Talk:Wikijunior/Archive 1
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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
In the early stages of this project it is better to not take on too many subjects, lest none of them get anywhere. They suggested three beginning topics would be a good start across several topics.
As I said on the Meta discussion, we should look at the possibility that each booklet have several editions covering an age range of not more than three years each: 2-4, 5-7, 8-10, 11-14 and 15-16. Beyond that the existing Wikipedia article will do. Each age group has different abilities and requirements.
A sampler book should first be prepared containing the range of six articles on for example the lion, Mercury and Peru. This should also include ample space for comments. It could then be distributed to a broad range of educators and librarians who would be requested to comment and criticize. Only then, in response to that feedback, should we proceed with full production. I think that this is as much an exercize in building credibility as in building a series of texts. Eclecticology 13:59, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Although that's a good idea in the long run. This project is aimed at 7-12 year olds so we don't need to worry about very young or nearly adult readers. As I suggested on the draft page layout, we can write for an average 10 or 11 year old with simpler texts in the speach bubbles and advanced texts in text boxes (like they with derivations in physics books) for the older and brighter child. And Angela's idea of alternate texts can be useful for extending the age range. A quiz, an interview, a story. These can all be designed to appeal to the younger or older child. That way we only need one booklet per topic to cover 7 - 12. Not every child will read every single line of text in a particluar booklet. but there will be something to interest all of them. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikijunior_draft_page_layout for a sample of how this might look. Theresa knott 14:23, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Actually, it's 8-11 now. -- user:zanimum
- Pause for a moment - How could the same book be targeted for both a third grader and junior high student? Lotsofissues 17:10, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
- Actually, it's 8-11 now. -- user:zanimum
Remember, we finish these before any other titles
[edit source]A self describe troll create this, Sharks, which while well written in my quick glance at it, is to be shelved. -- user:zanimum
- Is the shelving area accessible via the search so I can follow its progress or can someone leave a trail of bread crumbs or links for me? This is important for some research some of us are doing. Thank in advance in case flame war erupts and I must skateaway home free. lol 8) mirwin, aka the underboard troll.
P.S. It has been a while since I contributed at Wikipedia .... Does this project work like wikipedia where nothing is thrown away, merely archived until more approprite or is deletion or ignoring forever around here?
- Pages can be deleted, but they can also be undeleted if need be. MShonle 20:33, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Need Guidance on Length
[edit source]My research on cats is underway, and I would like some length guidance for this book. 48 pages of what size? How many words total? How many words for each species? For other introductory sections? Lets please target an age range no more than 3 years apart. -- Lotsofissues 03:18, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- My advice, just write what you think is right. We'll edit things before they go to print, but keep the full length versions online. Our grant says we are to write for 8-11-year-olds. -- user:zanimum
You'll make it easy on yourselves (editing) if we have some idea how long each article should be. I'm working on South America, and I'm not sure if I'm writing too much. I'm not interested in writing stuff that will just end up being cut for space reasons, so what's a decent rule of thumb? There will be 20 articles, so presumably every article will be 48 pages / 20 articles = 2.4 pages per article. But are theses 100 word pages or 500 word pages? Quadell 6 July 2005 17:38 (UTC)
- I would recommend that you worry more about trying to keep the level of complexity down so it is understandable for kids. Remember, this is not Wikipedia, so use simple english. If the article goes over 32K (when the warning goes off when editing any page on Wikibooks or anything with MediaWiki), it is probably way too long and should be edited back. That would make it roughly 2500 words+ image tags and templates. If possible, try to bring articles up that are weak in content first, as they really need help.
- As far as how this will look when it goes to print, that is going to be an interesting question. There is quite a bit of work that will have to be done even after the basic content is put together. Rob Horning 9 July 2005 10:27 (UTC)
Article of the Week/Month
[edit source]This is a feature that has languished for some time, and I'm rushing off to change it for now. As it is the end of the month, it doesn't really matter, but I think it does need to be updated regularly. Should there be some sort of vote on this? I just selected some new articles, and things that IMHO needed a little bit of work as well. This is totally arbitrary, and certianly could be improved. any suggestions? A voting page for suggestions? Rob Horning 19:48, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Read-only mode
[edit source]Once the projects are finished, is there a way to put them on Read-only mode? That way, we would avoid spam and troll attacks while kids navigate these pages. The lock could always be removed when there is need to update anything. DrJones 20:49, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Yes it's planned that the books will be developed here, but will be printed and put on a read only website once they are finished. Theresa knott 21:07, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
- I hope it is just a "finished" fork that is put on a read-only mode. Times change, new discoveries happen (particularly in science, but also in politics like South America), wars occur, and more happens. Every topic here can and should be allowed to "breathe". This development "fork" could then be imported by an admin if it seems as though it is has significantly improved the article or has improved the editing....hopefully by general community concensus as well. In the meantime, I hope that several new "projects" get started well before the read-only issues occur. This is similar in nature to the Wikipedia 1.0 issues, although this is going to be a little bit smaller in scope. --Rob Horning 03:07, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
- Of course. Theresa knott 17:44, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
Print version of Wikijunior book
[edit source]I'm tired of people merely talking about what a print version of one of these books would look like. Barring substantial changes in MediaWiki software, this is going to have to be done by hand for now.
Anyway, if you want a copy of The Print Version of Wikijunior Solar System, download this to you heart's content. I'll try to upload a new version about once a month or so incorporating changes in the articles for each Wikijunior Wikibook as they happen. The version from the Wikijunior pages will be as of the date of upload, avoiding blatant vandalism and obvious stubs in progress. If there is any interest, I'll go ahead and do the other two Wikijunior books as well. Of course, anybody can update the file as well doing it the same way I've done it.
This has been prepared by saving each page in the Wikijunior book to my hard drive, and then importing them into Open Office (v. 1.1.4) and in turn exporting as a PDF file. I had problems trying to copy & paste directly from Mozilla into Open Office. If there is interest I'll also include the *.sxw file on some Wikijunior:Print page. Right now this would be trivial to duplicate, so I'm not really going to fight it right now with the extra upload.
I'm doing this because
- I have a 9-year-old son who has been begging me to get him a book about the Solar System. This is as good as any, so I'm going to let him be the first one to read this particular book in hard copy dead-tree format.
- I wanted to see just how many printed pages one of the books on-line really is (64 pages of print BTW, and there is missing content from the site as well, but the 64 pages does include the GFDL).
- I thought it would be cool to try the Open Office PDF publishing button. (I havn't had that much experience with it before... I just upgraded to a new version of Open Office.)
- I am tired of the FAQ happening where everybody is talking about a print version, but there isn't any to show. Now there is a print version, so those new to Wikijunior can have something to wrap their hands around if they so choose.
- If Wikinews can have a Print version, why not Wikijunior? To be honest, that was the #2 inspiration for me (after reason #1 listed above).
Comment away on what you like/dislike/think needs to be added to these print version of books. I do intend to put in a formal table of contents to each major article, footers with page numbers, a semi-exaustive list of contributors as based on the histories of each project, and other items more fitting a print version than a web version. Any reasonable suggested would be appreciated --Rob Horning 07:36, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
My first impressions are that it looks pretty good. We need a list of contributors somewhere in the book (or on the back page perhaps) to comply with the GFDL. This was discussed somewhere on meta, I can't recall where exactly. Theresa knott 21:09, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
- I'm going to plow through the history of each article to see if we can get that information. Almost everybody uses a psuedonym for attribution, so perhaps we need to set up a formal identification area for those that want to be "officially" an author of the Wikibook. This will be especially important if we want to do formal registration. This is something I'm willing to fill out the paperwork for... but I'm going to need some assistance in trying to find the real names of the authors of these books in order to fill out the copyright registration forms. --Rob Horning 22:49, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
- This may sound really silly, but can the final version have a better font than Times New Roman (which is generally acknowledged to be harder to read)? A font like Ariel would be pretty and highly readable. --Laura Scudder | Talk 03:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
- No problem. At least is isn't Old German gothic. The reason for Times New Roman was simply because it was the "default" font for Open Office on a fresh install. --Rob Horning 07:51, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
While it is still developing, you may look at the Wikijuior Big Cats Print Version located here.
Important: To view this file properly in Acrobat Reader, follow these instructions:
- In the menu bar, click View
- Move the cursor down to Page Layout
- Click on Facing
--Munchkinguy 02:49, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
FYI I just added an update for the Image:Big Cats.pdf that you can download. For some reason it is about half the size of Munchkinguy's version but with more content. Go figure. Anyway, have fun and I hope this shows the fruit of what Wikijunior can become. --Rob Horning 02:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Pronunciations?
[edit source]It might be a good idea to provide pronunciations of some of the italicized words and other terms.. Though, is there an easy way to do this? (I.e., not using the IPA) It seems phonetic pronunciations can be ambigious at times.
- For further discussion on exactly this topic, see: Talk:Wikijunior_Solar_System#Pronunciations
- In short, how would you suggest this could be done and also be understandable to young readers of English languages books (the goal of Wikijunior). Most pronouciation guides tend to use special symbols that IMHO require a more adult level of knowledge to understand in the first place. Phoenetic pronounciations that use just latin letters may not be as easily transfered across all English dialects, where pronounciation does have a huge impact through cultural customs and traditions. That is also another issue in regards to what pronounciation standard should be used, although "General American" and "British" are two standards to apply in a situation like this. Common pronounciations do occur in most English dialects (although I do have a little bit of a problem trying to understand Jamacian). Texan and Cockney are two other dialectial flavors that each have their own unique traits, but unlikly to be used as a grammar standard. --Rob Horning
- I think the idea the second poster presented here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Talk:Wikijunior_Solar_System#Pronunciations is a good idea. That is, using words kids should already be familiar with to use in pronunciations (or in the pronunciation key).
