Wikibooks talk:What is Wikijunior

Okay everybody. What is Wikijunior? --xixtas 19:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The cynic in me says that Wikijunior is the abandoned effort for fundraising by certain members of the WMF board of trustees in their attempt to try and kiss the behinds of a couple of wealthy benefactors who gave some money back elsewhen for a cool idea called "Wikijunior", but has since been taken over by Wikibookians and changed to their own devices and goals. The money collected was spent on some crazy party that seemed cool at the time, but nobody remembers what really happened.


 * A more sincere and apologetic response would be that Wikijunior represents an attempt to create books that are oriented toward children, with an eye toward creating high quality content over starting a whole bunch of random stubs that are half-started. The money raised in various fundraisers was used to finance the bandwidth and hosting costs of this project.


 * There are many good intentions with Wikijunior, but I would have to say that this project needs to find a new focus and goal in many ways. There is some incredible content that has been created under the "Wikijunior" brand, and it should also be noted that in many ways Wikijunior represents a completely seperate Wikimedia project that just happens to be using Wikibooks as an internet hosting service.


 * That so many of the Wikijunior books have also achieved "Book of the Month" status shows something of the quality that this content has already reached, and that there may be some merit to the slow growth development style. But this slow growth does have its own costs as well.


 * For where to take this page, that is a good question. I've been a long critic of Wikijunior being hosted on Wikibooks for the reason that such projects should be on something like the Incubator Wiki (that was finally created!)  Still, it is here on Wikibooks, and for now I can live with that.  There are areas of Wikijunior that need development and improvement, and this page may be a good place to start.  --Rob Horning 01:21, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Before I started this recent effort I thought long and hard about whether moving Wikijunior forward was worth the effort. My eyes are wide open. I have seen what I perceive to be substantial indifference to this project from every quarter. But I believe in the idea that quality free content for kids makes the world a better place. This project has made a start on 14 useful open-content titles for kids. That's nothing to sneeze at. I am an idealist at heart. After careful deliberation, I believe that Wikijunior can accomplish important things, and this is step one. The community needs to decide what Wikibooks Wikijunior should be. Step two we can figure out once we know the outcome of step one. --xixtas 03:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * As has been said elsewhere I don't do policy however to me Wikijunior is the flagship part of Wikibooks. It is tightly focused, well maintained and has good (generally consistent) contributors.  May not help you but my 0.02 anyway -- Herby  talk thyme 15:31, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you Herby, that's a very nice thing to say. We do have some great contributors here who are not at all indifferent. Forest for the trees and all. -- xixtas talk 02:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

My stance is the following: I am a casual contributor to the wiki* projects and I have only recently started contributing to Wikijunior which is why I do not have strong sentiments towards the relationship of wikibooks and wikijunior. My general feeling, however, is that it is of mutual benefit (I for one thing have found my way to junior through books). Sboehringer 11:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, the policy is quite good. At the moment I don't see any ideas for improvements in it.

Speaking about Wikijunior - is there any sense in discussing here whether Wikijunior should be a part of Wikibooks? Such things are always decided on Meta Wiki. My personal view is that there is no reason for separating Wikijunior from Wikibooks. When Wikijunior and Wikibooks exist on the same wiki, there is a greater chance that users of one get involved in another. As a significantly smaller wikiprojekt, Wikijunior would only benefit from larger community of Wikibooks. Splitting projects is always an inconvenience: you have to register on another project and learn how to deal with a new community. Keeping dividing projects into small ones is a road to nowhere for me. --Derbeth talk 20:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any great advantage to splitting the projects apart. Personally I don't have the time or energy to launch a wikiproject. We do need to launch a separate child's portal that will be unlike anything else on any other mediawiki project (so far as I know), but I think we can do that and continue developing content here. -- xixtas talk 02:40, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I like the proposed policy and believe that it pretty much encompasses the aims and spirit of the Wikijunior Project. If i may make a suggestion, though only a little one, could we change any instance of the word 'kid' to 'child' and 'kids' to 'children'. Just for consistencies sake and no other. However I am impressed by the policy proposed here. And i agree with you there Xixtas, we need to work on a portal for accessing the Wikjunior projects for children to use, something simple but striking. Urbane  (Talk)   (Contributions)  17:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

