As a struggle persists about whether or not to welcome avowed pedophiles to edit Wikimedia Foundation projects like Wikipedia, and whether or not it's okay to allow a 15-year-old volunteer administrator on Wikimedia Commons to view, judge, and retain images of either soft or hard pornography, this may be a useful moment to look back on another Wikimedia Foundation project that was expressly targeted toward kids under the age of twelve.
The Wikijunior project was launched in October 2004, after the John and Frances Beck Foundation reached out to the Wikimedia Foundation, asking if the latter could generate educational material intended for younger audiences. Of course the Wikimedia Foundation accepted the challenge, drafted a grant proposal, and soon received $10,000 from the Beck Foundation. The main objective of that gift was to facilitate the production of "a series of full-color glossy booklets (48 pp.; 8 ½ x 11) for a young audience (ages 7-12) on a variety of topics that interest kids".
Unfortunately, in late 2004, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) wasn't a 501(c)(3) organization, and the Beck Foundation could only formally issue money to tax-exempt charities. So, the check was held until Jimmy Wales could scramble to get the WMF its proper papers from the Department of the Treasury. By April 2005, the WMF had its tax-exempt, public charity status in place.
In the meantime, WMF board trustee (and future Chairperson) Florence Devouard misattributed the $10,000 gift to the wrong "Beck Foundation", thinking that a company that drills the earth and places concrete "foundations" for things like power line towers was asking the WMF for help writing children's books. Over five years later, Devouard's mistake has still not been corrected on the wiki.
By the end of 2005, the Wikijunior project, fat with its $10,000 grant ("it was used for servers", according to the WMF proposal writer, Danny Wool), had produced on the Wikibooks website four electronic books about the solar system, big cats, South America, and ancient civilizations. None, however, had been printed on a traditional printing press, as the initial goal of the grant prescribed. It appears now that a hard copy of "Big Cats" can be purchased on a print-on-demand site for the price of $17.38. Worrisome, though, is the fact that the author who pockets the entitled portion of the $17.38 is unclear, as it's accredited to "Various Contributers" (sic).
By the end of 2006, another $15,000 had been transferred from the Beck Foundation to the WMF. A handful of additional electronic titles (How Things Work, The Elements, Dinosaurs, Languages, and The Kings and Queens of England) had been added, but still not a single 48-page "glossy booklet" had rolled off a printing press, other than those print-on-demand "Big Cats" booklets that may have been purchased for $17.38 apiece. Incidentally, within the Dinosaurs reader, kids can find out which was "one of the dumbest dinosaurs".
Your trusty reporter talked with Marianne K. Friedman, who oversees the John and Frances Beck Foundation's $1.8 million in assets. One would presume that there's been some disappointment that $25,000 has yielded to date only 1,200 pages of browser-readable content and not a single case of printed booklets. Friedman began by telling me, "This is a long story." She then went on to describe how she has been "tracing all [2004-2005] correspondence to authenticate all incidents surrounding this project".
Is the John and Frances Beck Foundation still shipping cash to the Wikimedia Foundation? Friedman responded, "I can tell you that we no longer support Wikipedia, Wikimedia, or Wikijunior..."
Oh, well. That leaves the enigma of $25,000 that bought 1,200 pages of unpaid volunteer-created content. A couple dozen free, user-generated virtual books don't cost more than a few hundred dollars' worth of server space to maintain electronically. We're left with the now-familar refrain of "what did they do with the money?" Current staff and former trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
We know from empirical evidence that among Wikipedia's top 100 most-viewed articles are the subjects of Sex, Sexual intercourse, Vagina, Human penis size, List of sex positions, Penis, Masturbation, and Harry Potter. While these articles are presumably written mostly by adults, the content may be too graphic for the typical 7- to 12-year-old child. That's why Wikijunior does have a kid-friendly page that details the human body's reproductive system. Here is the sum total of what it teaches:
The reproductive system differs between men and women. These organs are needed for a couple to have children. A baby is carried by a woman in the uterus. The special organ of the placenta is formed during pregnancy and is shared between mother and child.
That's it, little Johnny and little Susie. Do you have any other questions about the birds and the bees? If so, you'll need to drum up another $10,000 or $15,000 in grant money for Wikijunior, and then they'll get working on it. Until then, the Wikibooks project is busy at work with its free Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter, though it won't likely be available on Wikijunior.
- IMAGE from 'A Child's Garden of Verses' (public domain) by Jessie Willcox Smith, found at Wikimedia Commons.
Comments
Sounds like the WMF owes the John and Frances Beck Foundation $25,000. It wouldn't be the first grant they've had to return because they wouldn't or couldn't comply with the grant conditions.
You can't rely on volunteers to write any particular type of material. You can ask, yes, but you don't know what will result. WMF erred in assuming that Wikijunior would ever produce anything of value. I edited Wikipedia from Nov. 2005 to Feb. 2010, and I dabbled in Wikisource and Wikibooks. I never touched the Wikijunior project. Most volunteers didn't touch it either. Wikijunior will never amount to anything. Congratulations on a fine report, Greg, and next time don't call it the "Wikipdia Foundation" (oops!).