Ancient Egypt and New Wikijunior Books
[edit source]Some anonymous user just added the following Wikijunior Wikibook to the front page:
I have removed it to here mainly as a reference, and because it doesn't meet with what I would call basic minimum standards that need to be followed here. It perhaps needs to be deleted, and certainly needs to be called a stub and nothing more. It also goes against the "no new Wikijunior books" policy.
It does bring up the point that I feel this policy of no new Wikibooks is totally anti-wiki and against just about everything that we stand for here on any Wikimedia project: The ability for users to create new and original content. This whole business of "waiting" until some printed content has been created for Wikijunior is totally silly, and there are no deadlines to getting that accomplished either. And besides, I created a PDF file (for Wikijunior Solar System) that is more or less ready for print, except for the fact that improved editing really does need to take place before I would send a copy of this Wikibook to an eager school teacher. --Rob Horning 18:20, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
After seeing little activity in other Wikijunior discussion forums, I am hereby proposing the following new Wikijunior Book: Ancient civilizations. If there seems to be some desire for somebody to contribute to a totally different area of knowledge, this would be an interesting one to go after. Topics would be in part based on the rough outline in the above article suggestion on Ancient Egypt. Suggested articles would be the following:
- Egypt
- Persia
- Babylon/Sumeria
- Assryia
- Inca
- Maya
- Mound Builders (North America)
- India
- China
- Japan
- Korea
- Rome
- Carthage
- Greece
- Ethiopia
- South & Central African civilizations?
Focus in this situation will be on B.C.E./B.C. civilizations, although this distinction doesn't always have to hold. There are some issues where some national governments in a way to gain legitimacy often do biased "research" on their ancient progenitors. These POV issues will be present, but I believe they can be avoided. Imperial governments that governed more than one city (loosely > 50,000 people) will also be a focus rather than individual city-states (aka Athens). Anyway, I'd like some feedback on this proposal before going off and starting it up. --Rob Horning 18:50, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
- If you havn't noticed, in part because this section of Wikijunior is so dead, I've gone ahead and added this new Wikijunior Wikibook. I've also created Wikijunior:New Title Policy to establish some basic guidelines on how to formalize the process of creating a new Wikijunior book. I'm not trying to flood Wikijunior with a bunch of half-done book titles, but I think we do need to broaden the realm of potential contributors to this series, and staying stagnated with just three different Wikibooks isn't enought. --Rob Horning 16:43, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Board to discuss giving Wikijunior seperate wiki
[edit source]During the upcoming September 18 Wikimedia Foundation board meeting, the Board will discuss registering a seperate domain for Wikijunior, presumably wikijunior.org. Presumably Wikijunior will still be developed on Wikibooks, but it will go live on a seperate site. Alternatively, we could have en.wikijunior.org for viewing, and en2.wikijunior.org for editing, which would allow for a greater ease in developing pages, as they could be part of a freeform encyclopedia (on limited topics), rather than the isolated books they are now. If we were to develop off Wikibooks, I'd like us to retain most, if not all of the structure of Wikibooks, it's worked well so far. -- user:zanimum
- I'm curious about what is going to go on the Wikijunior.org site? Is this going to be an editable Wiki by the general public, or something that a few "admins" and invited guests are going to work on to mirror the content of Wikibooks? I guess I'm confused as to what the full extent of the proposal is going to be right now. If a fully editable wiki is going to be started as essentially a whole new Wikimedia sister project, I would perfer that it go through the whole new project proposal process, including vote, as supposedly required by the foundation (although it seems as though this isn't being respected). I got that whole thing organized for Wikiversity, and it is not a trivial thing to accomplish. On the other hand, once you get some widespread support through such a vetting process and vote in multiple languages (the really hard part of the process), it is hard to deny that the new project should be started. --Rob Horning 11:19, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
A World of Discovery and Innovation
[edit source]I just had to do it. I hope nobody minds. Science ≈ discovery. Technology ≈ innovation. They are often intertwined because development of new technology is often required to enable new scientific discoveries. But innovation, of itself, is not usually science. --SV Resolution 14:45, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
- Yes, that's fine. I've clearly defined what each of the "series" are, primarily based on the categories on the front of Wikipedia English ("Culture | Geography | History | Life | Mathematics | Science | Society | Technology"). However, natural history is split from science. -- user:zanimum
- This isn't that big of a deal, but I wanted to emphasis that the new Ancient Civilizations book would be different from the South America book, and technically a different "series". I see the South America book being a part of a larger collection of books about each continent, like doing Africa, Austrialia/Oceania, and Asia as subsequent volumes in that series. The Ancient Civilizations don't really fit in that mold as easily, although breaking up Ancient Civilizations by continent might not be a bad idea either. Just a thought, and this whole classification system might go out the window anyway. I'm not too worried until we have several books out anyway, and a group of books that can be collected and published as a "series". --Rob Horning 20:09, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Distribution to hurricane evacuees
[edit source]Wikijunior Solar System is currently being proofread. Danny has asked us to have Wikijunior Solar System ready for distribution to hurricane evacuees by October 32005.
Here are some questions we need to answer:
- Do the hurricane evacuees want this book?
- Do their host schools want this book?
- Does anybody know who to contact to get in touch with organizations that can distribute these books to the evacuees?
--SV Resolution 19:34, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
- Just an FYI. 14:59, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Great idea! And if anyone else knows how to get these booklets published and distributed, please let us all know. --SV Resolution 20:42, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Quarterly voting for new Wikijunior Book Projects
[edit source]I added some pages to help vote for new Wikijunior Book Projects. Due to suggestions on [[Talk:Wikijunior:New Title Suggestions]], I made this a quarterly vote. If Wikijunior is popular enough, this can be changed to Monthly or whatever, but this is just a chance to still allow us to grow a little bit but not too fast. Voting is rampant all over Wikimedia projects anyway, but this is new territory for seeking input on what new articles are going to be written in the first place. I hope this will allow some growth to Wikijunior to keep it from getting stagnant but at the same time allow us to focus our energies on existing projects to try and get them caught up and completed. Also, the methodology of developing projects first before expansion I think is a good experiment to try out on Wikijunior, something I havn't seen anywhere else on any other Wikimedia project. Any more suggestions?
I also want to eventually put this on the main page of Wikibooks as another item for the Wikibooks community to vote on as well.--Rob Horning 08:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Alaska?
[edit source]Was there some discussion on choosing Alaska, or was that just a bold move? Thanks. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 17:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
- That was just a bold move and something done arbitrarily. I think it is a neat idea, and Alaska certainly is big enough in terms of geography to justify a book like this, but I would strongly suggest it goes into the New Title Suggestions area first. I'm still trying to get some community concensus if we need to have a free-for-all on title expansions in Wikijunior or if we need to maintain the slow growth approach. In the past, titles like Alaska would have been simply removed. --Rob Horning 19:05, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
- Okay, because while I think Alaska would be an interesting topic, I don't think we should put it out there unless we have discussed it. Isn't that what the New Title Suggestion page is for? I'm going to remove it for now. Thanks. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 19:34, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
A few things...
[edit source]- So was there ever any agreement on the Kiki/Nikki thing? The books as they have proceeded do not seem to accomodate Kiki.
- And can we try for some sort of standardisation throughout the Wikijunior world? There was an intro on the Solar System book that I stole and added to Big Cats. Should we include this on the other two as well?
- There was also a template that I stole for Big Cats too. This might be helpful for the other two books as well.
- Was there ever any final decision about a new domain for Wikijunior?
- When are we trying to have the first book published by? Who is going to publish it? How will it be distributed? Can someone point me in the direction of these discussions?
- Is there regular contact with the Beck Foundation since they approved the grant so long ago?
- Any idea on how many regular Wikijunior editors are there? I do not see a ton of activity and that's sad if we really are trying to do this.
- Is there a way we can make this project more visible? Perhaps a Signpost article on WP? Was there one ever written? Can someone point me where to go?
I am sorry for all the questions, but I think I have raised some important concerns. I am trying to move this project forward but am wary that it is not focused enough to accomplish our goals. Thank you for the time. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:23, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
- A reply to some of the things listed above:
- The whole Kiki/Nikki thing has not been resolved, but at the same time it hasn't been used either in any of the Wikijunior books. As currently presented, none of the content seems to be from the 1st person POV that would suggest a need for the character either. I have my own ideas about how useful a cartoon character is going to be for these books, but it was something thought up in the early stages of Wikijunior to help draw a certain audience for these books.
- The "standardization" in terms of the intro and stuff was actually something I added when I wanted to publish the Wikijunior Solar System as a dead-tree book. I've done it, and it looks nice, but I felt that it needed an introduction in order to work out. Some of these features perhaps should be adopted in some of the other books like Big Cats as well.
- As far as the new domain of http://wikijunior.org/ is concerned, it does exist right now and is registered with the Wikimedia Foundation as the technical and billing contact. It is also active right now, but all it does is redirect to the Wikibooks page of Wikijunior at the moment. In terms of trying to create a whole new MediaWiki domain, that will have to be a new project proposal on the Wikimedia Meta Wiki. The Foundation board is still talking about the issue, but it is also something that has to come from the community for support. As it was, this was really just one motivated contributor who wanted to see it happen. Nice by itself, but there are still unanswered questions and some community decisions (not the decisions of one person) that have to be made before it can happen. I don't think we have enough participants yet with Wikijunior to justify a whole new project yet.
