WikiWomenCamp/FAQ/Perspectives/Iran

Iran

Wikipedia's 10 Birthday in Tabriz

No women attended the 10 Year Wikipedia Birthday party held in Tehran[1] or Mashhad. [2] They did attend the event in Tabriz.[3]

Differences in accounts on Persian wiki projects where users explicitly state their gender.

In December 2011, according to Alexa, Wikipedia was ranked the 8th most popular site in the country.[4] In the period between November 2010 and October 2011, 31.4% of the traffic to Mazandarani Wikipedia was from this country.[5] Iranians provide 74.5% of the traffic to Persian Wikipedia, 10.7% of the traffic to Sorani Wikipedia, 51.0% of the traffic to Gilaki Wikipedia, 31.4% of the traffic to Mazandarani Wikipedia and 7.9% of the traffic to Kashmiri Wikipedia.[6] On English Wikipedia, there are zero featured articles, featured lists or good articles about women's sport in this country that are part of the Women's sport Wikiproject or the Women's football taskforce. There are 0 articles about women's basketball teams in this country on English Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's basketball teams in this country on French Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's basketball teams in this country on Japanese Wikipedia. To contextualise this, there is a national women's league in Iran and the country has a women's national team that competes internationally.[7] A search on Persian Wikipedia shows 57 results for Women's basketball. [8]There are 0 articles about women's association football clubs in this country on Persian Wikipedia (fa:رده:باشگاه‌های فوتبال زنان بر پایه کشور). There are 0 articles about women's association football clubs in this country on English Wikipedia. There are 3 articles about models from this country on English Wikipedia. In December 2011, elections were held for English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee. No women from this country ran for Arbitration Committee and there are currently no women from this country on the Arbitration Committee.

Differences in accounts on Kurdish wiki projects where users explicitly state their gender.

Persian Wikipedia has some coverage of women's sport. There is an article about women's sport.[9] There is a list of articles about female Iranian athletes[10] which links to several blue link articles including on about Purple Rezai champion tennis player,[11] Homa Hosseini : Qayqran and national team basketball player,[12] N Abtin who was an Iranian shooting competitor at the 2008 Summer Olympics, [13], numerous Iranian chess players, association football player Niloofar Ardalan, [14] and martial artist Sarah Khvshjmal mind.[15] Persian Wikipedia also covers female politicians. A search for the term female politician brings up 45 results.[16] Most of the biography articles in the result about about non-Iranian women from countries lik the United States, the Netherlands, India, Costa Rica and Thailand. For both sport and politics, biographies are not sorted by gender: Men and women are both in one general broad category.

In December 2011, according to Alexa, Wikinews was ranked the 10,231th most popular site in the country.[17] A December 2011 search on Spanish Wikinews for Irán mujeres found 17 articles that mentioned both words.[18] A December 2011 search on English Wikinews for Iran Women found 47 articles that mentioned both words.[19] A December 2011 search on Portuguese Wikinews for mulheres Irã found 30 articles that mentioned both words.[20] There are no female administrators on English wikinews from this country, nor are there any women from this country who are English wikinews accredited reporters. On Portuguese Wikinews, there are no women active from this country. This may be a result of several factors, including the language and because Portuguese Wikinews only has an active editing community of five people, one of whom is a woman. On Persian Wikinews, 283 users made at least 1 edit and 92 users made at least 5 edits. 80 users explicitly set their gender: 73 or 91.25% are male and 7 or 8.75% are female.[21]

Iranians are involved with some other projects, though not necessarily in leadership positions outside their native language. On their home language, their participation rates are higher in a few cases than the global 9% number that has been cited. On Persian Wikiquote, 782 users made at least 1 edit and 270 users made at least 5 edits. 107 users explicitly set their gender: 80 or 84.11% are male and 17 or 15.89% are female.[22] In December 2011, Wikiversity was ranked the 40,841th most popular site in the country.[23] There are no women from this country involved in leadership roles on English or German Wikiversity. Their participation is minimal to non-existent. In December 2011, according to Alexa, Wikibooks was ranked the 3,317th most popular site in the country.[24] On Persian Wikibooks, 926 users made at least 1 edit and 424 users made at least 5 edits. 183 users explicitly set their gender, with 140 or 76.5% as male and 43 or 23.5% as female.[25] On Persian Wikisource, 460 users made at least 1 edit and 148 users made at least 5 edits 44 users explicitly set their gender: 130 or 90.28% are male, and 14 or 9.72% are female.[26] On Persian Wiktionary, 909 users made at least 1 edit and 224 users made at least 5 edits. 87 users explicitly set their gender: 171 or 91.44% are male and 16 or 8.56% are female.[27] There are no bureaucrats, male or female, from this country on MediaWiki.Org.[28] There is 3 men and 0 women on the language incubator who use Persian as their native language.[29]

Iranians do not appear to be a priority area for the Foundation. During the December 2011 fundraising appeal, no Iranians, men or women, were featured are part of the appeal. During the 2011 Summer of Research, the WMF hired eight research fellows. Of these, only one was female, and she was from the United States. There were four males from American universities, The other researchers included men from a Japanese university, a Swiss university and a Canadian university. There were no research fellows, male or female, from this country.