Vikidia: why children love and need their own wiki encyclopedia
🎥 Session recording: [https://youtu.be/T1jTjARbXvY?list=PLfq0CVoHfK80&t=24390](https://youtu.be/T1jTjARbXvY?list=PLfq0CVoHfK80&t=24390)
Vikidia and Wikikids are the most active and most visited wikis after Wikipedia in French and Dutch, although less well known and less developed in other languages.
Why and how do these wikis work? Why do they provide an essential service?
I tell about the operating principles of these wikis (very similar to those of Wikipedia), how they actually work, and in particular with participants ranging in age from the target audience of readers to retirees, including teenagers and school projects. Young participants love not only contributing content, but also taking on roles and responsibilities for maintaining the wiki or guiding newer members.
Vikidia attracts many young readers who are happy to find a more suitable resource, with articles that are easier to access and shorter in length.
It fill a gap that wouldn’t be properly addressed othewise, by saying both that younger reader can read Wikipedia or at least the lead sections of an article, and that we definitly don’t write for them especialy by themselves.
Children read Vikidia both for their school work and out of mere curiosity, to raise their general knowledge. It is a valuable addition to the other sources of information available to them: school, family, peers, television, and online content.