- I'm willing to bankroll a few initial print copies of some fully prepared Wikibook volumes to get the ball rolling for a Wikimedia Press organization. There is also some talk about doing this on Meta and a few other places as well, but as yet rather diffuse in terms of organization. The big sticking point is that this is a capital intensive activity (requires $$$ to get started) and then trying to find a place to be able to sell the content. Preferably, I'd like to do something loosly affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation, but be a for-profit venture with some of the profits going back to the Wikimedia Foundation. Lulu Press and a couple other printing companies are also a possibility.
- As for the Beck Foundation, I have made some inquiries and frankly I'm starting to smell a scam here. I don't know exactly what was promised and I have yet to find somebody or have somebody respond to tell me where the formal contract with the Foundation is at, what the contact names and addresses of the Beck Foundation are, certainty as to which Beck Foundation it is associated with, and what deadlines if any are expected with the content. All this an absolutely no leadership to get the printing done, and zero contact between the people supposedly working on the grant contract and the people actually writing the content. As far as I'm concerned at the moment, the Beck Foundation doesn't even need to exist in order for the rest of Wikijunior to continue and for this project to turn out to be something useful. Basically, ignore the Beck Foundation and if what we have for Wikijunior is useful perhaps somebody will donate some money to the Wikimedia Foundation at some time in the future. I'm not holding my breath. We'll find another way to get the content printed if you want a copy for yourself or to donate to your local public library.
- As far as regulars are concerned, there about about 10-12 semi-regular contributors. A huge push is going into the Wikijunior Solar System right now, with some fresh blood going into the Wikijunior Ancient Civilizations area as well. Both of those Wikibooks seem to be doing fairly well. The South America book is simply languishing, and the Big Cats book seems to suffer from perhaps too narrow of a focus. Big Cats, however, is still getting some work done on it from time to time, and there is a small but dedicated group that seems to be working on that independent of the rest of the Wikijunior books. This is an issue with Wikibooks in general, but Wikijunior is more of a microcosum of this. I have a good portion of Wikijunior on my watch list, and there seem to be about 10 edits/day somewhere on a Wikijunior book. This is significant growth from about 5 months ago when it was quite a bit less.
- For visibility, Perhaps we need to get something going more on Meta as well, and putting out a cattle call on Wikipedia would be a good idea. Particularly for the new book of the quarter vote, where perhaps we could get some input as to the next major project we will be doing. Barring any huge changes, it looks like the next Wikijunior book will be about Dinosaurs, but that is still premature. I think it is critical that we start expanding Wikijunior if we want more contributors.
- A reply to some of the things listed above:
- I hope this answers your questions. --Rob Horning 23:53, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Robert. Most of my questions are answered. I am a little confused on the entire Beck Foundation issue. Angela said that there was a physical check for 10,000 USD. So my real question is, why would any of us need to chip in for publishing at this point? What is the 10,000 dollars for? Is it still available, or was it used ofr other projects? And If the Beck Foundation is a scam, where did the check come from, and was it ever cashed? I know I am coming to this project fairly late, but I think this is an important issue to resolve. When was our (Wikimedia) last contact with representatives from the Beck Foundation? Thanks. --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 18:07, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
- I didn't say it was a scam, just that it seemed like one. The $10,000 check went into the general fund of the Wikimedia Foundation, although some things were promised would be accomplished. The problem is that like I said, the people who seemed to be involved with the grant are not participating with Wikijunior. I have asked for and have not recieved any links to or copies of the grant or really much of anything that goes into details about what is going on. I can't find any contact people either at the Wikimedia Foundation who are willing to discuss the issue with me, at least people who know what is going on. The board members are willing to talk to me, but they don't have much more to add to the discussion going on right now and don't know the full details either.
- The thing I didn't like about the whole thing was mainly the way it was put together with promises made that volunteers would accomplish. Even more importantly, that a fairly significant amount of money is involved, and the people involved in obtaining that money have shown no leadership on the actual Wikijunior project to see that deadlines are met and that one we have a book ready for publication that the rest of the actual publishing details have been worked out as well. That hasn't happened yet and doesn't appear as though it will ever happen with money from the Beck Foundation.
- Wikijunior is a neat project on its own merit, and that is why I am participating. I've decided to take a role of leadership and try to enlarge the community through things like the New Book of the Quarter and to keep pages like this one active and fresh. The Wikijunior Solar System book is very close to completion at least for a 1st edition, so it is important that we try to work out the other details about where we can go from here. If Beck Foundation seed money can't be used for the printed materials, I don't mind holding out a tin cup and trying to see if we as a community putting this together can go and do this on our own. There are some other educational foundations I can hit up, but I don't want to have vaporware to hand over before I approach those other educational philothrantic groups. --Rob Horning 02:35, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
- It is sort of sad that what started out as a noble idea, sort of fizzled out now as we near publication. I think Wikijunior does have merit on its own, but all I can think of is "so what?" It just seems like it is hidden away, and will people ever use it? Maybe once we finalize all of the copyediting and proofing, and have something final, we could go to the community and show them what we are trying to do. Maybe raise Wikijunior specific funds. People are much more apt to donate if there is some finished project. Oh well. I guess we just keep up the good work. Thanks Robert, you've been a real help. --LV (Dark Mark) 18:10, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Grant Idea
[edit source]I found this grant announcement to be somewhat interesting, and perhaps relevant to Wikijunior:
http://www.fedgrants.gov/Applicants/NEH/OPUB/OPO/MI/Grant.html
This is a U.S. Federal Grant for historical presevation and includes a specific reference to funding for working on educational materials and website development. This came up in another discussion, and I'm not sure if we want to be tied to the U.S. Government, but this is a thought for some funding, and with the 501(c)(3) status of the Wikimedia Foundation we might be able to qualify as well. --Rob Horning 19:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
- While that is very intriguing, it states, "These grants support interpretive museum exhibitions (both long-term and traveling) and the interpretation of historic sites, and include support for accompanying publications, websites, and public humanities programming." While we clearly fall under the websites and public humanities programming clause, I'm not sure we qualify for the main clause (the museum or historical sites clause). How can we reconcile this fact? --LV (Dark Mark) 20:08, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
- What is interesting is that there is no grant "floor" on this. We can submit a grant request for just a few hundred dollars and we may get it! Indeed, if we want to apply for this, we would have to make a much more serious proposal than what was apparently done with the Beck Foundation, and come up with a realistic budget that would require something beyond what would normally be covered through the general server operations that the Wikimedia Foundation already covers.
- Some points in our favor is that Wikijunior is something that is already established, with some "publications" already under our belt. That is a requirement for this grant, that we "should have already done most of the planning for their projects, including the identification of the key humanities themes, relevant scholarship, and program formats." I think the current Wikibooks and Wikijunior policies already implemented would be useful as demonstration points for this. Another clause that is in our favor is that they are seeking "projects that use innovative formats and non-traditional ways of engaging audiences". If that isn't Wikijunior, I don't know what is.
- I was thinking that the Wikijunior Ancient Civilizations book is particularly relevant to this grant proposal, particularly the sections that cover ancient North American civilizations (that would be of interest to the NEH), but most of Wikijunior would be of interest as well in general.
- Point here that should be noted: Let's talk about in general what is realistically needed for Wikijunior outreach... i.e. what can we do to get Wikijunior content moved beyond just this website and get it into the hands of children. What things can be done through organization of volunteers, and what activities would actually cost us some money by being responsible on spending the money as well. Sure, we can talk about funding an Antarctic expedition for all current contributors to write a book about Penguins, but that is unrealistic. Requesting funding to send existing Wikijunior materials to grade schools, including on CD-ROMs, flyers, and printed copies of the book might be more relevant. Setting up a program where volunteers could give presentations to school kids based on Wikijunior materials might be another approach, with the grant money providing for travel stipends and presentation supplies. We could be creative here, if we gave it a thought.
- Other opportunities like this will present itself over time, but I felt word about this grant needed to get out. --Rob Horning 11:34, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
illustrations
[edit source]Usually childrens books are full of illustrations. However little original work seems to be surfacing and it would seem foolish to merely steal (even if it is legal) photos, maps, etc. from other organizations and people. Shouldn't we create our own page illustrations? My artistic ability is limited, although I would be willing to draw some less detailed pictures and/or maps. Does anyone have and fair talent in drawing and would be willing to donate a few hours to creating large page illustrations? N1person 04:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Form of English
[edit source]I trust we're all agreed that it isn't right to confuse kids with the differences between American and British English. However, that in itself can make things difficult - a book should only be written in one form of standard English, and it's tough luck if that form of English is American and you are British, or vice versa. I have seen it mentioned elsewhere that it may be desirable to have two books in that instance - one in British English and one in American English, and I think that's a good idea. Maybe have "Wikijunior" for American English and "Wikikids" (for example) for British English? I'd happily help "translate" any American English into British English, Jguk 22:13, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
- I've given some of this some thought since the failed Brazilian Portuguese Wikipedia was proposed. I sort of put the nail into the coffin of that proposal by comparing Brazilian Portuguese with European Portuguese as compared to American vs. British English. If you look at the Chinese Wikipedia pages, there is a special tab at the top of the page (with edit, history, etc.) that points to Simplified vs. Traditional Chinese spelling as varients of the Chinese language. I'm curious if there might not be something similar that could be done for the two variations of English? See zh:Wikijunior for an example of this and especially note the last two tabs (when not logged in as a registered user).
