thing is, as the main English Wikipedia more specialist, and therefore more complicated, we have a Simple English Wikipedia that we shouldn’t let languish in the hopes of creating a children's encyclopedia out of whole cloth.
>  
> Actually, Vikidia in english does exist, with 4,035 articles !
> https://en.vikidia.org <https://en.vikidia.org/>
> Unfortunately, the developpment of the wikis for children is very uneven, and it seems hard to overcome the delay when they were launched later one than another or missed their launch. For exemple I know about two or three unlucky attempts in german before Klexikon* (and I beleive German had or has a very good potential for such a project - demography and cultural ground favourable to children participation and their freedom of information). Yet it was in Dutch that Wikikids was launched early and is now quite big and active.
>  
> They may be a way to promote a existing (or to be launched) wiki encyclopedia for children, to "use the momentum of Wikipedia to make it easier to discover" as just said Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga, but somewhat different from the way they chooses on the Basque Wikipedia : That would be to let appear the kid equivalent article in the "In other projects" section.
>  
> Or maybe a very active work both in promotion and gathering a substantial set of core articles (picking the best/most usefull, most viewed articles from several kids wikis and Simple English Wikipedia, translating...)
>  
> **************
> *- the original "Wikikids" proposal as a Wikimedia project was made by german speaking wikipedians in early 2005 : https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-January/015108.html <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-January/015108.html> https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikikids&oldid=89757 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikikids&oldid=89757> but was chilled down by the reactions on this list...
> - Grundschulwiki was launched in december 2005, it still exists but is restricted to works done in primary classroom and therefore is not much developped : https://grundschulwiki.zum.de/index.php?title=Hauptseite&dir=prev&action=history <https://grundschulwiki.zum.de/index.php?title=Hauptseite&dir=prev&action=history>
> - a 2010 project ended as they were told to request a Simple German Wikipedia and then denied to open it: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redaktion_Medizin/Projekt_Kinderleicht <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redaktion_Medizin/Projekt_Kinderleicht> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Simple_German_3 <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Simple_German_3>
> Meanwhile Wikikids.nl <http://wikikids.nl/> was launched in March 2006 and Vikidia in French in November 2006.
>  
>  
> Envoyé: jeudi 23 juin 2022 à 21:15
> De: "Neurodivergent Netizen" <idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com <mailto:idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com>>
> À: "Wikimedia Mailing List" <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>
> Objet: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia
> The English Wikipedia has a “plain language” wikipedia, the Simple English Wikipedia. It’s targeted not only towards children, but also towards people who aren’t fluent in English and/or have learning disabilities. A few “internet hack” memes say “If you can’t understand the Wikipedia article, change en to simple!” Basically, the English Wikipedia community has two very general-to-slightly-specialist encyclopedias.
>  
> Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed in years past that the Simple English Wikipedias’ activity level was, shall we say, wanting. I hope that’s changed; I suspect kids would enjoy learning to research for the purpose of writing on Simple before moving on to the so-called “real” English Wikipedia, but that might require some assistance that might not always exist offline. I think Simple would certainly be a good place to start making Wikipedia more accessible to 8-10 year olds.
>  
> From,
> I dream of horses
> She/her
>  
> 
>  
>  
> On Jun 23, 2022, at 11:40 AM, Mathias Damour <mathias.damour@gmx.fr <mailto:mathias.damour@gmx.fr>> wrote:
>  
> Hi,
>  
>  De: "WereSpielChequers" <werespielchequers@gmail.com <mailto:werespielchequers@gmail.com>>
> 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?
> 
> There is one thing that is sure, that "one single childrens' encyclopaedia" is a great step for children (and often teenagers and older people) than having just Wikipedia available, and they love it.
>  
> 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.
> 
> Yet there is not realistic hopes that the language of Wikipedia will change to be easier. That wouldn't address the fact the articles on general subjects are among the longest ones.
> It sounds a bit weird that a content for 12 yo would not fit well for a 8 yo, and then that Wikipedia could fit to children. The "reading level" of articles on Vikidia is not perfectly homogenous, nor their developpment is. They can be usefull for adult beginners on a subject just as a child can prefer Wikipedia on a subject he's fond of and allready informed.
> That was developped in this post (in english):
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Documentation_and_Vikidia <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Documentation_and_Vikidia>
> 
>  
> De: "Ziko van Dijk" <zvandijk@gmail.com> <mailto:zvandijk@gmail.com>
> 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.
> 
> Most language don't have a single wiki encyclopedia for children or an under-developped one. So I guess that's not realistic nor wise to wish such a division in this work. So let's work on the allready allready launched ones ! (Especially the one of the Vikidia family of course ;) see https://www.vikidia.org/ <https://www.vikidia.org/> )
>  
> You actually do not need millions of articles for a good encyclopedia, some thousand well written articles are enough.
> 
> Vikidia in French and Wikikids in Dutch are by far the biggest wiki encyclopedias for children, with about 35000 articles each. Yet young reader on the Vikidia's guestbook still ask for "more content", which certainly mean both enought developped articles (not just a few lines) and more subjects. So yes, we need, if not millions of articles, at least several dozens of thousands articles.
> Of course, we see that (as everywhere) 20 % of the articles make more than 80 % of the pageviews. But you can't really guess in advance which subject will be in the top 20 %.
>  
>  De: "Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga" <galder158@hotmail.com <mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>>
> 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.
> 
> (...)
> 
> 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.
> 
> Just as on Wikipedia, article don't have only one author. That makes them better, more accessible and accurate.
> 
> You can't just test an average child to write on such a wiki to tell if children and teenagers are able to participate to a wiki encyclopedia for several reasons :
> the 1% rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule>) fully apply there (or less than 1%)
> regular editors are few but very motivated,
> they typically learn and are engaged for months and years, which is VERY different than having been trained to edit for one or two hours.
> A 12 yo with 2 years of participation, or a 15 yo with 3 years of experience are often very valuables editors, either as writer of for maintenance and community tasks.
> 
> Adults as well have to learn to write on Vikidia, be they educators or not. Just as it is well know that a journalist or a scientist, which are supposed to be skilled is writing articles, often don't fit immediatly with the style that is expected on Wikipedia.
> 
> Mathias Damour
> [[User:Astirmays]]
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines> and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l>
> Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/UHX6EVQUI233NCUHK2HE54HDOYOSSCUB/ <https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/UHX6EVQUI233NCUHK2HE54HDOYOSSCUB/>
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org>
> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines> and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l> Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/KF426ALI77IUT6X7F6INLSAIBSD66Z2D/ <https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/KF426ALI77IUT6X7F6INLSAIBSD66Z2D/> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org>_______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines> and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l>
> Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/F67HFO7N7UXQGLCEIZ6YQQWIFKTXAHWD/ <https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/F67HFO7N7UXQGLCEIZ6YQQWIFKTXAHWD/>
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines> and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l>
Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/EQNCISRHSAWFWA6WOUYUPCIJGG66ORJQ/ <https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/EQNCISRHSAWFWA6WOUYUPCIJGG66ORJQ/>
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto: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/GEHXTUPBQZ2RYCJPBOCOKOG2FFVSUI6A/
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