To my mind "kids" and "children" are synonyms and that change doesn't change the meaning of the policy in any meaningful way. Go ahead and change it. If you want to note that you specifically favor that revision then you could just include the number of the revision you favor in your comments. I don't think anyone would object to such a change. -- xixtas talk 03:14, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Clarify "Kid friendly"
I think we should clarify the "kid friendly" part of this policy to show explicitly that WJ books are censored by the community for the protection of minors. Alternatively, this could be an addition to the bottom of the page or something. If we do say that WJ is censored, however, we have to make it clear that the censoring process is not immediate, nor is it a guarantee or a statement of liability. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:23, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree something needs to change if WJ is intended to be censored. I'm not so sure if a liability statement is needed specifically for WJ. I think the general disclaimer, and other disclaimers apply to WJ as much as it does to the rest of Wikibooks. I think if a statement about censoring WJ is added it also needs to be clear on what types of censoring is appropriate or not, or how its decided whether its appropriate to censor something. I'm in favor of adding it as an addition to the bottom of the page rather then changing the meaning of kid-friendly. --dark lama  18:09, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that we may be getting hung up on the word "censored". The objective is to create kid friendly content (in every sense.) This means content that is inappropriate for kids should not be included and must be removed. What is inappropriate? well, offensive racist or intolerant hate speech, gratuitous or prurient sexual content, gratuitous violence, instructions for doing or making things which are very dangerous or widely illegal... Those are three off the top of my head. I'm not sure how much of this isn't already covered by WB:NPOV and the stipulation that Wikibooks doesn't allow fiction. I don't object to adding a stipulation that Wikijunior is censored (meaning doesn't allow certain types of content) for the protection of minors but I'm not convinced that it's necessary. Is there really confusion about this? -- xixtas talk 00:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Well after your crude statement on VfD about censorship, and trying to put a stop to any suggestion of it being otherwise, yes I think clarification is needed. Different people have different views on whats appropriate for children or whats kid-friendly. I think kid-friendly basically says to write in a way that is understandable for children and will be enjoyed by children. The same issues of being dangerous and illegal that apply to Wikibooks as whole apply to children books, even more so because you not only have different laws which don't apply everywhere, but you also have different cultures and views on parenting. Children can be exposed to all the things you used as examples and may be something that some parents might feel ought to be discussed in a book here for children to read, rather then simply ignored or censored, and may be perfectly legal to do. --dark lama  01:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't understand where you're coming from at all. So if someone starts a "Wikijunior Illustrated Guide to Sexual Positions" we shouldn't even be allowed to discuss whether it's appropriate? Because you assumed (incorrectly) that the phrase "kid friendly" only applied to style issues and not content? (even though content is discussed in the second sentence following that bullet point.) Again, I don't understand it. I still don't see the value in adding more legalistic verbiage to this policy. -- xixtas talk 02:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Just to be absolutely clear, the policy already says that content in Wikijunior should be kid friendly. It's like you're not recognizing that it already says that. -- xixtas talk 04:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Relationship with Wikibooks
I disagree that a sub-project of Wikibooks should be able override the project-wide policy. If that's desired, split the project out like was done with Wikiversity. A more restrictive policy for a sub-project could be appropriate, but a less restrictive policy I feel goes against WB:INCUBATOR (though citing that wouldn't be relevant if we've already established that project-wide policies can be ignored). The policy's already been formulated, but I thought I'd put my opinion out there. -- Adrignola talk contribs 14:31, 4 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikijunior was started by a grant from the Beck Foundation, and was never intended to be a subproject. Wikijunior has its own domain name (http://www.wikijunior.org) which unfortunately redirects to Wikijunior. This is unfortunate because Wikijunior is not limited to English Wikibooks nor Wikibooks in general. Wikijunior exists on some language editions of Wikinews too for example. Wikijunior, like Wikiversity, predated the WB:INCUBATOR rule, and Wikimedia wide policy about incubations. Wikijunior is presumably an exception to the rules because of its history. I believe Wikijunior is a bit stuck. I believe it was intended to be moved as a separate project at some point and I'm not sure why that hasn't happened yet. I see Wikijunior as being an entirely independent project that unfortunately is still here. I must admit I have been inclined to enforce Wikibooks' rules on Wikijunior too, if only to try to force progression towards its intended independence. --dark lama  15:26, 4 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikijunior is most naturally a subproject of Wikibooks, so that whatever the specific historical events that led it here, this is always where it would tend to settle. Wikijunior and Wikibooks both benefit form the association.  Their natural contributor bases blend seamlessly &mdash; there is no distinct line between them &mdash; and separating the projects would only create an artificial barrier to contributors roaming freely between, thereby reducing overall level of contribution on both sides of the artificial line.  That would destroy Wikijunior outright, and Wikibooks would have to invent a subproject as an outlet for the energies that its contributors want to direct toward a younger target audience.  And probably the first step of that would be to transwiki to this hypothetical Wikibooks subproject the books from the defunct separate project Wikijunior (much like the gradual absorption of simple Wikibooks that's going on now).  Leaving us all back pretty much where we are now, except for the lost time and effort spent getting there.


