Wikipedia:Advice for parents

This is an essay on Wikipedia's child protection policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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This page is a brief introduction to Wikipedia for parents and legal guardians. Wikipedia is an open, collaborative encyclopedia with a vast range of information, including some explicit content. While we are a friendly, knowledge-driven community, there are a few important things parents and guardians may want to be aware of.

Wikipedia's goal is to offer knowledge for many different things, in a format which is legal to copy, modify, and redistribute (copyleft, as we call it) to all, at no cost. We hope you will find huge educational value within this project; and among our millions of articles, you will certainly find many relevant to almost all areas of study. No encyclopedia should be the end of the line in any research, however, and we hope you'll find our articles useful road maps for further exploration across a whole range of subjects. Although there are policies and guidelines for content, Wikipedia is freely editable by everyone, so inaccuracy and vandalism are problems that the project faces on a daily basis. A number of safeguards are in effect. These include insisting that editors cite reliable sources, as well as Recent Changes Patrolling for vandalism, and New Page Patrolling for recently created articles with inappropriate content.

This page and its subpages (linked pages) are intended to help parents, guardians, teachers, and other adults consider the best way to allow children they are responsible for to engage with Wikipedia safely and enjoyably. There is also a development area at Child protection. Read more about privacy, confidentiality and discretion on Wikipedia.