I don't know if any of these would be show-stoppers, but they're points to consider:
* Who counts as a "kid" for these purposes? I suspect 14-year-olds have more in common--as Wikipedia users--with 44-year-olds than with 8-year-olds?. If someone wants to set up a Wikipedia based on age/reading level, they need to define what that age and reading level are.
* It's a Wiki. That means *the users can edit it*. At a minimum, a kids' wiki is likely to be full of booger jokes and similar stuff that we'd immediately edit out on the English (and, I assume, the other language) Wikipedias. If this is really a kids' Wiki, can we-as-adults judge the proper content?
* I Am Not A Lawyer, but I believe there are real difficulties in having even our minimal-information registration for children under 13, since we're in the U.S. There's nothing in theory to prevent an entirely-anonymous Wiki, but I suspect it would change the environment.
Having thrown all this out, I'll note that I don't plan to work on this project, if it goes ahead, and my only *strong* feeling is that if it's going to happen, it should have its own defined namespace.
I think a 'children's wikipedia' is an EXCELLENT idea, but it would have to be much more closely monitored and supervised than the general one, which would probably remove it from the 'wikipedia' spectrum entirely. You can't create an online project for kids and not supervise it for appropriate content. Nobody would use it.
Something like this would really be a project for schools... I could imagine kids researching topics and creating articles as part of their general studies or computer literacy classes, and then uploading them as part of their class work. But rather than having each individual child have a login you'd want to set it up so that the TEACHER was the one registered... and most primary/elementary school teachers really think they've got too much on their plates already to do something like that. They're either not computer-literate enough themselves, or not interested, or too busy... so I doubt that the project would be convincingly taken up.
At 08:41 PM 9/23/02 +1000, you wrote:
I think a 'children's wikipedia' is an EXCELLENT idea, but it would have to be much more closely monitored and supervised than the general one, which would probably remove it from the 'wikipedia' spectrum entirely. You can't create an online project for kids and not supervise it for appropriate content. Nobody would use it.
Something like this would really be a project for schools... I could imagine kids researching topics and creating articles as part of their general studies or computer literacy classes, and then uploading them as part of their class work. But rather than having each individual child have a login you'd want to set it up so that the TEACHER was the one registered... and most primary/elementary school teachers really think they've got too much on their plates already to do something like that. They're either not computer-literate enough themselves, or not interested, or too busy... so I doubt that the project would be convincingly taken up.
The "report" was always a staple of my lower level schoolwork, usually pieced together from encyclopedia articles. A kid's wikipedia is a natural for English classes, even the editing. This idea might have a lot more traction and popularity with teachers then we might think.
We just need a charter school that takes it up as its project. Although it wouldn't have to be a school, it could even be a project of a teachers' union or a state department of education.
Fred
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