I think that SEWP was created like it is, partly by fear of creating a project openly directed to children, and I'm afraid it precisely make it not so compelling for them.

How is Simple English Wikipedia not compelling for kids? Define “not compelling.”

Actually, Vikidia in english does exist, with 4,035 articles !

Oh, okay, so it’s going to be mostly out of whole cloth, not entirely. I’m not sure how many articles English Wikipedia has, but I know it’s in the millions.

They may be a way to promote a existing (or to be launched) wiki encyclopedia for children, to "use the momentum of Wikipedia to make it easier to discover”

I believe I’ve stated more or less stated that you can’t use our momentum since we need for the projects we have.

I took a look at Vikidia, thought I could do something for them, signed up with an account, read what I could find of the guidance, and created an article on Underwater diving, following the rules as I understood them, using properly attributed CC-by-sa content from Simple English Wikipedia as a basic framework, and was busy expanding it when it was deleted without discussion by user Ajeje_Brazorf with the edit summary (Please don't copy from simple wikipedia}, and no explanation why not. If I had done that on English Wikipedia I would risk losing my admin bit. If that is how new users are routinely treated there that encyclopedia is doomed. I will not be back to waste my time there.

On top of that, it would seem that you were able to sign up easily without verifying your age; both verifying age and not can be problematic.

Verifying age makes things safer in terms of everyone knowing that if someone says they’re a kid, they’re a kid, and if they’re an adult, they’re an adult. Part of online grooming and police sting operations is people saying “I’m a kid, let’s meet offline." It can be problematic due to reasons of privacy. It’s not like you want everyone knowing the age of a child who’s online. That can mostly but entirely alleviated by only having the administration know everyones’ birthdate, and forcing admins to have strict account security.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 24, 2022, at 5:09 AM, Peter Southwood peter.southwood@telkomsa.net wrote:

I took a look at Vikidia, thought I could do something for them, signed up with an account, read what I could find of the guidance, and created an article on Underwater diving, following the rules as I understood them, using properly attributed CC-by-sa content from Simple English Wikipedia as a basic framework, and was busy expanding it when it was deleted without discussion by user Ajeje_Brazorf with the edit summary (Please don't copy from simple wikipedia}, and no explanation why not. If I had done that on English Wikipedia I would risk losing my admin bit. If that is how new users are routinely treated there that encyclopedia is doomed. I will not be back to waste my time there. Cheers, Peter   <> From: Mathias Damour [mailto:mathias.damour@gmx.fr mailto:mathias.damour@gmx.fr] Sent: 24 June 2022 00:00 To: wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia

Ok, I did read your message too fast... I nevertheless know Simple English Wikipedia.

I think that SEWP was created like it is, partly by fear of creating a project openly directed to children, and I'm afraid it precisely make it not so compelling for them.

...

The thing is, as the main English Wikipedia more specialist, and therefore more complicated, we have a Simple English Wikipedia that we shouldn’t let languish in the hopes of creating a children's encyclopedia out of whole cloth.

Actually, Vikidia in english does exist, with 4,035 articles ! https://en.vikidia.org https://en.vikidia.org/ Unfortunately, the developpment of the wikis for children is very uneven, and it seems hard to overcome the delay when they were launched later one than another or missed their launch. For exemple I know about two or three unlucky attempts in german before Klexikon* (and I beleive German had or has a very good potential for such a project - demography and cultural ground favourable to children participation and their freedom of information). Yet it was in Dutch that Wikikids was launched early and is now quite big and active.

They may be a way to promote a existing (or to be launched) wiki encyclopedia for children, to "use the momentum of Wikipedia to make it easier to discover" as just said Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga, but somewhat different from the way they chooses on the Basque Wikipedia : That would be to let appear the kid equivalent article in the "In other projects" section.

Or maybe a very active work both in promotion and gathering a substantial set of core articles (picking the best/most usefull, most viewed articles from several kids wikis and Simple English Wikipedia, translating...)

---

*- the original "Wikikids" proposal as a Wikimedia project was made by german speaking wikipedians in early 2005 : https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-January/015108.html https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-January/015108.html https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikikids&oldid=89757 https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikikids&oldid=89757 but was chilled down by the reactions on this list...

