2006 Wikipedia CD Selection

2006 Wikipedia CD Selection is a selection of articles of the anglophone Wikipédia, produced in April 2006 for S.O.S Villages of Children . It is the first version Cédérom in English language of Wikipedia.

Contents

The cédérom account three million words and 8  000 images, is the equivalent of a book of 4  000 with 5  000 pages. CD contains more 2  000 articles intended for the schools and the children. The articles were selected manually in anglophone Wikipedia by volunteers, were checked for their accessibility with children and were automatically cleaned by script like manually. The images of CD are only labels.

Criticisms and comments

This project was criticized.
  • the Blog TorrentFreak affirms that the articles of CD are less reliable than those of Wikipédia itself.
  • Another bloggor points out that the articles being rewritten in English not simplified, their accessibility for children from 8 to 15 years is limited.

Diffusion

In November 2006, more 30  000 copies of this CD were downloaded on the site Wikipedia CD download and a few other thousands on a BitTorrent site.

Some of these copies have their turn recopied many times (in particular by the Shuttleworth Foundation to be distributed to schools in Africa, and by an Indian national to sell them on EBay India).

Approximately 20  000 unique visitors consulted each day the online version of the cédérom on Wikipedia CD. The selection was also available free on CD for charity works. There existed also a version on Carte SD for Palm Pilot.

Modification of Wiki to the cédérom

CD was not a project of the Fondation wikimédia and modifications were made, for reasons a priori legal:
  • the logo " puzzle-globe" of Wikipedia was not included on CD, because S.O.S Villages of Children did not have the permission to use it. The permission was given for the selection 2007.
  • the only added contents is a small note of approximately 130 pages devoted to the majority of the countries where S.O.S Villages of Children is active.
  • In addition to the general warning of anglophone Wikipédia, CD comprised the following note:
2006 WikiPedia CD Selection is provided without general profit for the education off children, and is intended to Be made for that purpose. It is NOT intended to guide chemistry experiments, ace has guide to poisonous seedlings, ace has medical guide gold to Be used in any way ace has basis for behavior.

Relations with the official versions of Wikipedia

Although the selection cédérom is produced apart from Wikimédia, the project was used as prototype for the versions to come from Wikipédia on material support, like for their distribution.

The official versions of Wikimedia will use the name Wikipedia Release Version '' to avoid confusion with the versions of S.O.S Villages of Children who will be called Wikipedia-CD-Selection .

References and notes