Wikipedia is no different than the Funk and Waggenel you used to look up naughty words in, or find some important information in. Wikipedia is a source of whatever you seek. If you seek the prurient, it's there. If you seek the wholesome, it's there. Rarely do the two cross, but they coexist. Commercialism isn't an issue, as there are no ads, and the userbase works to keep articles unbiased. But discussion is frank, so if your child is naive or incapable of dealing with surprising and perhaps enticing new information, you might be advised to monitor his/her use of this site until they are old enough.

Though kids can create profiles, close monitoring fixes this. There is an ongoing myth that you may learn bad knowledge or see inappropriate words in the middle of nowhere because of trolls, but this is just not true.

I'm really surprised this would be considered a "homework helper". What parents really need to know is that all the items on Wikipedia are user-generated. While some of the material on the site may be factual, other items are not. Still more items are heavily slanted due to the biases of the individuals who wrote the wiki entries. Students, especially college-bound students, need to be told that Wikipedia should only be used as a jumping off point. It's one thing to use it as a starting place to generate ideas and find initial sources, but in most cases, it should not be used as the primary source for a paper. Students need to be taught how to evaluate online sources and in most cases high schools are not doing a good enough job so those early college papers come as a rude awakening.

+HUGE varity of searches +can be helpful for reports -lots of content is false -some searches will make a mom pass out

I was researching the subject of people's gender roles, by looking at some of the articles on wikipedia.org. I found an article, that I feel, is too disturbing for kids under 16. It is an article that I don't want any young kid to read without a caring adult to get them off of the article, or to explain to the kid(s) why this article is bad for them to see . I think that if a kid under 16 ,reads this article, without a responsible adult, that the article could make the kids feel very emotionally disturbed. I've censored the name of the article in this review. The name of the article is ________ Removal. I think that if you're 17-years-old, or 21 or 21 plus, [and you know basic science], that you can figure out what my censored title is. My title is about certain surgical practices. While there may be some scientific professionals, or history professionals, who might need the data in the article, I believe that this wikipedia article is not something that 99.9% of the people in The U.S., will ever need. That might be true for people in other nations, as well. Most people will never need this information. I feel that the subject matter of this article, subject matter that deals with the subjects of: emotional fantasies, crime and punishment, or similar scholastic subjects, is subject matter or data, that most people will not need in their lifetime. There is a photo of certain human physiology, on this article, that I think kids under 16 should not see. The photo is graphic and unneeded. Average internet viewers are allowed to remove parts of articles, and maybe photos, from wikipedia articles, but the article gives you no method of removing this photo. Also, there are ways that you can edit the words and pictures out of a wikipedia article, but if the unknown administrators of the site don't agree with the reasons for your edits, the administrators may put your edited material back in the article, without any way for you to edit the article again. I believe that there is also no way to protest the cancellation of your edits. So, unknown administrators of the site, in cancelling your edits, are deciding for you, what data and pictures are appropriate for all kids under 21-years-old. The article also has links to sites outside of wikipedia .org. I find two of these links to be, links that are 1) sites run by people who may be emotionally sick, and inappropriate for people of ANY age to discover or 2) sites that , while are very remotely connected to the subject of the wikipedia article, are sites: about absurd sexual practices/or are sites that contain disgusting, or sick, pornography. One of the linked sites seems to be to a fake site. Another of the linked sites is an article, on a site, about disgusting paraphilia stories. In conclusion, I do feel that wikipedia.org does have a small amount of educational data available. But, In my view, the site [does not censor enough violent content, in order for kids to see the site], and the site [does not censor enough needless violent or repulsive content] for kids under 16 to see the site. If you know that your 16-year-old child or children know what sites are inappropriate for them to see, and they know to leave those sites, and your kids are 16 or over, then I recommend that these kids can see the site. Since wikipedia.org does not remove data from its site, data that nearly every adult thinks is data that is too violent for children or too sexual for children, please do not let kids under 16 see this site without a proper parent or guardian, a parent to view the site with those kids, kids who are under 16.

My english teacher told us that this site had some false info becuase anyone could change it and if we use it as a reference we will get an F .. just so all you kids know that. so use it sparingly

i tiped in the f word and the article ezxits