On 15-03-18 03:09 AM, Mathias Damour wrote: Interestingly enough, to me this reads /against/ the idea of a "Wikipedia for Kids" insofar as the intent is to curate, limit, or restrict the encyclopedia to material or language "apropriate" for children. For instance, would a Russian Kids' Wikipedia carefully avoid "promotion of homosexuality" as their law now demands (to pick one salient example amongst thousands). -- Marc

I'd be the most vocal opponent of an encyclopedia *censored* for children. But I would be a very vocal proponent of an encyclopedia *adapted* for children. Not by dumbing it down and not by removing information that some cultures, religions or governments consider immoral or mature-audiences-only, but by rewriting the information in a way that children will find interesting and easy - indeed, possible - to learn. When I grew up in Moscow, I had an encyclopedia for children at home. I liked the pictures, but I didn't read a lot of the text - it was for older children, 14 and more. But I had an aunt who had another encyclopedia for younger children, and every time I visited that aunt, I spent most of time at her home reading that encyclopedia. I learned a lot of what I know from it, and I got my love for encyclopedias in general from it. Both were printed in Russian in the Soviet Union, so they also had, um, ideological adaptations, which I was smart enough to spot (yay for me), but the reason I loved it is that it had large illustrations, clear and large font and engaging language. It doesn't mean that the articles were short, for example - some of them were several pages long. It just means that it was well-adapted. I don't know how to create a new thing that would do his well. Maybe some consultation from education experts would be good. And these would have to come from different cultures - again, not fot censorship, but for better adaptation. Children in Arab countries won't necessarily be engaged by the same things as children in France, and children in Russia won't necessarily love the illustration style enjoyed by children in Argentina. But TLDR - a Wikpedia *adapted* for children is a good idea. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com ‪“We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬ 2015-03-18 14:59 GMT+02:00 Marc A. Pelletier <marc(a)uberbox.org>rg>:

On 15-03-18 11:23 AM, David Gerard wrote: I agree. Whenever a group of people decide to curate some subset of our projects with an eye towards their needs, then I count it as a win (even in the cases where I would object to the curation choices myself). And I agree that making sure the tools exist to make this possible is part of our mission. What irks me is the idea of giving imprimatur to something "we" curate, or to do any sort of curation "ourselves" (that is, the movement or the Foundation). "All the knowledge" means "All", not "some subset thereof". -- Marc

Indeed. http://schools-wikipedia.org is already used around the world - it's a great example of what can be done if Wikimedians work with (even passively with) other orgs. Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.* On 18 March 2015 at 15:23, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Do we have an idea of the time commitment needed - X months of full-time work? (Potentially more now than it took first time around). Might be something which would justify an IEG grant, or a similar small grant from an external body... Andrew. On 18 March 2015 at 16:38, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

I'm not dismissing other approaches! I'm noting one approach that did work :-) On 18 March 2015 at 20:02, Mathias Damour <mathias.damour(a)laposte.net> wrote:

Le 18/03/2015 13:59, Marc A. Pelletier a écrit : I really don't see your point. Children and older contributors can perfectly understand and comprehend that the the content must be appropriate for children, just as (and additionaly) it as to be encyclopedic content and respect the NPOV. They can go somewhere else for another kind of content. When they are on such a wiki for some time, they often are the most active defenders of its principles and rules. There is not thousands examples, this kind af question is definitely not a day-to-day issue on Vikidia in French. There is so much to write on other subjects. Le 18/03/2015 14:22, Fæ a écrit : Where did you hear about such project "having issues for long term maintenance" ? The main issue some (not all) of these projects have is just a very common one : to gather a significant community. I must say we don't have enough content on sexuality on fr.vikidia (in my opinion) yet the controversies on those subjects are not no frequent. I remember one about the content on the article "Masturbation", some wanting it to remain vague and allusive, some other ones wanting it more informative. That's not such a big deal. By the way, there is a frequent asked questions/Questions and answers on: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids/Questions_and_answers -- Mathias Damour https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Astirmays https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Astirmays

Le 18/03/2015 20:41, Marc A. Pelletier a écrit : It still seems odd to me that those considerations would be some prevailing reason NOT to develop such a resource. In the same time, we have to take it as a fact and it can be a reason why the WMF may not be the appropriate organization to host and promote such wikis, being immersed in a certain climate surrounding children. I quoted above the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was not ratified by the US. One of the reason for that may be a conception of the rights of the parents to control what their children can be taught or the information they can reach, which would be slightly more extended in the US than in the average country. I mean rights of the parents against the rights of the government and against the eventual rights of the children to "seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds", be it very resembling to the "freely share in the sum of all knowledge - empower people..." That would be the ground for a tacit policy I've heard of on en.wp that would be "don't tell us you are a minor". The basis of Simple English Wikipedia are also resembling it : "don't tell it's for children" (and consequently it isn't really for children). Undoubtedly it doesn't prevent people from the US, among other countries, to be involved in and to benefit from such a resource. And the chapters may be more suited to support such a project/resource. Several of them already do. Vikidia is not a selection or curation, it's about writing new articles which are independent from their counterpart on Wikipedia in the same language. Otherwise we couldn't meet the objective to be more affordable for children. However we make it easy by interwiki links to reach the Wikipedia article on the same subject if one want to know more about it. Some article are even longer on Vikidia than their counterpart on Wikipédia, such as : https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/%C3%8Atre_vivant -- Mathias Damour https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Astirmays https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Astirmays