• Grundschulwiki was launched in december 2005, it still exists but is restricted to works done in primary classroom and therefore is not much developped : https://grundschulwiki.zum.de/index.php?title=Hauptseite&dir=prev&ac... https://grundschulwiki.zum.de/index.php?title=Hauptseite&dir=prev&action=history
• a 2010 project ended as they were told to request a Simple German Wikipedia and then denied to open it: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redaktion_Medizin/Projekt_Kinderleic... https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redaktion_Medizin/Projekt_Kinderleichthttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Simple_... https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Simple_German_3

Meanwhile Wikikids.nl http://wikikids.nl/ was launched in March 2006 and Vikidia in French in November 2006.

Envoyé: jeudi 23 juin 2022 à 21:15 De: "Neurodivergent Netizen" <idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com mailto:idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com> À: "Wikimedia Mailing List" <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Objet: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia The English Wikipedia has a “plain language” wikipedia, the Simple English Wikipedia. It’s targeted not only towards children, but also towards people who aren’t fluent in English and/or have learning disabilities. A few “internet hack” memes say “If you can’t understand the Wikipedia article, change en to simple!” Basically, the English Wikipedia community has two very general-to-slightly-specialist encyclopedias.

Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed in years past that the Simple English Wikipedias’ activity level was, shall we say, wanting. I hope that’s changed; I suspect kids would enjoy learning to research for the purpose of writing on Simple before moving on to the so-called “real” English Wikipedia, but that might require some assistance that might not always exist offline. I think Simple would certainly be a good place to start making Wikipedia more accessible to 8-10 year olds.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 23, 2022, at 11:40 AM, Mathias Damour <mathias.damour@gmx.fr mailto:mathias.damour@gmx.fr> wrote:

Hi,

De: "WereSpielChequers" <werespielchequers@gmail.com mailto:werespielchequers@gmail.com>

...

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?

There is one thing that is sure, that "one single childrens' encyclopaedia" is a great step for children (and often teenagers and older people) than having just Wikipedia available, and they love it.

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.

Yet there is not realistic hopes that the language of Wikipedia will change to be easier. That wouldn't address the fact the articles on general subjects are among the longest ones. It sounds a bit weird that a content for 12 yo would not fit well for a 8 yo, and then that Wikipedia could fit to children. The "reading level" of articles on Vikidia is not perfectly homogenous, nor their developpment is. They can be usefull for adult beginners on a subject just as a child can prefer Wikipedia on a subject he's fond of and allready informed. That was developped in this post (in english): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Documentation_and_Vikidia https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Documentation_and_Vikidia

De: "Ziko van Dijk" zvandijk@gmail.com mailto:zvandijk@gmail.comIdeally, 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.

Most language don't have a single wiki encyclopedia for children or an under-developped one. So I guess that's not realistic nor wise to wish such a division in this work. So let's work on the allready allready launched ones ! (Especially the one of the Vikidia family of course ;) see https://www.vikidia.org/ https://www.vikidia.org/ )

You actually do not need millions of articles for a good encyclopedia, some thousand well written articles are enough.

Vikidia in French and Wikikids in Dutch are by far the biggest wiki encyclopedias for children, with about 35000 articles each. Yet young reader on the Vikidia's guestbook still ask for "more content", which certainly mean both enought developped articles (not just a few lines) and more subjects. So yes, we need, if not millions of articles, at least several dozens of thousands articles. Of course, we see that (as everywhere) 20 % of the articles make more than 80 % of the pageviews. But you can't really guess in advance which subject will be in the top 20 %.

De: "Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga" <galder158@hotmail.com mailto:galder158@hotmail.com>

...

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.

(...)

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.

Just as on Wikipedia, article don't have only one author. That makes them better, more accessible and accurate.

You can't just test an average child to write on such a wiki to tell if children and teenagers are able to participate to a wiki encyclopedia for several reasons : the 1% rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule) fully apply there (or less than 1%) regular editors are few but very motivated, they typically learn and are engaged for months and years, which is VERY different than having been trained to edit for one or two hours. A 12 yo with 2 years of participation, or a 15 yo with 3 years of experience are often very valuables editors, either as writer of for maintenance and community tasks.

Adults as well have to learn to write on Vikidia, be they educators or not. Just as it is well know that a journalist or a scientist, which are supposed to be skilled is writing articles, often don't fit immediatly with the style that is expected on Wikipedia.

Mathias Damour [[User:Astirmays]] _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/UHX6EVQUI233NCUHK2HE54HDOYOSSCUB/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/KF426ALI77IUT6X7F6INLSAIBSD66Z2D/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient Virus-free. www.avg.com http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient

---

Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/EA3EYC5GAEPNRIHXUHLQYEDXJILKWS5D/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

When I had a look to the most viewed articles (not exactly recently) I had the impression that it actually reach one of its goal that is to be a resource for non native english speaker (that moreover don't have a well developped Wikipedia in their native language, such as indians of a minority language). Yet it wasn't children interest or school curriculum subjects that were much viewed but rather adult topics.

We could fix that by dedicating time to subjects children would learn in school. We don’t need a separate wiki.

However, regular users have in mind that the age told by any user isn't verified.

One of the findings of fact in  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Protecting_children's_privacyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Protecting_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Protecting_children's_privacy is that:

Self-identified children may be children, adult predators, trolls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)(→) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)?action=edit, adult privacy-watchers testing our policies, or law enforcement personnel.

So they might be children, child abusers, adults lying because they think it’s funny, people looking to bring down the reputation of websites that don’t respect the privacy of children, or a police officer that can arrest someone in real life. All of these bring up different issues as to the safety of children and the reputation of the adults that want to help them. This is why the arbitration committee decided this was the best option for editors who might actually be children:

Users who appear to be children editing in good faith who disclose identifying personal information may be appropriately counseled. Deletion and oversight may be used in appropriate cases to remove the information.

In other words, kids aren’t allowed to disclose their age. Of course, people editing in bad faith would be blocked, anyways. Are you saying that kids are allowed to disclose age on Wikikids?

We disable the e-mail function from one's user account to another, so there is no private message unless one editor would have displayed his e-mail adress or on account on another social media.

