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 <[email protected]>: > On 15-03-18 03:09 AM, Mathias Damour wrote: > > [from the Convention on the Rights of the Child] > > "[...] this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart > > information and ideas of all kinds" > > 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