Sounds like the Beck Foundation is getting ready to get their money back.
Good for them.
I have to say, I was unaware of the 'Wikijunior' project until this article. Having read this, I hope that the folks at the WMF can look past the messenger in this case and go on to publish a full audit of the grant money from the Beck Foundation so people can see for themselves what transpired. Anything less won't do and will only serve to undermine confidence in the WMF.
Sorry, Alison. While I appreciate your comment, the WMF (namely, Sue Gardner) already has a pat answer for when someone has a credible call for a financial audit of something fishy. Here's how it goes:
Sue Gardner: "So, this guy has a blog and what he's done is used that blog as a platform to spread a whole bunch of unsubstantiated rumors and gossip and so forth. And it's hard for us to even respond to this... it's not entirely even clear necessarily always what's being alleged. So, it's sort of difficult to even come back to, and we don't want to get into a long back-and-forth on somebody's blog. I don't know if you know this, we have 12 employees, so if we have one person sort of duking it out on a blog with people, that's 11 people doing the actual work. We have a lot of important work to do."
Anyway, that was in 2008:
news.cnet.com/1606-2-6233396.html
Now the WMF has about 50 employees, so maybe the tune has changed and we'll see an audit. LOL, yeah right.
Greg -- great article!
Well done. Thank you for bringing this to our attenton:
I must say that I reall did "laugh out loud" when I read: We know from empirical evidence that among Wikipedia's top 100 most-viewed articles are the subjects of Sex, Sexual intercourse, Vagina, Human penis size, List of sex positions, Penis, Masturbation, and Harry Potter." Little Johnny and Little Susie's heads would spin!
The last time I visited that "kid-friendly page" and clicked on "recent changes" I was treated to the following display:
en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Canadian_Criminal_Sentencing/Appendix/Case_Law_%28Ranges%29&oldid=1875279#Sexual_Assault
No live links here, so you're own your own recognizance.
It's not just the Beck Foundation that is owed a refund. A lot of donors were bamboozled into supporting a project that promised educational outreach but then delivered an MMPORG with a Bondage and Discipline theme.
What would some ten-year-old kid uphold semi-nude photos of himself? Why would an "educational" resource allow them to remain on their servers? Why aren't the ten-year-old's (now twelve-year-old) parents informed that their child is doing this sort of thing on a public forum which may include pedophiles posting under the cloak of anonymity?
It seems to me that Mr. Kohs is going the public a service by pointing this out. It also seems to me that Mr. Vandenberg should rethink his position or stop drinking the koolaid...
<s>Wikimedia</s> Wikipedia Strategy, <s>Wikimedia</s> Wikipedia Outreach, and the <s>Wikimedia</s> Wikipedia Usability Initiative are not targeted at Wikibooks or its Wikijunior subproject. However you may feel about the Foundation and Wikipedia, know that they are letting everything else rot on the vine while they pick the Wikipedia plant clean. Muggles' Guide is one of the few books continuously getting updates, while everything else is neglected. The community has evaporated at Wikibooks and so Wikijunior is a thumbnail snapshot of the project as a whole. Additionally, you complain about Commons being too explicit, but Wikijunior isn't explicit enough?
@A Prolific WC:
I couldn't agree more with your perspective on the Foundation letting all the non-Wikipedia projects "rot on the vine". As for this notion, however, that you believe me to think that "Wikijunior isn't explicit enough", that's not the case. I think that (as regards the human reproductive system) Wikijunior isn't INFORMATIVE enough. I think 7- to 12-year-olds seeking information about where babies come from and how their bodies are noticeably changing are not going to be fulfilled by a paragraph that merely states that there are "differences" between men and women, and that if a lady somehow gets a baby in her uterus (Lord knows how that happens), there's going to be a placenta being shared.
<eyes spinning in sockets>
Pic has been nuked now, don't worry. Deleted it myself.
Lesson: don't upload pics that you may later regret.
Question for the peanut gallery: can legal minors license and release images that they upload? From a quasi-legal standpoint - does that have any standing?
Dear readers, to explain why some of the 22 comments that were here have been expunged...
On August 4, someone purporting to be a 12-year-old boy posted a reply to this article, accusing me of "cherry picking". The boy used his real name to sign his comment. Someone informed me of the Wikimedia project "user name" of this boy, and it was clear that two years ago (at the age of 10) he had uploaded to Wikimedia Commons freely-licensed pictures of his own bare chest and his own posterior in tight-fitting underwear. I asked why the Wikimedia Foundation would tolerate, much less encourage, the reckless public choices of such a young boy. The boy dismissed the criticism, saying that the images were "pretty worthless". Once informed that his underwear featured a poop stain, he removed the images from Wikimedia and "confessed" here, "that I have done wrong and that I should be more careful. I respect Mr Kohs' opinion on Wikijunior..." He asked for removal of related comments; I've complied.
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