That’s going to add an obstacle to writing to oversight and the emergency team that intervenes when someone threatens suicide or homicide, along with a few other teams that have a “role account” that takes advantage of the “email this user” feature.

I mean that if by chance someone or an organisation would want to developp a free documentary resource for children and would be eager to invest in it, there would be a way to do it: there is allready a base of articles in some Vikidia versions like the english one and an organisation that proved to be sustainable (actually very closed to the one of Wikipedia), then some funds would allow to catch up the time of "organic growth" that some wiki encyclopedia for children had. I guess it would be promotion, communication, and possibly paid translation to get the most interesting, best quality, most usefull articles from several wikis for children and from Simple English Wikipedia (with some data analysis/study to identify and select them), to get a core of say 2,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 articles in one language. It would be quite a big operation, but it may be worth the investment. Getting a quality free encyclopedia for children in a matter of months.

Are you saying you want money from the WMF? Or someone affiliated with the WMF?

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 24, 2022, at 2:06 PM, Mathias Damour mathias.damour@gmx.fr wrote:

Hi,

...

I think that SEWP was created like it is, partly by fear of creating a project openly directed to children, and I'm afraid it precisely make it not so compelling for them. How is Simple English Wikipedia not compelling for kids? Define “not compelling.”

Well, I didn't closely study SEWP, so I may be unfair, that's rather my impressions : The main rule is the simple language rather than explain a subject in a accessible way, so you can have long and not so accessible articles in simple language. When I had a look to the most viewed articles (not exactly recently) I had the impression that it actually reach one of its goal that is to be a resource for non native english speaker (that moreover don't have a well developped Wikipedia in their native language, such as indians of a minority language). Yet it wasn't children interest or school curriculum subjects that were much viewed but rather adult topics.

...

I took a look at Vikidia, thought I could do something for them, signed up with an account, read what I could find of the guidance, and created an article on Underwater diving, following the rules as I understood them, using properly attributed CC-by-sa content from Simple English Wikipedia as a basic framework, and was busy expanding it when it was deleted without discussion by user Ajeje_Brazorf with the edit summary (Please don't copy from simple wikipedia}, and no explanation why not. If I had done that on English Wikipedia I would risk losing my admin bit. If that is how new users are routinely treated there that encyclopedia is doomed. I will not be back to waste my time there.

By the way, sorry for that, I guess it is not specific to Vikidia in english to experiment such diagreement with newcomers, there is a discussion on this wiki about what happened.

...

On top of that, it would seem that you were able to sign up easily without verifying your age; both verifying age and not can be problematic.

Verifying age makes things safer in terms of everyone knowing that if someone says they’re a kid, they’re a kid, and if they’re an adult, they’re an adult. Part of online grooming and police sting operations is people saying “I’m a kid, let’s meet offline." It can be problematic due to reasons of privacy. It’s not like you want everyone knowing the age of a child who’s online. That can mostly but entirely alleviated by only having the administration know everyones’ birthdate, and forcing admins to have strict account security.

We don't ask nor verify the editors ages on Vikidia. There is no status attached to the user's age (with some few exception like check-user...), so few reason to lie about our age if we tell it. However, regular users have in mind that the age told by any user isn't verified. We disable the e-mail function from one's user account to another, so there is no private message unless one editor would have displayed his e-mail adress or on account on another social media. And we suppress identifying information that a child would write on his user page. To be complete, we noticed that the UK Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 appears to mandate some verifications for some status like admins on a wiki for children (someone that would become administrator of Vikidia in english if he is more than 16 and lives in the UK would have to provide his identity and proof that he has passed the british vetting process). See https://en.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Legal_matters#UK_Safeguarding_Vulnerable...

...

Actually, Vikidia in english does exist, with 4,035 articles !

Oh, okay, so it’s going to be mostly out of whole cloth, not entirely. I’m not sure how many articles English Wikipedia has, but I know it’s in the millions.

They may be a way to promote a existing (or to be launched) wiki encyclopedia for children, to "use the momentum of Wikipedia to make it easier to discover” I believe I’ve stated more or less stated that you can’t use our momentum since we need for the projects we have.

That's a constant pattern, your favorite wiki may have 500 or 5 millions articles, 2 or 20,000 active users, you allway feel you lack content and editors ! ;-)

I mean that if by chance someone or an organisation would want to developp a free documentary resource for children and would be eager to invest in it, there would be a way to do it: there is allready a base of articles in some Vikidia versions like the english one and an organisation that proved to be sustainable (actually very closed to the one of Wikipedia), then some funds would allow to catch up the time of "organic growth" that some wiki encyclopedia for children had. I guess it would be promotion, communication, and possibly paid translation to get the most interesting, best quality, most usefull articles from several wikis for children and from Simple English Wikipedia (with some data analysis/study to identify and select them), to get a core of say 2,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 articles in one language. It would be quite a big operation, but it may be worth the investment. Getting a quality free encyclopedia for children in a matter of months.

---

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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

How could we say we velcome young editors and require that they conceal that they are young?

We manage to do exactly that, even though we, too, can guess with some imperfect accuracy, that certain people are in fact children.

I just share an idea for anybody to possibly take it or elaborate his own from it!

Yeah, I doubt anyone is going to create a kids-only encyclopedia as successful as yours, and I think few here would be open to the idea. You’d probably have better success collaborating with school districts and similar organizations.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 24, 2022, at 3:42 PM, Mathias Damour mathias.damour@gmx.fr wrote:

Yes, Vikidia editors are allowed (not required) to tell their age on their user page. In the long run (or not so long), other users would roughly guess it anyway. We get to know each other online and I guess it helps the communication to know the age group to which belong the people you're talking with. How could we say we velcome young editors and require that they conceal that they are young?