- The problem with doing something like this is that it goes beyond just Wikijunior but instead requires a change to the whole of Wikibooks and this Wiki. I don't know all of the details for these variants, but it is something to at least think about and perhaps bring up at the Staff Lounge.
- As far as what variation to use for now, I would say for now not to sweat the details. Different authors have different writing styles anyway, and the dielectal variation of the language is just one of the differences you can note in writing style. I guess it matters if you want to be a grammar Nazi. --Rob Horning 04:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it requires as fundamental a change as you suggest. I believe it is important for children's books to be written in the form of standard English the child will/should be used to. At age ranges above Wikijunior we have (mostly in development) for English children, titles such as "GCSE History" (GCSE being the exams sat at age 16), "A Level History" (A-Levels being the exams sat at age 18), and then we go to undergraduate and adult texts. There are/should be equivalents for those studying for exams at age 16 and 18 in other countries. These texts no doubt will follow the form of standard English prevalent in that country anyway. Which leaves us with adult books - and by the time someone is reading adult books they should be more ok with reading texts in a different form of standard English. It's only really at a younger, pre-exam stage that I see this as an issue. Incidentally, you will note that many popular books have different versions - for instance, there is an American English version of the Harry Potter books, which were, of course, written in British English, Jguk 08:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
- I know this is a delay in response here. I am appalled that the Harry Potter books have a seperate American English version distinct from the traditional English of J.K. Rowling. I wish that was discussed and debated much more, and I guess I havn't noticed before. The main difference I thought was only on the title of the first Harry Potter book, which in Britian was "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", America "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". I think Philosopher's Stone has much more meaning but that is a seperate argument. I know Tolkein books have not had this happen (aka the Hobbit... clearly a children's book), nor has C. S. Lewis had his Narnia books translated into American English. In all but when you are trying to teach basic grammar with a limited set of basic words would I consider this to be important, as most children can understand words like colour and color with no problem understanding what they mean. Only words that are quite different like bonnet and hood (on an automobile) would cause some real confusion, and even then the fact that there are dilectical differences was actually something brought up by my teachers when I was growing up. This only affects just a few words out of most of the content that is written anyway. --Rob Horning 06:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Doubt
[edit source]Hello! I find Wikijunior very interesting but I wanted to ask a doubt. Suppose if I'm suggesting a new title, can we start working on it before it is chosen as "Wikijunior: New Book Of The Quarter". Please advice with information. --Mastermind 007 13:04, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
- Mastermind, that's effectively what I'm doing with Wikijunior Kings and Queens of England. I don't think that setting out alone is really the problem - the problem is that books tend to have very limited value until they are 100% (or very close to 100%) complete, and people on wikibooks tend to start books that never even get 10% or 20% complete. The "New Book Of The Quarter" was, I understand, started so that efforts could be concentrated on one book that would be seen through to completion. As long as you are committed to completing your project, there should be no problem with you doing your own Wikijunior book. What subject do you have in mind? Is it focused and is it likely to appeal to a wide readership? Jguk 20:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
A Case for an Online Wiki for Children
[edit source]This page is geting too long. Please refer to the link in the section heading and respond either here or there... --Barry Desborough 18:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Non Canonical Books for Wikijunior
[edit source]On the front page of the main Wikijunior page, two new Wikijunior books were added that I will confess do have a limited amount of content in them. You can read a comment about this I made for Wikijunior:New Title Suggestions#Wikijunior Kings and Queens of England, and I will admit that this is an unofficial policy. Some other Wikijunior contributors in the past have instantly reverted any changes like this where new books were added to the main Wikijunior page.
This whole process of doing a Wikijunior:New Book of the Quarter vote was to allow a forum to expand the number of Wikijunior books, but keep the philosophy of slow growth and concentrating on just a few titles at a time. We are now at a crossroads on this philosophy (it isn't a policy, and I'm admitting it here) where now several new Wikijunior books have been created outside of this process of holding a vote for a new book.
The question I propose is: Should the New Book of the Quarter process become official policy? What sort of penalties should happen to content that is developed outside of this process? Do we simply open up Wikijunior as a free-for-all and allow anybody to start writing any content they please, simply with Wikijunior as the "Children's corner" of Wikibooks?
I'm not ready to have a formal vote yet on this topic, but I would like to get some feedback from the usual Wikijunior contributors. I'm sure there are a number of opinions on this matter, and some pure Wikists feel that anybody should be free to add any content anywhere they like, barring blatant vandalism. Perhaps one approach is to come up with a formal Wikijunior policy on this matter, and get user input on it. I do think that we can be a bit more creative here, and that doesn't have to be the only option. --Rob Horning 00:21, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
- I do not understand the situation. If there was some problem with creating new "Wikijunior" books, I would just tell users to create the books without using the (possibly worthless) "Wikijunior" name. --Kernigh 01:14, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
- Largely I would have to agree. I set up the current process of "allowing" new Wikijunior books as a compromise from a few of the original Wikijunior contributors who actively went out and deleted new Wikijunior proposals and reverted additions on this main Wikijunior page. That is precisely the point that you simply could add new children's books elsewhere, and perhaps it should be simply opened up as a free for all.
Before that happens, I am suggesting that perhaps you could change your mindset a little bit here and notice the benefits of having a bunch of people working together at trying to improve a common sub-set of content before creating new content. Notice especially the 03:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
- Largely I would have to agree. I set up the current process of "allowing" new Wikijunior books as a compromise from a few of the original Wikijunior contributors who actively went out and deleted new Wikijunior proposals and reverted additions on this main Wikijunior page. That is precisely the point that you simply could add new children's books elsewhere, and perhaps it should be simply opened up as a free for all.
- Rob, I think this is a really good idea. I suspect that one of Wikibooks's weak points is a lack of focus on specific projects. You seem to have addressed that with this unofficial policy. I think Wikijunior's strong ability to find focus is one of the big secrets of its success.
- I get the idea that you have in mind to discourage the creation of new Wikijunior projects in the interest of keeping work focused on the existing ones. Avoiding having too many in-progress Junior books seems like good practice. At the same time, it might be unwise to completely prevent people who are dead set on working on their pet project from contributing. Jon seems to be doing a nice job with Kings and Queens, and I'd hate to see that work discouraged because the community as a whole isn't interested in it.
- The best solution, in my opinion, might be for new books to become candidates for the "canon" once the community decides they want to work on it, or once the book becomes sufficiently developed that it wouldn't be a drain. These books would not appear on the Wikijunior page until they became canon. (And there might be a pastel box on the book's TOC gently encouraging contributors to work on the "official" books.) Given that, it might also be better to just have a "Current Book" rather than a "Book of the Quarter", so that books that already have substantial progress can receive a little attention when they get added. --Brian Brondel 08:06, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
- I think the main Wikijunior page should be changed so that its emphasis is strongly on readers (and leave a comment about looking on the talk page, or another page, if you wish to contribute). The only books highlighted on the Wikijunior page should be: (i) those books that are complete; (ii) those books that are near-complete (by which I mean they are 98%-100% complete technically, have no redlinks, but need proofreading); (iii) the current Wikijunior collaboration of the quarter (which has as its aim going at least to (ii) if not to (i) in the quarter.
- That would leave all "non-canonical" books off the main Wikijunior page, although reference to other wikijunior books in development could be made on the collaboration pages, eg Talk:Wikijunior. Indeed, the requirement should be that all books aimed at children in the 8 to 12 year age group are wikijunior books, as that is the part of wikibooks dealing with that audience.
- Overall this approach stresses the importance of creating complete books. And it leaves two routes - (a) go down the wikijunior book of the quarter route; (b) go it alone. If you choose (b) you have the incentive that your book will get recognised as part of the wikijunior canon - but only once it has become near-complete, Jguk 13:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
- I think this idea is good. Keep Wikijunior limited in scope for now (until we get firmly established), and continue the new title voting, but allowing people to write their own books (though perhaps not under the "Wikijunior" name. Then they can propose their book be added to WJ as a whole. Not exactly sure how all of that would work, but I'm just registering my opinion that we do need some limits of what can be labeled "A Wikijunior Book". --LV (Dark Mark) 18:31, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
- So what's the official stance? Do I have the go-ahead to create a Wikijunior book (that I feel I will be able to complete content-wise in a month or two)? Of course, I'm not talking about adding it to the main page until everything's ready to be proofread.
- Wikijunior books are in a strange position, in that they require the least amount of time to write content for compared to other Wikibooks, but will also require the most amount of correctness and eventually be the most publicized. What I think Wikijunior, as in wikijunior.org, should be is a collection of the 5000 or so top Wikipedia articles reduced to one-page each, and from that separate printed books each based on one category of that content. But I'm sure all that has been discussed before. --Hagindaz 11:32, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
- I say go ahead and start it and add it to the "other books" section at the top. Also feel free to nominate it as the development book of the quarter. Once it's ready for proofreading (but not before), move it to the Wikijunior page, Jguk 17:57, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
While maintaining some quality control, especially in the area of completion, is important so that the books remain understandable and accessible to children, I think the ability to contribute needs to be more open if a significant library of quality materials is ever going to be developed. Some of my suggestions have already been mentioned by others above, but in reading this discussion it does not seem that anything has clearly been established.