 * Concerning the relationship between policies in mainspace and Wikijunior. I, at least, have never thought of Wikijunior as exempt from any of the Wikibooks policies; rather I see a few of those policies (and only a few of them) as being sufficiently articulated that they can accommodate variations in circumstances, including the circumstances of Wikijunior.  The policies have somewhat fractal boundaries anyway, with various specific kinds of works allowed or disallowed for specific practical reasons (the prohibition against computer game walkthroughs springs to mind), so I see nothing extraordinary about provisions for Wikijunior.  That doesn't mean everything is as well phrased as it could be.  The wording on this page could be taken to suggest that Wikijunior is a law unto unto itself (which I think it neither is nor should be).  If I had more time right now (maybe later), I'd go through the policies carefully to see that each one actually mentions the nuances for Wikijunior that, I'm claiming, are really integral to those policies rather than overriding them.  --Pi zero (talk) 19:28, 4 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Wikijunior is not naturally a subproject of Wikibooks. For example, Wikjunior is also intended to include a published magazine with articles of interest for children, and news stories revolving around current events in the world written by and for children. A magazine is not a book, and news stories are also not a book. Which is probably why Wikijunior expands across multiple wikimedia projects. Wikijunior's scope is broader than Wikibooks just like Wikiversity.
 * I think most policies were written without Wikijunior in mind, precisely because they were never intended to apply to Wikijunior. Wikijunior needs its own independent community with its only independent policies. I think Wikibooks is more likely to crush, limit, and restrict Wikijunior, rather than allowing Wikijunior to mature and grow to its intended purpose. --dark lama  12:22, 5 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll amend my position; I think most of the details of what I said earlier are not so much refuted as placed into a larger context that I was failing to take into account. I have admittedly tended to simplify my view of Wikijunior (validly for some purposes, but not for this one) by dismissing the whole magazine-and-whatnot as grandiose plans that clearly won't ever happen.  It may be more accurate to say that they won't ever happen as long as Wikijunior is a wholly owned subsidiary (so to speak) of Wikibooks.  I stand by most of my earlier claims, given the current strong barriers between projects.  As things are, separating WJ from WB would annihilate Wikijunior and create a Wikijunior-shaped hole in Wikibooks coverage.  As long as Wikijunior is here, the magazine isn't going to happen, and conversely, if the magazine were to happen, Wikijunior shouldn't be here.  As long as Wikijunior is here, I believe it is (recalling Adrignola's original question) appropriate and sufficient to view Wikijunior as a special case in the Wikibooks policies rather than an exception to them.


 * The difficulty is that right now the barriers between projects are too high. If we had integrated watchlists, Wikijunior and Wikibooks could be separated without diminishing either project (though there's no doubt which project can least afford to be diminished) &mdash; although, if we had integrated watchlists, it would also cease to be a binary decision between keeping Wikijunior here and making it a separate project.  Conceivably, the best solution would then be to keep the Wikijunior books here, and make the other components of Wikijunior a separate project.  Once the inter-project barriers come down, the workable possibilities expand vastly.


 * In the past I've always been very skeptical about the usefulness of integrated watchlists, but I seem to have rather suddenly become a believer. --Pi zero (talk) 16:20, 5 June 2010 (UTC)


 * An aside, there is a discussion on Wikipedia at this moment on integrated watchlists for trans-wiki collaboration. – Adrignola talk contribs 18:05, 5 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I must admit I often find myself swaying back and forth between the bigger, the smaller, and the current picture of Wikijunior. I don't know if Wikijunior would be annihilated by becoming a separate project or not, I imagine that concern may have been raised for Wikiversity in the past as well. Creating a coverage hole is mainly why the situation is unfortunate. One possible solution to the coverage problem might be to allow some overlap. Wikibooks could have educational textbooks in the main namespace without any kind of organization other than by subject, and as is already the case, provide no assurance of appropriateness for children. Wikijunior could than be a lot like Wikisource in hosting more or less static texts. Wikijunior could host static texts of children's works from the other projects which have undergone a review by Wikijunior contributors. Wikijunior could also allow contributing to children's works in cases where there is no other place where the work is allowed, which could include things like the coloring book. Anyways that is one possible solution for Wikijunior as a separate project.
 * Oh BTW, I meant that Wikijunior is an exception in the context of the rules regarding incubation. This policy is also an exception to Wikibooks' policies when there are contradictions. Most other things apply because Wikijunior hasn't made any other policies yet. I believe the deletion policy still applies to Wikijunior, for the most part for example. I think spam, nonsense, and copyright violations in Wikijunior can be deleted, while the general guideline about deleting modules that will never become educational doesn't apply because Wikijunior doesn't require books to be educational. I hope that clarifies my thinking some. --dark lama  16:31, 6 June 2010 (UTC)