[WikiEN-l] Re: On parents banning their children from Wikipedia

Sun Jul 10 18:45:45 UTC 2005

Skyring a écrit:
> On 7/11/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>It may be that I am a minority *here*, but I also think parents are a
>>minority amongst involved editors. I do not see it as detrimental to the
>>encyclopedia; simply, Wikipedia as is is for adults, not for children.
> 
> 
> You mean for using, rather than editing? 8^)
> 
> But yes, fully concur. Perhaps this ties in with the "writing for the
> audience" approach, and WP is very rarely written with children in
> mind. Start typing "rude words" into WP and you will definitely see
> material that is not "school-safe". Images or articles about violence
> and violent events can also pop up without a real lot of warning.

More precisely, my kids are 7 and 8.
In terms of using, this is not only a question of unsuitable images, but 
simply that one does not explain things the same way to an adult than to 
an 8 years old. This is purely a question of maturity.

As for editing, my 8 years old has edited wikipedia.
I fear it is quite unsuitable to edit as well at this age. It is a 
little bit too complicated. The interface is mostly done with a textual 
and uniform approach, while kids mostly like icons and colors. This is 
kinda boring for them. If we were making a wiki for young, we would need 
to simplify the interface and make it more friendly.

Naturally, their editing will have sentences of poor quality, many 
spelling and grammar mistakes, so is likely to irritate regular editors.

Finally, if there many great editors (and absolutely all were very very 
very nice to my son), there are also jerks running free. Kids have a lot 
of confidence and trust in adults, I do not think it is a good idea to 
let anyone free to influence them without any control. It is just not safe.

ant