To me it is confusing as both a contributor and a parent/educator that would like my children to be able to actually use wikijunior. First, from the parent/educator perspective, the books on the front page of wikijunior do need to be complete and mostly proofread. Incomplete books are confusing to kids and are too difficult for educators to develop lessons from. From the perspective of a contributor (or potential contributor) the current process and format of the books feels exclusionary and cursory.
Obviously, everyone already involved in the project has intentions and efforts that should be applauded, but I think a broader scope and style of book needs to be available before educators can embrace wikijunior. Children are of course the main focus, but since these are educational books, their appeal to the educators is also of prime importance. There are many types of books used in a learning environment. I understand the original intention of the books being print published. My observation is that the books are being limited in appeal and scope by not embracing the full potential that publishing them online allows. The books should be fully developed as online media, then if a version is to go to a print publisher, it should b distilled from the online version. Children, at least the first ones that will be turned on to wikijunior, are not technology ignorant and will expect more from an online book.
My suggestion is to encourage development of the books in wikibooks, possibly with an agreed upon standard text or tag that can be added so that one could search for all books being developed that are intended to be submitted to wikijunior. Then when a contributor feels a book is ready, it could be submitted to a vote. If a predecided upon number of positive votes is received in a predetermined time (10 votes in one month?), it is added to the main wikijunior. If it needs work, those areas are listed or fixed, and the book goes back to development until it is ready to be voted on again. That would allow anyone that wished to work on development, but still allow some community patrolled quality control of the content available on the main wikijunior page.
In terms of target age, I realize the initial (and current) target age is 8-12, but honestly that is an difficult range to write to if each work needs to appeal to the entire 8-12 spectrum and it also excludes many children that could benefit from wikijunior. It would be better, and more useful to educators, to open up the age range to pre-K to about 13 (end of middle school). Each book should contain a notice to the age group it is geared to, maybe even have links leading to lists for specific ages. Very few 12 year-olds are going to find a book written at a level that includes 8 year-olds interesting, and many 8 year olds will find a book written for 12 year-olds too difficult.
Lastly, I think there needs to be some open-mindedness towards the style of the books. The basic template that is here is good, but some people may wish to be more creative or have material that needs a different style. For example I have unit studies, written for children to use mainly on their own (or under the direction of a teacher), but written to them, that would not fit the current template. I believe they would make excellent contributions to wikijunior and benefit from community contribution, but I would hate to see them shelved due to a style difference. Any non-fiction, non-pov, work intended for educational purposes geared toward children should, IMHO, be allowed.
I have a 9yo boy. He reads well above average, but he still has the likes, dislikes and attention span of a 9yo boy. He looked over the current wikijunior offerings. His opinion was that they were "OK. A good idea, but nothing new. Most of the information is too basic. The unfinished stuff was confusing. Not books he would bother reading normally." His favorite was, by far, the solar system book (no surprise since he is an astronomy buff). He did say all the notices made it very confusing.
These are my suggestions, not many know me here yet, but hopefully you will take the time to consider them.
Starchildmom 03:51, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
- Keep in mind that Wikijunior even from the very initial steps restricted development to just a few titles. The point here was mainly to keep what few users there were participating with content development working together on the same tasks. Wikibooks has more of the go it alone and build on whatever topic you would like to have. It has certainly added significant diversity in terms of the variety of topics covered, but Wikibooks suffers right now from many book stubs that don't seem to really go anywhere. A few books are in active development with some dedicated groups, but most Wikibooks just sit and languish, waiting for somebody else to come along and rework the content into something perhaps more usable.
- I would also like to point out that the Wikijunior Solar System book is like a draft copy that is covered with post-it notes and scribbles between the editors and the author. They are all eventually going to go, but it looks messy at the moment due to the fact that some significant effort has gone into cleaning up the content. More importantly, the language that was in that content earlier really was too complicated for the target ages we were seeking, like you 9-year-old son you are talking about. BTW, did you show your son some of the Wikijunior Dinosaurs content?
- There is a proposal out there right now to turn the website http://wikijunior.org/ into read-only version of completed Wikijunior content. I think this is an excellent idea precisely for the reasons you mentioned above, but I'm not entirely sure what content ought to be there at the moment. The rules for "publication" of Wikijunior content still need to be worked out. If you are serious about trying to work on this proposal, I would like to perhaps organize the effort. A critical feature, however, is to clearly identify what content should be added first to this "public" site, including multi-lingual content. So far I don't think anything currently under development is quite ready for professional critical review, but the two books that are closest are Wikijunior Solar System and Wikijunior Big Cats. Both of these BTW are the oldest of the Wikijunior cannon and have had the longest time to develop the content.
- More important than anything else, we simply need people willing to contribute to this content and help us not only clean it up, but be willing to develop Wikijunior as a whole. This is an all-volunteer community here, and we move as fast or as slow as the volunteers are willing to put in the effort. It also takes leadership and the ability to convince other people that perhaps the community should go in the direction you are proposing... just as I'm trying to do here with this discussion. There certainly are many things that Wikijunior could be, but it is going to take quite a bit of effort from many individuals, not just one person. --Rob Horning 13:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
- I am absolutely willing to put in generous amount of time and effort, and to participate in the proposal development. I have been working on projects on my own. Trying to get them into my local community and the online homeschool communities I participate in. If I had found Wikijunior earlier, my efforts would have been focused here. Now that I have found it, I hope posting my ideas and questions may spawn some new activity from others. I have projects currently in progress with deadlines looming in the next week(because they need to be used by homeschoolers waiting for them), although both will be suited to Wikijunior when finished, in my opinion. I will add the current Wikijunior books next on my list. I have a couple of question on how to progress in the Wikijunior Solar System book, but I will take those over to that book's talk.
- I have sent my son a link to the dinosaurs book. He has just glanced at it so far. His opinions, to this point, are not exactly positive. Although, I think he is being too critical. Dinos are a difficult topic to take on. Not becuase of the volume of information possible, but because most kids already know more about dinosaurs than the adults writing the books imagine. I have yet to meet a child under 12 that could not give encyclopedic information on at least their favorite dinosaur. One very valid comment he had, was that the adults working in the project needed to be careful not to talk down to the child-readers in the attempt to make the language child-friendly.
- I have some ideas on ways to help determine content, but I need to flesh them out a bit more in my own mind. Essentially, I was thinking some sort of scope and sequence guidelines that potential contributors could reference. I have something on my hard drive already, but it needs to be made more non-educator friendly.Starchildmom 23:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Wikijunior Big Book of Fun Science Experiments
[edit source]Someone check if this should be on the Wikijunior page, given the past consensus to limit the books. --Kernigh 04:56, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
- Sorry that was me. I will be making a book for kids with my pupils at school, and Wikijunior seemed the obvious place to put it. I'm happy to move it somewhere else if people prefer, but I can't think of anywhere else to put it. It is the right age group, and will be the right sort of length, so personally I would like to see it stay where it is. Theresa knott 15:22, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
It's more a case that we sort of informally agreed that the Wikijunior page should include only complete or near-complete books and the current quarterly collaboration. Other books in development should be listed at the top of this talk page until they are near-complete, Jguk 21:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
OK no problem. I'll move it. Theresa knott 11:19, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
lulu link
[edit source]I have removed the lulu.com link for now, and requested that lulu immediately but perhaps temporarily remove the book from their site. (I assume this may take them a day or two, since we are going into a holiday here in the United States). I have no particular objection here, other than that things like this should not be done willy nilly in the name of the foundation without the knowledge of the foundation, and I am sure we can get this sorted out in a day or two. I ask whoever did this to please email me!--Jimbo Wales 02:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
- It appears to have been User:Munchkinguy who added this, Jguk 06:41, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I sent a notice to Foundation-l simply because I thought that some input from the WMF board was in order. I was not expecting this link to be removed immediately, and I fail to see what the problem is here as there simply is no policy of any kind to deal with this sort of link. Wikibooks does allow links to commercial websites, so I fail to see what policy has been violated here in this regard.
As far as doing this in the name of the Foundation, I think it is a misunderstanding of the role of the WMF and its copyright claim over Wikimedia content. But I don't know if the WMF has a copyright claim or not. I hope this book has raised awareness of the issue, and I think it is entirely reasonable to be able to offer for sale Wikijunior content like this. I don't know if Lulu Press is the best place for something like this, but we can come up with many different options if necessary. I do want to see printed versions of Wikibooks content be made available, and would like to see them made available to readers of Wikibooks. --Rob Horning 14:40, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Finnish Wikijunior
[edit source]Where could i inform that there's a 14:37, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
- Do we really need to have links to wikijuniors in other languages as a content heading on the front page? They are all linked in the sidebar navigation. I don't see a link to the English language edition in the main content area on either the Finnish or French editions of wikijunior. --Xixtas 17:33, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
- You're right. --62.236.100.238 05:01, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
New portal page
[edit source]I've created a mockup of a new look front page at Portal:Wikijunior. I truly don't have any idea what I'm doing and may have put the page in the wrong place or done some other terrible thing. I ask for forgivness in advance. Any feedback would be very much appreciated. --Xixtas 18:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
- I went ahead and put it up. Hopefully everyone will think that it's an improvement. --Xixtas 22:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Is it ok to do this?
[edit source]I've been adding content to Geometry for Elementary School. I added illustrations and diagrams to some sections. I'm also trying to simplify the language of some of the constructions and proofs. I'm new to wikibooks, so it's likely that I haven't observed proper etiquette. Sorry if that's the case. In particular, I hope my "go it alone" approach hasn't annoyed anyone.