No, I don't want money from the WMF or somebody else, for I am no more in charge of the Vikidia association, and I never planned to take in charge myself the kind of project I tell about. I just share an idea for anybody to possibly take it or elaborate his own from it!

Envoyé: vendredi 24 juin 2022 à 23:21 De: "Neurodivergent Netizen" idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com À: "Wikimedia Mailing List" wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Objet: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia When I had a look to the most viewed articles (not exactly recently) I had the impression that it actually reach one of its goal that is to be a resource for non native english speaker (that moreover don't have a well developped Wikipedia in their native language, such as indians of a minority language). Yet it wasn't children interest or school curriculum subjects that were much viewed but rather adult topics.

We could fix that by dedicating time to subjects children would learn in school. We don’t need a separate wiki.

However, regular users have in mind that the age told by any user isn't verified. One of the findings of fact in  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Protecting_children's_privacyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Protecting_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Protecting_children's_privacy is that:

Self-identified children may be children, adult predators, trolls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)(→) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)?action=edit, adult privacy-watchers testing our policies, or law enforcement personnel.

So they might be children, child abusers, adults lying because they think it’s funny, people looking to bring down the reputation of websites that don’t respect the privacy of children, or a police officer that can arrest someone in real life. All of these bring up different issues as to the safety of children and the reputation of the adults that want to help them. This is why the arbitration committee decided this was the best option for editors who might actually be children:

Users who appear to be children editing in good faith who disclose identifying personal information may be appropriately counseled. Deletion and oversight may be used in appropriate cases to remove the information.

In other words, kids aren’t allowed to disclose their age. Of course, people editing in bad faith would be blocked, anyways. Are you saying that kids are allowed to disclose age on Wikikids?

We disable the e-mail function from one's user account to another, so there is no private message unless one editor would have displayed his e-mail adress or on account on another social media. That’s going to add an obstacle to writing to oversight and the emergency team that intervenes when someone threatens suicide or homicide, along with a few other teams that have a “role account” that takes advantage of the “email this user” feature.

I mean that if by chance someone or an organisation would want to developp a free documentary resource for children and would be eager to invest in it, there would be a way to do it: there is allready a base of articles in some Vikidia versions like the english one and an organisation that proved to be sustainable (actually very closed to the one of Wikipedia), then some funds would allow to catch up the time of "organic growth" that some wiki encyclopedia for children had. I guess it would be promotion, communication, and possibly paid translation to get the most interesting, best quality, most usefull articles from several wikis for children and from Simple English Wikipedia (with some data analysis/study to identify and select them), to get a core of say 2,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 articles in one language. It would be quite a big operation, but it may be worth the investment. Getting a quality free encyclopedia for children in a matter of months. Are you saying you want money from the WMF? Or someone affiliated with the WMF?

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 24, 2022, at 2:06 PM, Mathias Damour <mathias.damour@gmx.fr mailto:mathias.damour@gmx.fr> wrote:

Hi,

I think that SEWP was created like it is, partly by fear of creating a project openly directed to children, and I'm afraid it precisely make it not so compelling for them. How is Simple English Wikipedia not compelling for kids? Define “not compelling.”

Well, I didn't closely study SEWP, so I may be unfair, that's rather my impressions : The main rule is the simple language rather than explain a subject in a accessible way, so you can have long and not so accessible articles in simple language. When I had a look to the most viewed articles (not exactly recently) I had the impression that it actually reach one of its goal that is to be a resource for non native english speaker (that moreover don't have a well developped Wikipedia in their native language, such as indians of a minority language). Yet it wasn't children interest or school curriculum subjects that were much viewed but rather adult topics.

I took a look at Vikidia, thought I could do something for them, signed up with an account, read what I could find of the guidance, and created an article on Underwater diving, following the rules as I understood them, using properly attributed CC-by-sa content from Simple English Wikipedia as a basic framework, and was busy expanding it when it was deleted without discussion by user Ajeje_Brazorf with the edit summary (Please don't copy from simple wikipedia}, and no explanation why not. If I had done that on English Wikipedia I would risk losing my admin bit. If that is how new users are routinely treated there that encyclopedia is doomed. I will not be back to waste my time there.

By the way, sorry for that, I guess it is not specific to Vikidia in english to experiment such diagreement with newcomers, there is a discussion on this wiki about what happened.

On top of that, it would seem that you were able to sign up easily without verifying your age; both verifying age and not can be problematic.

Verifying age makes things safer in terms of everyone knowing that if someone says they’re a kid, they’re a kid, and if they’re an adult, they’re an adult. Part of online grooming and police sting operations is people saying “I’m a kid, let’s meet offline." It can be problematic due to reasons of privacy. It’s not like you want everyone knowing the age of a child who’s online. That can mostly but entirely alleviated by only having the administration know everyones’ birthdate, and forcing admins to have strict account security.

We don't ask nor verify the editors ages on Vikidia. There is no status attached to the user's age (with some few exception like check-user...), so few reason to lie about our age if we tell it. However, regular users have in mind that the age told by any user isn't verified. We disable the e-mail function from one's user account to another, so there is no private message unless one editor would have displayed his e-mail adress or on account on another social media. And we suppress identifying information that a child would write on his user page. To be complete, we noticed that the UK Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 appears to mandate some verifications for some status like admins on a wiki for children (someone that would become administrator of Vikidia in english if he is more than 16 and lives in the UK would have to provide his identity and proof that he has passed the british vetting process). See https://en.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Legal_matters#UK_Safeguarding_Vulnerable... https://en.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Legal_matters#UK_Safeguarding_Vulnerable_Groups_Act_2006

Actually, Vikidia in english does exist, with 4,035 articles !

Oh, okay, so it’s going to be mostly out of whole cloth, not entirely. I’m not sure how many articles English Wikipedia has, but I know it’s in the millions.

