Wikikids

This is a **proposal for a new** Wikimedia sister project.
Wikikids
Status of the proposal
Status	rejected
Reason	no interest. Pecopteris (talk) 06:47, 19 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Details of the proposal
Project description	Wikikids is intended to be a wiki encyclopedia designed for children aged 8 to 13, open to contributors of any age.
Is it a multilingual wiki?	One wiki per language
Potential number of languages	There will be several language versions
Proposed tagline	The free encyclopedia for 8-13 years old that everybody can make better
Technical requirements
New features to require	No. The Special:EmailUser function may be disabled.
Development wiki	Vikidia in French (38 000+) - WikiKids in Dutch (38 500+) - Vikidia in Italian (9 000+) - Vikidia in Spanish (5 000+) - Klexikon in German (2400+) - in Basque (1200+) - Vikidia in Armenian (1000+) - in Catalan (400+) - in German (400+) - in Russian (180+) - in Sicilian (30+) - in Greek (40+) and Vikidia in English (4 000+)
Interested participants
	See below
	v; t; e;

For the existing content on Wikibooks aimed at younger readers, see Wikijunior

For another list of related projects, both Wikimedia and non-Wikimedia, see List of wikis for children

For a list of related Wikimedia-project proposals, see Childrens' Wikipedia

Other languages: da | en | ja | es | +/-

The Wikikids proposal is intended to be a wiki encyclopedia designed for children aged 8 to 13, open to contributors of any age. It aims both to offer a suitable corpus of knowledge for children and to let some of them, as well as teenagers them be involved in building it. It is very close to Wikipedia in its aim and functioning, except the age range.

Wikikids is a working title for it, or the New or WMF Wikikids, to avoid confusion with the already existing Wikikids.nl. The proposal was first set up in 2005 and discussed even earlier (2003). It was renewed by different users.

Such wikis do exist and are doing rather well in French and Dutch.

Rationales

Many children already use Wikipedia daily, for the substantial content and the well known convenient way it is to find material on any subject. However, it is often said that Wikipedia article are too long and difficult for them. Many children really need and appreciate when it does exist to have a more readable content for them.

Wikimedia Foundation's vision, mission and values

Rationales or grounds for this project share most of those of Wikipedia and other sister project. Wikikids can respond to:

the vision statement which states:

"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."

The mission statement:
"The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."(...)

The level of Wikipedia articles makes them hardly accessible for children or even other people on some subjects. While they may read it for lack of a better resource, the fulfilment of these vision and mission certainly justify another encyclopedic rendering on each subject, in another wiki. Moreover, children and teenagers can be active in the building process and gets to feel both empowerment and motivation for the content as a reader.

Education

Young people can be involved in the process, alone or within educational activities organised by schools. They may also gain some digital/media literacy by learning about the functioning of a resource they will use extensively few years later: Wikipedia, although the goal is still to create content an the "knowledge resource" benefit of such a project.

See: Wikikids/Documentation and Vikidia

Recommendation to the WMF regarding version of the Wikipedias, aimed at children

The project meets a recommendation of the 2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content, requested by the resolutions of the WMF Board : Commissioning Recommendations from the Executive Director.:

(...)It is recommended: (...)3. That, however, the Foundation investigate the creation of a “WikiJunior” version of the Wikipedias, aimed at children under the age of 12, either as a stand-alone project or in partnership with existing and appropriate educational institutions.

Rights of the Child

Wikikids can meet with some articles of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. Among other:

"Article 13 - 1. The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice."

See: Wikikids/Relation to the Rights of the Child

Questions and answers

For frequent questions/objections See: Wikikids/Questions and answers

Readers age range and expected editors

Wikipedia articles may often be too difficult for teenagers as for younger children. Though, to be really different from Wikipedia, Wikikids concentrates on younger children: old enough to read and to have access to internet content, too young for Wikipedia. Eight-year-olds have usually reach a pretty good reading level, whereas teenagers have other needs and opportunities. The 8 to 13 age range is just indicative; also, not every article can be exactly on the same level. Older people could find useful information on it and less than 8 year old children could be curious enough to have a look, too.

Everybody is invited to edit Wikikids, without age restrictions. There are no mandatory or forbidden roles or status related to the users real ages. Wikikids needs grown-up contributions and enable children and teenagers to write and to be involved in building the encyclopedia.

Adults involvement is essential for building content that is of quality and significance, fostering basic maintenance: to watch and ensure a certain stability in the functioning of the wiki,
children's involvement, even when they don't produce very long articles, lets appear work on subjects that interest their peers, it responds to their aspirations and their desire to participate and they definitely can take their share in growing the content and in maintenance tasks,
older children, teenagers that don't (yet) edit Wikipedia can have the chance to do it here, and to make a good work, perhaps with Wikipedia articles as a guideline. The advantage is both the amount of work they can bring, and what this work can bring to them, like for the younger ones and like any Wikipedia editor,
school projects are welcomed provided they consider the wiki's rules and content objectives.

See: Wikikids/For children or by children ?

Rules & Policies

Rules and policies can be very closed to wikipedia's, and develop as another community wiki.

See: Wikikids/Basic principles

Existing projects to be adopted or not into Wikikids

Should Wikikids as a WMF wiki come to existence, it could be open for already existing wikis to join. At the moment there are at least two wikis that are doing rather well measured by activity and audience.

~~All versions of Vikidia would be candidate to be adopted into this WMF wiki.~~ Vikidia no longer request to be adopted within this project (Explanation on Wikikids/Vikidia's withdrawal of the adoption proposal) Astirmays (talk) 17:23, 5 January 2014 (UTC).[reply]
the group of teachers who started WikiKids.nl (Dutch) is interested but has not provided an official answer yet,
for English, see: Wikikids/Relation to Simple English Wikipedia

Basic statistics on existing projects are Spécial:Statistiques on fr.vikidia, Speciaal:Statistieken on wikikids.nl and Google Trends on Wikibooks, Commons, Wikiversity, Wikisource and Vikidia in France or Wikibooks, Commons, Wikiversity, Wikisource und Wikikids in the Netherlands.

See: Wikikids/Review of current existing wikis akin to Wikikids

Project plan and potential schedule for the proposal

The proposal has to fit into the new project process of the WMF, especially the #Adopting an existing project into the Wikimedia movement. There is an earlier example: Wikivoyage was based on older wikis and is now part of the movement as a new 'sister project'.

A potential schedule for the process is:

review existing wikis and contact them. Done See below Wikikids/Review of current existing wikis akin to Wikikids,
write a requests for comment (Requests for comment/Wikikids or Wikikids/Requests for comment)
fix the basic principles and rules for the wiki: Wikikids/Basic principles -> to check and discuss,
launch the requests for comment,
technical matters, technical requirements, choosing the final project name and domain name, promotion... Wikikids/Technical matters