Would it be more appropriate for me to stop editing Geometry until more people become involved? If that's the case, I'll leave it alone and maybe contribute to another more popular book. Otherwise, should I add the title to the "under development" section at the top of the page? I'd like to hear what people think. (I left some notes detailing my progress on the discussion page if anyone's interested)
Mcgill 22:10, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
- It's more complete than some that are listed up there. I don't see a problem with adding it to the non-cannonical list and nominating it for book of the quarter. --Xixtas 19:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks for the advice. I added it to the list.Mcgill 18:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
New Section
[edit source]How about we add a section to each Wikijunior book called something like "Fun Page" for riddles, crossword puzzles, etc. to provide an amusing way for kids to review what they read? --Gray Porpoise 21:30, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
- Note that Wikijunior is still loosly governed by WB:WIW by official policy. Any attempt to go beyond the mission of Wikibooks can and should be addressed on 20:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
- Why would WB:WIW apply to Wikijunior? Wikijunior projects/collections/things are not designed to be books, but collections of articles on a related subject (a macropedia, which violates WB:WIW). Wikijunior has its own official policy on meta. A "Fun Page" would probably violate the letter of that policy, but abides by the spirit of Wikijunior. I would first ask on the meta project page just to be safe, but this sounds like a great idea that should be part of all Wikijunior projects, in my opinion. --hagindaz 20:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
- This has been kind of the sticking point about the whole Wikijunior project from the beginning. It was created out of whole cloth and in many ways was intended to be an independent project, but clearly didn't have the user support basis to be independent and instead was dumped onto Wikibooks. This really weird dual relationship has plagued the project even from the start, and even the project "founders" aren't particularly clear as to why this belonged on Wikibooks instead of being created as a new project proposal on Meta and go through the whole new project process (where the New Project policy had already been established at the time). It is claimed to be both a Wikimedia Foundation project with independent funding, and just another ordinary Wikibook at the same time.
- I actually fought against this use of Wikibooks at the time Wikijunior was created, but I was still fairly new to Wikimedia projects at the time and couldn't prevail. Instead, I've tried to encourage independent development of this, and have made some major contributions to the content. If I started a VfD of Wikijunior now, I'm sure it would be met with huge resistance even though as you have pointed out, it already violates Wikibooks policies even in its current format. --Rob Horning 00:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
- I've created a puzzles page for Wikijunior Solar System. Comments are welcome. --xixtas 15:14, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
- Interesting. I was thinking that for the dinosaurs Wikijunior issue, there could be something along the lines of, "Match each dinosaur to what its name means", with images of dinosaurs and their names in one column and English translations in the other column. --Gray Porpoise 01:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
- Why would WB:WIW apply to Wikijunior? Wikijunior projects/collections/things are not designed to be books, but collections of articles on a related subject (a macropedia, which violates WB:WIW). Wikijunior has its own official policy on meta. A "Fun Page" would probably violate the letter of that policy, but abides by the spirit of Wikijunior. I would first ask on the meta project page just to be safe, but this sounds like a great idea that should be part of all Wikijunior projects, in my opinion. --hagindaz 20:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
More Accessible Format for Kids
[edit source]Is there a discussion anywhere related to what can be done to make the web content of wikijunior more accessible and interesting for kids? For instance, changing the skin to include larger fonts, adding more pictures, making better captions for pictures that are there, reducing the clutter of navigation links on the screen, and using hyperlinking to make the content more discoverable? --Xixtas 19:18, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
- This is an interesting problem. Currently, this page (Wikijunior) is set up to deal with content organizers and contributors as opposed to dealing with kids directly. And I'll be the first to admit that this website certainly isn't kid friendly.
- A proposal to try and set up some other website was made a little while ago to be more a public place for kids to read the content was suggested. How this would be done, and if it would be running with MediaWiki software or something else certainly has not been very clear from previous discussions. One of the "cool" things about Wikipedia and her sister projects (including Wikibooks) is that people who are reading the content have the option of being able to edit it and "fix" problems they may see, including adding new content that was not there before. Or updating information as new discoveries in science change information about the topic (quite common with the Wikijunior Solar System, for instance). A "read-only" website might have the advantage of protecting kids from flagrant vandals, but we would have to come up with a system that allows "trusted users" to be able to update the content from time to time.
- Creating the skin is an idea, but as a "default" appearance to Wikijunior, that would require this project to be moved to a different domain and possibly a completely different wiki, such as is currently happening with Wikiversity. Some attempts to do this have been made, but the Wikimedia Foundation has been very relutant to create a new Wikimedia sister project in the past. Wikijunior does enjoy widespread support from many people, and there would be some significant measure of support if serious efforts were made to do this.
- As far as adding more pictures and better captions, you are certainly free to help out and make those changes. Wikijunior pages tend to be very image intense anyway compared to other Wikimedia projects, but there certainly is room for improvement. This is how all of the content on the Wikijunior pages was created: Somebody came here reading about it and decided to start adding some additional information. In fact, the original people who have proposed this project have done very little editing on it. Most of the work was done by very ordinary people who saw a problem and decided to do something about it. Please help us out and try to fix those weak areas that you might have some expertise in.
- One of the problems we are facing is finding good public domain or otherwise free resources that we can use to add to these projects, as paying royalties for images is not something we are equiped to deal with. And we are also trying to do more than simply make a web page, but also make paper-publishable content as well, so I can't emphasis enough that images and other content must be made freely available and used under terms that are compatable with the GNU Free Documentation License. --Rob Horning 15:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
- After reading your comments I suggest that the books be published in a static version on a different site. Readers should be invited to contribute on the static pages, but the edit page link would take them here, other "business" links such as the side and top navigation would be unneccessary to include on the "kid ready" site. Updating from the live wiki to the static site would be a second step. It seems like the static site should be skinnable and different skins could be used for different books.
- Regarding photos, I'm happy to help where I have competence, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around the legal issues. It seems to me that publications goals should include general standards for illustrations (as they do for language and factualness.) In my view, the selection, captioning, and frequency of photos and illustrations should also be reviewed before publication if this is to be a resource that is effectively geared towards kids. --Xixtas 00:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Main problems
[edit source]I've been going through some of these pages, and here are some of my thoughts on what the big problems are over many of the pages. As having been a kid myself (granted, the target audience was about half a lifetime ago for me), I have just about two cents to add to this.
First of all, new vocabulary should be kept at a minimum. You don't want to hit a kid with too much jargon, and any other word choices should also be simple. This should be obvious, but are vocabulary gets rather heavy; take the Chinese page for the Languages of the World book. Some of that vocabulary is the same that you'd introduce to college-level students. As a whole on Wikijunior, we must find other, simpler ways to give these ideas.
Tying the pages together as an actual book is problematic. Each page reads nicely as an article on its own, but there are two problems that some of these books fall into on reading it page by page. First, inconsistency in format. Though many are based on the same basic questions on each page and tie it together like that, on some pages I have found some authors prefer to put bullets in the same subsection another author finds that prose is best. And in my opinion, prose is best. A list is good at summing stuff up, but in most situations, the best thing for these kids would be to sum it up in sentences so that it's actually interesting to read. Another problem with tying stuff together is repitition. More often than not, many of the pages will repeat the same information. For example, many cats are nocturnal, which means active at night. You only need to explain what nocturnal means on the first page you mention the word nocturnal, and it doesn't have to be explained again. This will help the book feel more connected and unitary, rather than a random mess of related articles compiled in the same cover for convenience.
Introductory stuff doesn't seem as good as it could be. For example, on the Wikibook for the Solar System, there is a short discussion of each type of object in the introduction, the sun, the moon, the planets, etc. An intro should be concise and should not mention facts that you are going to present later. Rather than listing all of the objects and introducing their characteristics, it would be best to stick with just saying these objects exist; in the next 47 pages you're going to tell what they are anyway, so no need to waste words in the beginning saying this stuff and repeating yourself later. In the Solar System example, it would be good to just leave it at something like "The Solar System contains the sun, the planets, moons, and some other objects" or something like that. A kid's book isn't a thesis paper; in some cases you can even dive right into the information without that introduction and thesis and they'll still learn something new. The extreme example is an ABC book where they give a picture and a word or words. I remember a very nice Dinosaur ABC book from when I was a kid, and, you guessed it, the first page says "A" and a dinosaur name and description, not, "In this book we're going to talk about 26 different dinosaurs that all begin with a different letter of the alphabet."
When I was a kid, the introduction section always bored me; I still often skip that section as it rarely holds actual, good information. Sometimes the intro gives a nice, fun story, but not the meaty stuff that's going to teach any factual material. That's because they save it for the rest of the book. We don't need to waste pages or ink; an intro should be reduced to one page at most. The exception to this is if your introduction is giving general information that applies to all of the subpages (ie. Cats are all from the family Felidae, Dinosaurs lived from ____ to ____) and the book doesn't have a page to deal with general information on all the subpages (in my opinion, though, a general page is the best way to go so you can separate this from the introduction). My attack on the introduction's informative material talks about when we're getting repetitive and talking about stuff in the introduction that is also, or should be, in a subpage.
Also, there is never a need to tell someone to keep reading. That just puts more words where the kid could just continue merrily reading without interruption.