They may be a way to promote a existing (or to be launched) wiki encyclopedia for children, to "use the momentum of Wikipedia to make it easier to discover” I believe I’ve stated more or less stated that you can’t use our momentum since we need for the projects we have.

That's a constant pattern, your favorite wiki may have 500 or 5 millions articles, 2 or 20,000 active users, you allway feel you lack content and editors ! ;-)

I mean that if by chance someone or an organisation would want to developp a free documentary resource for children and would be eager to invest in it, there would be a way to do it: there is allready a base of articles in some Vikidia versions like the english one and an organisation that proved to be sustainable (actually very closed to the one of Wikipedia), then some funds would allow to catch up the time of "organic growth" that some wiki encyclopedia for children had. I guess it would be promotion, communication, and possibly paid translation to get the most interesting, best quality, most usefull articles from several wikis for children and from Simple English Wikipedia (with some data analysis/study to identify and select them), to get a core of say 2,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 articles in one language. It would be quite a big operation, but it may be worth the investment. Getting a quality free encyclopedia for children in a matter of months.

---

Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/4YBI3CHLI5YKY6DGMJ3AXR76XLDQXAS3/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org mailto: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 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/YQBUIGR24KDU2JJLODMLKHTTCCXHLTQ2/ 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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

At the same time, I think it is absolutely necessary to pursue a project like that of Txikipedia, i.e. the possibility of having the same wikipedia page written in different languages.

Wikipedia has had some difficulty translating from language to language itself in years past, though it’s likely that the situation has improved somewhat. I’m woefully monolingual in English, but sometimes when I’ve looked at other, non-English articles, they were much, much shorter than the English equivalent. This is something we also struggle with, or we at least have struggled with it.

For example, a (wiki) encyclopedia addresses dyslexics with videos, avoiding writing, eventually dyslexics learn to read with more appropriate texts and in suitable contexts.

A non-editable encyclopedia can also be online and have videos for people with print disabilities. Of course, I’m biased towards an editable encyclopedia, but I didn’t want that to get in the way of stating a fact.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jul 1, 2022, at 8:09 AM, matteo ruffoni mattruffoni@gmail.com wrote:

I have tried to read all the interventions of this very interesting discussion. I work a lot in Italian Vikidia with my students (11 years old) and I believe that one of Vikidia's roles is also, not the only one, that of involving the very young in the wiki world. Maybe they will become wikipedians .... At the same time, I think it is absolutely necessary to pursue a project like that of Txikipedia, i.e. the possibility of having the same wikipedia page written in different languages. Wikipedia, like all digital knowledge, should not be based on the "old" paper encyclopedias. For example, a (wiki) encyclopedia addresses dyslexics with videos, avoiding writing, eventually dyslexics learn to read with more appropriate texts and in suitable contexts. Grazie tantissimo a tutti Matteo

Il giorno sab 25 giu 2022 alle ore 00:49 Neurodivergent Netizen idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com ha scritto:

...

How could we say we velcome young editors and require that they conceal that they are young?

We manage to do exactly that, even though we, too, can guess with some imperfect accuracy, that certain people are in fact children.

I just share an idea for anybody to possibly take it or elaborate his own from it!

Yeah, I doubt anyone is going to create a kids-only encyclopedia as successful as yours, and I think few here would be open to the idea. You’d probably have better success collaborating with school districts and similar organizations.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 24, 2022, at 3:42 PM, Mathias Damour mathias.damour@gmx.fr wrote:

Yes, Vikidia editors are allowed (not required) to tell their age on their user page. In the long run (or not so long), other users would roughly guess it anyway. We get to know each other online and I guess it helps the communication to know the age group to which belong the people you're talking with. How could we say we velcome young editors and require that they conceal that they are young?

No, I don't want money from the WMF or somebody else, for I am no more in charge of the Vikidia association, and I never planned to take in charge myself the kind of project I tell about. I just share an idea for anybody to possibly take it or elaborate his own from it!

Envoyé: vendredi 24 juin 2022 à 23:21 De: "Neurodivergent Netizen" idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com À: "Wikimedia Mailing List" wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Objet: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia

When I had a look to the most viewed articles (not exactly recently) I had the impression that it actually reach one of its goal that is to be a resource for non native english speaker (that moreover don't have a well developped Wikipedia in their native language, such as indians of a minority language). Yet it wasn't children interest or school curriculum subjects that were much viewed but rather adult topics.

We could fix that by dedicating time to subjects children would learn in school. We don’t need a separate wiki.

However, regular users have in mind that the age told by any user isn't verified.

One of the findings of fact in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Protecting_... is that:

Self-identified children may be children, adult predators, trolls(→), adult privacy-watchers testing our policies, or law enforcement personnel.

So they might be children, child abusers, adults lying because they think it’s funny, people looking to bring down the reputation of websites that don’t respect the privacy of children, or a police officer that can arrest someone in real life. All of these bring up different issues as to the safety of children and the reputation of the adults that want to help them. This is why the arbitration committee decided this was the best option for editors who might actually be children:

Users who appear to be children editing in good faith who disclose identifying personal information may be appropriately counseled. Deletion and oversight may be used in appropriate cases to remove the information.

In other words, kids aren’t allowed to disclose their age. Of course, people editing in bad faith would be blocked, anyways. Are you saying that kids are allowed to disclose age on Wikikids?

We disable the e-mail function from one's user account to another, so there is no private message unless one editor would have displayed his e-mail adress or on account on another social media.

That’s going to add an obstacle to writing to oversight and the emergency team that intervenes when someone threatens suicide or homicide, along with a few other teams that have a “role account” that takes advantage of the “email this user” feature.

