There are other lnaguage wikipedias, so why not a childrens one?
Daniel Alston wrote:
There are other lnaguage wikipedias, so why not a childrens one? [Wikipedia-l] To manage your subscription to this list, please go here: http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Although there is commendable intent to this suggestion, the possible problems make it unworkable. This is without considering any possible technical ones about which I claim complete ignorance.
What age level would this be aimed at, considering both content and reading ability?
Who among us is competent to say what kind of vocabulary is readable by children?
A single class in school often includes a wide variety of reading abilities; how can we account for that?
How do we account for extreme variation in reading abilities between countries, between states and even between school districts?
How do we account for children who are readers of English as a Second Language?
How do we account for different views about the content that is appropriate for children? At one end of the spectrum are those people who censor out anything questionable; at the other end are those who feel that children should have everything available to them providing there is appropriate guidance.
If there is a children's Wikipedia, what would prevent children from visiting the regular Wikipedia?
For all the above my feeling is that a children's Wikipedia would be a wasted effort, and a non-starter.
Eclecticology
Hi all!
I've been glad to read about this idea.
If you know children well you might consider the possibilty that they had this idea before us ;-)
I assume that there are already a lot of wikis maintained by children, especially in the context of local areas, school intranets, etc.
As already stated by Fred there is a need for people like teachers who are already working with children to help them to connect their wikis to each other. IMO for children it is not so much important to contribute to *the* one and only encyclopedia, if they could grasp this idea at all. They prefer communicating to each other, and see only need for a steady storage of information if they are asked by others to explain them something and want to refer to some articles.
So i guess for the younger ones it should be the loosely combination of a wiki communication and collaboration space where they can play and explain things to each other and the older children could do the task of refractoring the contributed stuff and build a uniform wikipedia from it. (with the help of us wikipedians and their teachers)
I want to encourage you to keep this idea in mind as it would be nice to watch the children's wiki grow. Never underestimate their creativity and the readiness of the older to help the younger ones.
Another point is the phenomenon that children often explain things to each other in very pictured language and funny where we adults can profit also as some grasp some sorts of things easier that way. The corresponding pages could be referenced from wikipedia more or less for fun to learn how children think about an issue - and this will keep the generations together.
Concerning the question how the wikipedia and the *wikidia* could be linked to each other: I cannot imagine a proper solution (namespaces etc.) yet. I'll think about this problem, i already do some related work on interwiki solutions as suggested i.e on http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AllInOneWiki There's still much work to do and good ideas needed.
I'd appreciate your further comments and ideas about a kid's wiki/ -pedia. I would like to contribute to such a project!
Regards, Florian
On 9/23/02 10:51 AM, "Florian Konnertz" florian.konnertz@web.de wrote:
I'd appreciate your further comments and ideas about a kid's wiki/ -pedia. I would like to contribute to such a project!
I suspect the issues involved in creating a quality kid's wikipedia fall too far outside of the thrust of Wikipedia.org. However, Wikipedia's code and content is free for copying and reuse; that is, anyone who has a clear vision on how to run such a website may.
I also suspect that if someone were willing and able to dedicate the effort to organizing such a project that Jimbo would be happy to donate the space on the wikipedia.org server for that.
But other than the (not inconsiderable) costs of starting the project up, there's nothing stopping you from putting up a website with just the Wikipedia articles that you think appropriate to a kid's editable encyclopedia.
Florian Konnertz wrote in small part:
Concerning the question how the wikipedia and the *wikidia* could be
We could call the children's Wikipedia "Wikipaedia", unless you think that will be misunderstood ^_^.
No, I think that name should be reserved for the BE (British English) foreign-language version. ;-)
Andre Engels
Andre Engels wrote:
Florian Konnertz wrote in small part:
Concerning the question how the wikipedia and the *wikidia* could be
We could call the children's Wikipedia "Wikipaedia", unless you think that will be misunderstood ^_^.
No, I think that name should be reserved for the BE (British English) foreign-language version. ;-)
Sorry, but isn't "be" already the code for Belarusian?
On Mon, Sep 23, 2002 at 01:58:15PM -0700, Toby Bartels wrote:
Florian Konnertz wrote in small part:
Concerning the question how the wikipedia and the *wikidia* could be
We could call the children's Wikipedia "Wikipaedia", unless you think that will be misunderstood ^_^.
Spell it correctly, you mean? Could be a good idea ;-)
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