Format trouble. For some of the books, such as the Big Cats book, there is great difficulty in reducing it's length when given the strict skeleton that authors must build off of, which seems to be the way Wikijunior is organized. On some of the less important topic, the book may merely contain one paragraph about the idea. That's a kid's book for you; they're not meant to be extremely in depth. In fact, many books I have read will talk about the distinguishing characteristics of a topic, rather than everything about it. For example, me and my friend both live in Delaware, go to the University, both like to play video games, blah blah blah; however, when I say that in the future I plan to be a marine biologist and my friend plans on a career in making video games, then you get something interesting, right? What makes the particular subject different is important; entire (children's) books have been written only giving distinguishing charateristics rather than complete profiles. In the limited space we have, this is a consideration, especially for less important topics. This is an important topic to consider; you can find a book talking about only Tigers, so making a single book that covers more topics invariably means that some information is that one book is going to say something the other doesn't.
Conversely, a lot of the information between pages overlaps or nearly overlaps. This can be solved simply: Consolidate by giving an entirely new page. This also allows you to expound on the information if necessary. For example, instead of saying on every page that a cat species can have about x number of kittens or we still need to find out what colors a dinosaur was, you create a new page on how MOST cats have about x to y number of offspring or how we don't know the color of ANY dinosaur and why. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but this goes back to my distinguishing characteristics point. For example, if one cat can have up to 9 offspring in a litter, that's a distinguishing characteristic if the rest of them have up to about 4; you could then put this information as an exception. But you see how this saves space and still teaches about the same information? But really, do we have to put on every page that we have no idea what a dinosaur looks like? Rather than saying that, you could have a section in the book talking about stuff that fossils do not tell us, such as skin color and certain behaviors, and then use that extra space for something more appealing.
In some cases, it turns out that some of the questions asked in each article have answers that can be generalized or overlap. By combining the sentences in another section for these questions, this allows the use of fewer words and consolidating information. It adds some flexibility in the way a page can be written, too. Also, by reducing sections we can arrange the page in more interesting ways. Remember those Eyewitness books? Most of their headings were only on each (pair) of pages, to introduce the topic. Then a paragraph. THEN PICTURES EVERYWHERE, and the information given in captions. This is an extreme example, but the format we have now is quite restrictive. It forces us to include information that may be less important or interesting (how many kittens does this cat have? oh, it's about the same as the next) when we could put something else instead and consolidate it some other way. I understand that the question with headings is the basic format of Wikibooks, but when a question only gets a one sentence answer, we may have to rethink the format. We should find which questions have answers that can be generalized over many subjects be dealt with differently so we don't repeat ourselves.
My last note is on reading level. There's a lot of worrying about reading level. Part of this is very much tied to vocabulary which I talked about earlier, and another is on length, which I try to deal with by talking about the format. Yes, reading level is extremely important, and in a number of pages the mark was missed completely. But the other point is that reading level should also be taken with a grain of salt. The average kid I've ever met when I was a kid usually scored higher on the reading level test than their grade level. According to those reading level tests, I've been Reading Level of Grade 10 to 13 (based on various maximum scores) since at most about 6th grade or something like that. And in those years we weren't split up into higher levels or anything, so I think I was getting a pretty good, representative sample; granted, I wasn't doing a statistical survey, but whenever I asked anyone how they did on their reading level tests, the idea was always that the test was relatively simple. Point is, reading level is not an extremely accurate scale.
For the kids that are smarter, the best thing to do would be to point them to other resources that better suit them; when I was a kid, I often read large, nonfiction books aimed at the layman (the adult layman). My point here is we may say we want to aim for a specific age group, but really age is not exactly the best qualifier for the difficulty of reading level they can handle.
Sorry about that huge post. It may have been a little convoluted, but hopefully you guys get some of my points. MiltonT 12:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
- Because this is a huge post, I don't think I'm going to do a point by point reply but instead simply do a general reply. I want to thank you for coming along and at least giving Wikijunior a serious review and pointing out that yes, there are some significant flaws to the current approach that we are doing right now.
- One point in particular I feel like addressing is the concept of target age level. Unfortunately, there is a perception that this is largely Wikipedia II, which was never really the intention of Wikijunior. This is meant to be a project that would be written specifically for children and to do topics that would appeal to them. The problem here is how do you address the issue of determining exactly what is the age level for a given paragraph or sentance, and how do you "drop" the age level if it appears as though that section is a little bit high? Mind you, this is a problem that appears with all children's literature, and Wikijunior is not alone here.
- One way that this is done is to significantly limit vocabulary. Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss} and other similar writers dealt with this by starting out with a very limited set of words and only expanded that list when it helped make the book flow. Explicit unique word counts are very commonly quoted by publishers to demonstrate their quality as children's literature. I've even seen explicit references to word frequency charts that attempt take a given body of English language literature (not always defined) and determine the frequency of usage to determine commonly used words, and then explictly restrict children's books to just those words that appear in the top 1000 words, for instance.
- Another approach is to use some mathmatical forumla that essentially considers a word to be simple or child-friendly if it has very few letters, or that words with many letters to be something to avoid when writing for children. This approach was used with Wikijunior Solar System to try and simplify the language, but at some places the simplification came at the cost of watering the content down so much that important details were lost or even the basic meaning of some sections were changed completely to be nearly the opposite of what was originally written.
- I don't know what approach or if several can and should be used, but yes, this is a problem.
- This is a collaborative effort, and frankly we are still at what I would consider some of the early stages of trying to put this whole thing together. It is also very easy to get those individuals who are interested in developing Wikijunior content to become quickly overwhelmed by the tasks that need to be accomplished. For this, I would simply recommend that you do what you can, and try to help out with as much or as little time as you have available. This is a Wiki, which gives you the ability to change just about everything if you have the patience to try and make positive contributions. I don't know of a single area of Wikijunior or even a single "article" that is completely polished and couldn't use at least a little bit of work.
- What you currently see with the Wikijunior pages represents the work of nearly a couple dozen substantially committed individuals and close to 100 different major contributors and a couple thousand additional people who passed by and made some minor change that as a whole add up to some substantial contributions as well. I hope that you will add your own little bit to this effort and help make Wikijunior into something that can be a positive contribution to the world. --Rob Horning 22:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
- I generally agree, MiltonT. There are definitely opportunities for improvement in every article. Some of the things you mention have also bothered me. I have put together a rough draft of a style guide. All are welcome to add, subtract, amend, annotate or otherwise contribute. I wasn't going to actually put it up until I'd hammered on it a little more but your post inspired me to do so. Like Robert Horning, I hope you decide to contribute content to the books. Also, we'll be launching a new book in a few days so there are lots of opportunities to contribute. --Xixtas 00:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
- The point about trying to adjust reading level more systematically is very intriguing. I looked online, finding what I think to be a good resource to use to determine what are some good words to use.
- This http://www.wordcount.org/main.php is a list of several thousand English words. This is a useful tool to consider if a word is common enough to use in this book. The problem arises in knowing where the cutoff point is. Also, I believe that one system alone for reducing difficulty will not do the job. Common words are not always easier words, and vice versa.
- I have used 19:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
- There is a Simple english wikipedia. it adresses some of the language problems that you have brought up. perhaps some of its guidelines could be applied here? 58.107.95.163 04:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
- Personally, as a teaching tool, I would not use the wikijunior "colors" book in my school with kindergarteners. It is beautiful, however, I don't like the fact that they have real photographs of animals photoshopped into different colors.i.e, "pink elephant." As a librarian I try to teach young children the differences between fiction and non-fiction resources. These pictures look too real. Young chidren tend to believe what they see, and in the library, I don't have time to explain photo editing to five year olds.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Eileen204 (discuss • contribs) 12:12, 21 October 2007
- Thanks for the feedback. The pink elephant bothered me a little too, but I couldn't really put my finger on why. --xixtas talk 02:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
- I too agree with most of the points above about Wikijunior. On the subject of readability, there is a very good tool called Readability Studio that includes several readability formulas includes ones specifically for children's literature. (Many people use the Fleisch-Kincaid scale because it is built into MS Word and other tools, but the scale is actually designed for technical documentation.) I've been doing some editing for readability here as I have time, but if anyone has a Wikijunior book that they would like to have feedback on readability level on, just let me know via my talk page. Kfasimpaur 22:30, 1 November 2007 (UTC) talk
Instructions for using the three column format
[edit source]Please see Template:Wikijunior_three_columns for instructions on how to use the three column format. Feel free to edit or change it any way that you feel it could be made better. I anticipate using this template on /contributing/ pages. The basic idea is to put down a general description of what goes in each column for books that are laid out that way. Hopefully it will hlep people be bolder about making improvements. --xixtas 21:54, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Protected
[edit source]Why has this page been protected? How do unregisted users like me put in new books on the Wikijunior page that we may have completed? Do they need to be approved first? Do let me know.(64.59.144.24 05:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC))
- You just need to register an account to make changes. As there are but a few people working on this project, the community has decided to let contributors focus their energy on a single book each quarter. For this reason, there is a New Title Policy. You can also help decide as to which title the Wikijunior community will develop next by voting. To suggest a title for development, please see New Title Suggestions.
- --xixtas 13:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I have made an account. Is this page semi-protected? (Iuio 01:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC))
Proposed Logo
[edit source]I have put up a new proposed logo in the logo discussion on 06:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
- I think it is about time that we restart the whole Wikijunior logo process. I hope that your new entry can carry that one forward beyond what has been done. Keep in mind that since the project logo page was created, a whole new level of bureaucracy has been added to the WMF on an official level, together with some new guidelines over what can and can't be done with project logos. Including copyright permissions that in this case must be given to the WMF (unlike most other images for Wikimedia projects, where you can keep the copyright but grant GFDL licensing).