I mean that if by chance someone or an organisation would want to developp a free documentary resource for children and would be eager to invest in it, there would be a way to do it: there is allready a base of articles in some Vikidia versions like the english one and an organisation that proved to be sustainable (actually very closed to the one of Wikipedia), then some funds would allow to catch up the time of "organic growth" that some wiki encyclopedia for children had. I guess it would be promotion, communication, and possibly paid translation to get the most interesting, best quality, most usefull articles from several wikis for children and from Simple English Wikipedia (with some data analysis/study to identify and select them), to get a core of say 2,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 articles in one language. It would be quite a big operation, but it may be worth the investment. Getting a quality free encyclopedia for children in a matter of months.

Are you saying you want money from the WMF? Or someone affiliated with the WMF?

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 24, 2022, at 2:06 PM, Mathias Damour mathias.damour@gmx.fr wrote:

Hi,

I think that SEWP was created like it is, partly by fear of creating a project openly directed to children, and I'm afraid it precisely make it not so compelling for them.

How is Simple English Wikipedia not compelling for kids? Define “not compelling.”

Well, I didn't closely study SEWP, so I may be unfair, that's rather my impressions : The main rule is the simple language rather than explain a subject in a accessible way, so you can have long and not so accessible articles in simple language. When I had a look to the most viewed articles (not exactly recently) I had the impression that it actually reach one of its goal that is to be a resource for non native english speaker (that moreover don't have a well developped Wikipedia in their native language, such as indians of a minority language). Yet it wasn't children interest or school curriculum subjects that were much viewed but rather adult topics.

I took a look at Vikidia, thought I could do something for them, signed up with an account, read what I could find of the guidance, and created an article on Underwater diving, following the rules as I understood them, using properly attributed CC-by-sa content from Simple English Wikipedia as a basic framework, and was busy expanding it when it was deleted without discussion by user Ajeje_Brazorf with the edit summary (Please don't copy from simple wikipedia}, and no explanation why not. If I had done that on English Wikipedia I would risk losing my admin bit. If that is how new users are routinely treated there that encyclopedia is doomed. I will not be back to waste my time there.

By the way, sorry for that, I guess it is not specific to Vikidia in english to experiment such diagreement with newcomers, there is a discussion on this wiki about what happened.

On top of that, it would seem that you were able to sign up easily without verifying your age; both verifying age and not can be problematic.

Verifying age makes things safer in terms of everyone knowing that if someone says they’re a kid, they’re a kid, and if they’re an adult, they’re an adult. Part of online grooming and police sting operations is people saying “I’m a kid, let’s meet offline." It can be problematic due to reasons of privacy. It’s not like you want everyone knowing the age of a child who’s online. That can mostly but entirely alleviated by only having the administration know everyones’ birthdate, and forcing admins to have strict account security.

We don't ask nor verify the editors ages on Vikidia. There is no status attached to the user's age (with some few exception like check-user...), so few reason to lie about our age if we tell it. However, regular users have in mind that the age told by any user isn't verified. We disable the e-mail function from one's user account to another, so there is no private message unless one editor would have displayed his e-mail adress or on account on another social media. And we suppress identifying information that a child would write on his user page. To be complete, we noticed that the UK Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 appears to mandate some verifications for some status like admins on a wiki for children (someone that would become administrator of Vikidia in english if he is more than 16 and lives in the UK would have to provide his identity and proof that he has passed the british vetting process). See https://en.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Legal_matters#UK_Safeguarding_Vulnerable...

Actually, Vikidia in english does exist, with 4,035 articles !

Oh, okay, so it’s going to be mostly out of whole cloth, not entirely. I’m not sure how many articles English Wikipedia has, but I know it’s in the millions.

They may be a way to promote a existing (or to be launched) wiki encyclopedia for children, to "use the momentum of Wikipedia to make it easier to discover”

I believe I’ve stated more or less stated that you can’t use our momentum since we need for the projects we have.

That's a constant pattern, your favorite wiki may have 500 or 5 millions articles, 2 or 20,000 active users, you allway feel you lack content and editors ! ;-)

I mean that if by chance someone or an organisation would want to developp a free documentary resource for children and would be eager to invest in it, there would be a way to do it: there is allready a base of articles in some Vikidia versions like the english one and an organisation that proved to be sustainable (actually very closed to the one of Wikipedia), then some funds would allow to catch up the time of "organic growth" that some wiki encyclopedia for children had. I guess it would be promotion, communication, and possibly paid translation to get the most interesting, best quality, most usefull articles from several wikis for children and from Simple English Wikipedia (with some data analysis/study to identify and select them), to get a core of say 2,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 articles in one language. It would be quite a big operation, but it may be worth the investment. Getting a quality free encyclopedia for children in a matter of months.

---

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/... 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/... 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/... 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/... 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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

Just a reminder that Simple English Wikipedia exists, but there are no Simple _________ Wikipedia versions and there won't be. So that may be a solution for English (it is not, as writing in Simple Wikipedia is way more complex than doing at the regular one, because you must change the language) but not for the other languages. There's where especial places for children may work.

Have a good day, Galder ________________________________ From: Neurodivergent Netizen idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com Sent: Friday, June 24, 2022 6:13 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia

I don't disagree with trying to make language more understandable in general, though.

Right, but like I’m saying, we have the Simple Wikipedia already.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 23, 2022, at 8:57 PM, Clover Moss <clovermosswikipedia@gmail.commailto:clovermosswikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:

I don't disagree with trying to make language more understandable in general, though. If there was a children's version, it might be useful for things like math articles. I remember looking up stuff like the quadratic formula when I was in high school, seeing way more advanced mathematics than I was used to and just giving up that Wikipedia could be a useful resource for that. Obviously Wikipedia isn't the end-all be-all for everything and it shouldn't be (obviously it wasn't meant to help me with homework either), but I do agree with the general principle expressed that WereSpielChequers that Wikipedia should be written for a general audience and that's what considered inappropriate is variable depending on your life circumstances.

