[Foundation-l] Proposal for Wikikids

[Achim Raschka]

Dear all,

I want to start a new Wikiproject called Wikikids. After a starting phase 
it should be a Wikipedia from children for children. The following proposal 
I posted at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikids an 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Wikikids but 
there seems to be no reaction. It would be great if we can discuss this at 
the projects discussion page at Meta.

Wikikids should be a Wikipedia-version for children aged between eight an 
sixteen years. After a starting phase when adults will construct the Wiki 
together with children it should be a Wikipedia from children for children. 
The idea is to have articles in a simple language without much scientific 
words and other stuff. The themes should be specific for children´s interests.

The idea occured in the german Wikipedia a couple of months ago. There are 
a lot of ideas and problems to discuss as well. But there´s no way to solve 
them in a theoretical way so it will be perfect to have a start and take a 
look what will grow in it.


The starting phase

As a new project Wikikids will have the same starting problems any other 
project has too. It is thought, that Wikikids will be a Wikipedia in the 
full control of kids between 8 and 16 years old and also the sysos of this 
project will be children too. At the starting phase there will be some 
adults to help constructing the Wiki and get a start in writing the 
articles, but that should be as long as there are enough children to take 
control. From that time on, adults will be allowed to write articles 
inbetween the rules of Wikikids (first of all: simple language), but they 
will be users like any others under the control of children administration.


Problems

There are some problems to be discussed, but I think, it will be possible 
to handle them. For example there should be the problems of
    * what is an encyclopedia, what kind of aricles should be find in an 
encyclopedia?
    * how about the copyrights of articles and pictures?
    * ...

Articles

A lot of articles should be interesting for children and should be found in 
the Wikikids. Some examples may be:
    * Information about school
    * Sports
    * Animals
    * Collecting Stamps etc.
    * Computer and Computergames
    * Games like "Magic, The Gathering", "Pokémon" ...
    * Musik and Bands
    * Television
    * Love (how about Sex fundamentals)

Internationality

Like all other Wikimedia projects this project should be an international 
linkd one. For a start, there would be a german project (there are enough 
people to start) an maybe an englisch one, bur it will grow like Wikipedia. 
Interwiki should be able to other Wikikids and Wikipedia.

Greetings from Berlin, Germany

Achim Raschka aka Necrophorus