- Wikibooks and Wikiversity have recently gone through the process of selecting a new project logo (not quite completed for Wikibooks), so there is some momentum to try and get something like this completed. BTW, I like the general theme of the logo, and it offers some distinction over the other Wikimedia projects. --Rob Horning 00:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
- Only just caught this one but I have to say I do like the look of the logo. Good work --Herby talk thyme 13:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikijunior: Europe
[edit source]I'm a little confused. I've created Wikijunior Europe but after looking deeper into Wikijunior I see that you want people to suggest and vote for new titles in this project. Is this official policy? Seems a little beurocratic to me and frightening to newbies. Can someone explain this please. Xania 23:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
- Wikijunior has had a long standing tradition since the project was started that we wanted to do a slow and gradual growth of the project. Indeed, when Wikijunior was started, content was restricted to the original three Wikijunior books: Solar System, Big Cats, and South America. There was an intention to proceed and add additional books at a later date, but the point here was to strongly encourage people to participate in the current books and bring them up to a very high quality rather than trying to be all things to all people. Keep in mind that for the most part this has succeeded. Almost all of the current Wikijunior books that are on the main page (with the exception of the Wikijunior Europe book you just added) all have major sections that are nearly finished, and certainly have content that is worth having kids browse through just for reference material alone.
- I started the "Book of the Quarter" system to help allow a gradual growth of Wikijunior, as there were additional topics that many of the Wikijunior participants wanted to cover. There is some wisdom to this philosophy, as Wikijunior has enjoyed several of its titles to become "Book of the Month" for the main Wikibooks project. This should be encouraged and expanded.
- What appears on the main Wikijunior page ought to be either those project that have won the distinction of going through the process of the new book of the quarter, or are substantially complete. Wikijunior Europe has done neither.
- As far as official policy, no there isn't really an official policy other than this is something that has been a bit of a tradition for Wikijunior participants. Yes, this does make it a bit bureaucratic, but it is also a very transparent process where the decisions are made by the Wikijunior participants at large.
- I will also try to have you look at Wikibooks:Alphabetical classification (still not a complete list) and pick random Wikibooks. Far too many of them are mere stubs. This whole system is explicitly designed to keep that from happening, which has also been a major criticism of Wikibooks in general. I would urge caution to try and do a major reformation of this system until after you have spent some time developing Wikijunior content and have seen what benefits it does bring. I have also seen very few books get out right rejected in this process, but it has also kept books like Wikijunior Terrorism from being started that might be a tad bit controvercial. --Rob Horning 00:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply (and sorry about my short reply but it's late and I'm tired). I've removed my title from the main list on Wikijunior as I understand your policy now. I will continue editing my title and any help from anyone is much appreciated. I still think your policy might frighten many potential writers away but I do understand your points about half-finished books. Xania 00:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I've added Wikijunior Europe to the list of non-canonical books at the top of this page. I'd like to move them to a more visible place, but I haven't really thought about where that would be. --xixtas 01:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your help guys and to others across Wikibooks. I've started developing a few of the sections. Any help with adding new information, checking for mistakes etc is much appreciated. Xania 22:29, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikijunior South America
[edit source]There is an interesting coincidence with the creation of Wikijunior Europe. Last night I left a message on the Wikijunior South America talk page proposing a major reworking of the South America book. I proposed changing the questions to try and orient the book more towards the kinds of information kids are interested in. Comments most welcome. I hope that this idea seems like a good one to other people as well. --xixtas 01:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Seperated Website
[edit source]Maybe Wikijunior could be made into a seperate wiki. I am a student and I also am a very new member at wikibooks (at wikipedia, not so much). I don't really know how to navigate, but If there was a seperate wikijunior, I bet it could be like the simple english language. Thanks, RyGuy 18:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
- This is an interesting suggestion, and something that is valid. BTW, you might want to check out the URL http://www.wikijunior.org/
- To note, that URL goes right to the en.wikibooks page on Wikijunior, in anticipation that at some point in the future it would become a completely seperate Wikimedia project.
- There was an effort about a year ago to do exactly what you are suggesting. The problem with the proposal was that from my perspective that it wasn't really thought through all that well, and there were some very significant questions that needed to ben answered. Rather than trying to revise the proposal to become more complete, it turned into an all-out on-line debate over the merits of the idea in the first place and showed that there might be some opposition.
- At this point, if we want to create a seperate website, I would recommend that we submit a formal proposal to the special projects committee of the WMF that goes into some depth about what would be accomplished, and why these new activities related to Wikijunior would not be appropriate to Wikibooks (to distinguish the two projects). There are some, including the Wikibooks project founder Karl Wick, who don't think that there is any pressing need to make this happen.
- Another variant of the proposal is to do something like the Wikipedia 1.0 group, but related to Wikijunior. Once we have identified some pages that are up to a very high quality level, we would be able to move the content to a "published" website that would be intended more for children's access and be just Wikijunior content. While I think this would be an excellent idea on many levels, it would require organizing some Wikijunior editors and setting up some hard policies over what would be allowed and not allowed on the site.
- These are just some thoughts, and certainly other ideas can be discussed here as well. I've been involved with the transition for Wikiversity becoming a seperate website from Wikibooks, so I do have a bit of an idea over what is needed to get this accomplished. While technically it isn't that challenging, there is quite a bit more work that would have to be done to get this going. How we would handle the multi-lingual aspects would also be interesting as well. --Rob Horning 17:20, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
- Ok, I see what you mean. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for taking the time to respond. RyGuy 15:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Geometry for elementary school
[edit source]I believe this book is mature enough to be linked directly from the front page of Wikijunior. I'd like a to initiate a strawpole on the subject to see if there is consensus. --xixtas 04:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
- support -xixtas
Wikijunior Animal Alphabet
[edit source]I linked this book on the front page because it was substantially filled out with content and thought it was useful to do so. In hindsight this may have been overly bold. There is a related discussion on my talk page. However I still believe that the content is mature enough and that the subject is within the bounds of what a Wikijunior book should be. I'd like to create a straw pole on this book as well to see if there is consensus that this book should be added. --xixtas 14:12, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Support --xixtas21:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
21:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
23:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
20:41, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
17:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- I've started the page and included the age range of "birth to 12" comments would be appreciated. I've also linked to it on Meta, and as soon as there is consensus here on what Wikijunior is, I'll include that on the project page on Meta. --xixtas 21:15, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikijunior New_Title_Policy/Unstable
[edit source]I have created an unstable branch of the new title policy for Wikijunior so that it conforms to what I understand the existing practice related to new titles to be. Please review and comment. --xixtas 18:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Wikijunior New Title Policy has been updated. --xixtas talk 00:52, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikijúnior PT
[edit source]Please, add the PT interwiki (19:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC) sysop in PT
- Da nada. Eu gusto estas paginas muito e quero ver o que voces escribar a proximo. --Rob Horning 23:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Revision on Meta
[edit source]I have made substantial changes to the 18:19, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Move to adopt
[edit source]I move that the following Wikijunior specific guidelines be adopted. They have been open for community input for some time now.
-- xixtas talk 04:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
- Support In your attempt to restart Wikijunior, I think this is an excellent direction to go. If there are serious issues that need to be ironed out, we can modify these policies in a straight-forward manner. I'm glad that you have been trying to lay some ground work here for some real policy infrastructure on this sub-project of Wikibooks. -Rob Horning 23:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Has anyone heard of "Its Just a Plant"?
[edit source]It's a picture book about a girl and her two parents as she learns about marijuana- and why people use it, why it's illegal, and why she shouldn't use it- but all the information is presented in a non-biased, non-fear mongering, and factually sound manner. I was just wondering if there could be a responsible book written on Cannibis that shows both its benifits and dangers, yet clearly outlines why children should not use it. I don't know if there is some POV policy for Wikibooks, and if so, if this would violate it, but it would be a very beneficial project. 24.13.192.86 17:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC) (Blueaster of WP)
Basic word list
[edit source]Would we be undermining children's intelligence if we were to adhere to the basic english word list?
Yes: Why?
No: Should we adopt this as a policy? --Herraotic 22:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
- The 850 word list was designed to be version of English that non-native English speakers could easily learn. It would be impossible to use it to explain something like how a person's lungs work because the words lung and diaphragm are not on the list. I do think it's a good idea to use a limited vocabulary of between 5000 and 10,000 words and define words that are not on that list in context.
- For instance using the tool at http://www.online-utility.org/ with the 9300 filter on I ran the article from Wikijunior Ancient Civilizations/Hebrews (just a Wikijunior module selected at random) through and excluding proper nouns, the following is the list of unrecognized words:
- ancestors, behaved, captivity, cedar, chairs, chew, commandments, consonants, converting, counters, cud, described, divan, dreams, enlarged, evenings, exiled, famine, fins, garments, girdle, goddesses, headdress, homemade, hooves, interpreting, Kosher, lentils, manuscript, mats, monotheism, neighbors, niche, nomadic, olives, paintings, parchment, patriarch, plagues, polytheistic, preserving, scrolls, sheltered, skillful, slaughtered, sleeves, spreading, supervised, temples, tents, wealthier, extermination
- I think many of those words an average eight year old native English speaker would have no problem with. I think this kind of illustrates the problem of using any strict word list. Still, I do think it's useful to run articles through a tool like this to check the vocabulary.
- Maybe we should add some of this information to the style guide. --xixtas talk 02:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
ويكي الأطفا
[edit source]can u add ar:ويكي الأطفال to the oage please --Mmustafa 19:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
- Done. --xixtas talk 01:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)