On Thu, Jun 23, 2022 at 9:57 AM WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers@gmail.commailto:werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote: 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.orgmailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote: Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto: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.orgmailto: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.commailto:idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <8C62ADA1-09EE-46FF-B27D-389B6BB3E54C@gmail.commailto: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.commailto: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.frmailto:mathias.damour@gmx.fr>:

...

Hi,

De: "Neurodivergent Netizen" <idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.commailto: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.commailto:galder158@hotmail.com> À: "Wikimedia Mailing List" <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto: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.orgmailto: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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

---

Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto: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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

There is no major obstacle other than money and contributors to creating a simple version encyclopaedia in any other language in a non WMF environment.

If Vikikids can find a way to find contributors and money to continue, then so can other non-WMF wikis. In fact, Miraheze provides an ad-free environment to do so; Wikia/Fandom also provides an ad-filled, for-profit platform, but has the advantage of being better known. Personally, I’d prefer Miraheze for nearly any wiki, including a simple non-English wiki that has a similar spirit to Simple English. I find Fandom ads distracting.

We don’t have to depend on the WMF to create a wiki. In fact, some might say we shouldn’t, but frankly, that warrants another thread to discuss.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 24, 2022, at 1:15 AM, Peter Southwood peter.southwood@telkomsa.net wrote:

Yes, I find it more difficult to write for Simple English, because it (Simple English) is not my first language and I do not think in it, and the words I would normally use for the topics I prefer are not invented there and have to be worked around, so it is translation a lot of the time. There is no major obstacle other than money and contributors to creating a simple version encyclopaedia in any other language in a non WMF environment. Cheers, Peter   <> From: Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga [mailto:galder158@hotmail.com mailto:galder158@hotmail.com] Sent: 24 June 2022 09:59 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia

Just a reminder that Simple English Wikipedia exists, but there are no Simple _________ Wikipedia versions and there won't be. So that may be a solution for English (it is not, as writing in Simple Wikipedia is way more complex than doing at the regular one, because you must change the language) but not for the other languages. There's where especial places for children may work.

Have a good day, Galder From: Neurodivergent Netizen <idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com mailto:idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com> Sent: Friday, June 24, 2022 6:13 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia

...

I don't disagree with trying to make language more understandable in general, though.

Right, but like I’m saying, we have the Simple Wikipedia already.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 23, 2022, at 8:57 PM, Clover Moss <clovermosswikipedia@gmail.com mailto:clovermosswikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:

I don't disagree with trying to make language more understandable in general, though. If there was a children's version, it might be useful for things like math articles. I remember looking up stuff like the quadratic formula when I was in high school, seeing way more advanced mathematics than I was used to and just giving up that Wikipedia could be a useful resource for that. Obviously Wikipedia isn't the end-all be-all for everything and it shouldn't be (obviously it wasn't meant to help me with homework either), but I do agree with the general principle expressed that WereSpielChequers that Wikipedia should be written for a general audience and that's what considered inappropriate is variable depending on your life circumstances.

On Thu, Jun 23, 2022 at 9:57 AM WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers@gmail.com mailto:werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:

...

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 mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

Send Wikimedia-l mailing list submissions to wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikimedia-l.lists.wikimedia.org/ 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 mailto: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 mailto:idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: Small joy of the day: Txikipedia To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <8C62ADA1-09EE-46FF-B27D-389B6BB3E54C@gmail.com mailto: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 mailto: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 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Klexikon

Am Mi., 22. Juni 2022 um 19:27 Uhr schrieb Mathias Damour <mathias.damour@gmx.fr mailto:mathias.damour@gmx.fr>:

...

Hi,

De: "Neurodivergent Netizen" <idoh.idreamofhorses@gmail.com mailto: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 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/ 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 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids

Envoyé: mercredi 22 juin 2022 à 12:37 De: "Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga" <galder158@hotmail.com mailto:galder158@hotmail.com> À: "Wikimedia Mailing List" <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto: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 mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... 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 mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

---

Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... 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 mailto:wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

Is that one sentence at least backed up by a source that confirms the information? Were the stubs possibly created by a bot instead of human? (Hey, it’s happened before!) If the answers to the questions I asked were “No” and “Yes,” then it reflects even worse on the quality of articles written by children. Quality is better than quantity.

From, I dream of horses She/her

On Jun 24, 2022, at 2:45 AM, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@gmail.com wrote:

As in Wikipedia language versions, article numbers don't count. Wikikids has many "articles" that consist only of one or two sentences. That makes it easy to reach tenthousands of "articles". :-) https://wikikids.nl/Seks_museum Kind regards Ziko

Am Fr., 24. Juni 2022 um 11:42 Uhr schrieb Mathias Damour mathias.damour@gmx.fr:

...

Hi,

You may compare :

• Grundschulwiki in german, launched in december 2005 with institutionnal support and enought visibility I guess, restricted to articles produced by the schools : 1,134 articles today : https://grundschulwiki.zum.de/wiki/Hauptseite
• Wikikids.nl in Dutch, launched by teachers in march 2006, yet opened both to school works and anybody : 35,839 articles today : https://wikikids.nl/

Note that German is the main language of about 100 millions people whereas Dutch is the one of about 24 millions peoples.

That mean that only content produced by schools don't make enought content to be a fair resource to readers. You have to work in the Wikipedia way to thrive.

2d note : The number of articles on Grundschulwiki is quite similar to the number of the articles that were tagged as written by school project in Vikidia in French : https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Cat%C3%A9gorie:Article_fruit_d%27un_travail_scol... 1,255 articles today (out of 35,840).

Envoyé: vendredi 24 juin 2022 à 10:37 De: "Adam Sobieski" adamsobieski@hotmail.com

As for the earlier discussion in this thread about wiki-based encyclopedias for younger students, one idea is to let school districts host their own encyclopedias and to research how to federate or combine contents and content updates from and across software at each school… like a P2P network of MediaWiki software nodes.

---

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/... 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/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org