How entries are chosen and checked
Playsaurus is about small children, so it is only worth anything if you can trust it. This page says exactly how the catalogue is put together, including what gets turned down and why.
- Published
- 4
- Written, not yet published
- 22
- Channels vetted
- 8
Nothing is published automatically
Every entry is written and checked by a person. There is no feed, no algorithm choosing what you see, and no way for a video to appear here without someone deciding it should. An entry cannot be published at all until four things are true: it has a clip that shows the game, an age range, instructions you could follow on one read, and a specific safety note wherever one is needed.
Two different checks on every clip
The first is automatic and runs every night: it confirms each video is still public and can still be embedded. The second cannot be automated. A person watches the clip and confirms it really does show that game, at those timestamps. A video that nobody has watched cannot carry an entry, however promising it looks.
The reason for being strict here is simple. A long session video very often contains the game somewhere, and guessing where would mean publishing something we have not actually checked.
What gets turned down
Video made for the child to watch is excluded outright. It is the most common thing in this corner of the internet and it is the opposite of what this site is for: a screen that occupies your child instead of showing you how to play with them.
Also turned down: anything where a child seems distressed, mocked, or used as a punchline, however good the demonstration; anything that exists to sell a product; and anything showing something unsafe without saying so. Campaign films that explain why play matters are not published either. They are usually good, but you do not need persuading that play matters, and they do not show you a game you could copy.
Channels, not just videos
Channels are assessed once, as a whole, rather than video by video. We look at whether the content shows real interaction rather than someone presenting to camera, whether children appear to be filmed with evident consent and dignity, whether the tone avoids implying you are failing, and how commercial the channel is.
Doing it this way means that if a channel later posts something unsuitable, everything of theirs can be withdrawn at once.
Videos stay where they are
Every clip is embedded from the channel that made it, credited by name, and linked back so you can watch it there. Nothing is downloaded, re-hosted, or stripped of its source. If you made a video here and would rather it was not listed, say so and it will be removed.
Safety notes
A safety note only appears where there is something specific to say, and it says that specific thing. A warning on every page would just teach people to skip the one page where it mattered. These are the risks that make a note compulsory:
- Choking. Object size, supervision, what to use instead for under-threes
- Water. Depth, never leaving the child, emptying afterwards
- Height. What they could fall from and onto
- Rough and tumble. Stopping on request, necks and heads, when to stop
- Food. Allergies, not using food as the only reward
- Hygiene. Washing, shared mouths, cleaning up
- Hot things. Temperatures, kettles, hobs
- Strangulation. Ribbons, string, cords, bags
What this is not
This is not medical or developmental advice, and it is not therapy. If you are worried about how your child is developing, a health visitor or your GP is the right place to go, and that worry deserves a proper answer rather than an activity.
There is also nothing here about what your child ought to be doing by now. No checklists, no milestones to measure against. The entries say what a game is good for because that is useful when choosing one, not as a test.
Who decides all this
At the moment, one person. There is no named early years practitioner reviewing the catalogue, which is worth saying plainly rather than implying otherwise. That is why this page exists in the detail it does: the policy is doing the work that a credential would otherwise do. Recruiting a reviewer is wanted and is not yet arranged.
If something here looks wrong, unsafe, or unkind, please say. Getting it corrected matters more than being right.