The Persian Wikipedia ( fa, ویکیپدیای فارسی, Wikipediā, Dānešnāme-ye Āzād, Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia) is the
Persian language
Persian (), also known by its endonym Farsi (, ', ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and ...
version of
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
. The Persian version of Wikipedia was started in December 2003. As of , it has articles, registered users and files and it is the
largest edition of Wikipedia by article count, and ranks
22nd in terms of depth among Wikipedias. It passed 1,000 articles on December 16, 2004, and 200,000 articles on July 10, 2012.
Roozbeh Pournader
Roozbeh Pournader( fa, روزبه پورنادر, ) is a free software activist and expert on Unicode text encoding, text rendering, and fonts, especially for bidirectional text. He is originally from Iran, and is now living in the United States ...
is the project's first administrator, developer and bureaucrat.
It is the most popular language version of Wikipedia in Iran and Afghanistan.
Number of articles
In January 2013, close to 50,000 new articles were added within a month. A few days later, on 19 February 2013, the Persian Wikipedia reached 300,000 articles, ranking it 18th among all Wikipedias based on number of articles.
It currently has articles, making it the 19
th largest
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
by article count.
History of the number of articles:
* 19 December 2003: started
* 18 February 2006: reached 10,000 articles
* 30 October 2008: reached 50,000 articles
* 25 August 2010: reached 100,000 articles
* 9 July 2012: reached 200,000 articles
* 19 February 2013: reached 300,000 articles
* 18 July 2014: reached 400,000 articles
* 27 July 2016: reached 500,000 articles
* 3 May 2018: reached 600,000 articles
*8 November 2019: reached 700,000 articles
*26 May 2021: reached 800,000 articles
*13 April 2022: reached 900,000 articles
Article depth
With
article depth of , the Persian Wikipedia is currently ranked 23rd among all Wikipedias based on article depth.
Issues
Freedom of expression
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
in Persian-speaking countries of
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
,
Tajikistan
Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
, and
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
is low.
Copyright
Knowledge about copyright rules is poor in Iran that hinders users.
Cost of bandwidth
Tariffs for
National Information Network
The National Information Network (NIN) (Persian: شبکۀ ملی اطلاعات, ''Shabake-ye Melli-ye Ettelā'āt''), also known as National Internet in Iran and the Iranian intranet, is an ongoing project to develop a secure, stable infrastruc ...
is 75% cheaper than internet price.
Citation
Iran ranks last in
Freedom House
Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...
freedom of the press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic News media, media, especially publication, published materials, should be conside ...
ranking, there is a challenge for finding
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
citations.
Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance
According to reports by Human rights lawyer
Shadi Sadr
Shadi Sadr ( fa, شادی صدر; born 1974) is an Iranian lawyer, human rights advocate, essayist and journalist. She co-founded Justice for Iran (JFI) in 2010 and is the Executive Director of the NGO. She has published and lectured worldwide.
S ...
,
RFERL,
Iranwire,
Iran International
Iran International ( fa, ایران اینترنشنال) is a Persian language news television channel headquartered in London, UK, aimed at Iranian viewers, and broadcasting free-to-air by satellite. Iran International was established in 2017 a ...
,
Justice for Iran Justice for Iran (JFI) is a London-based non-governmental human rights organization. The stated objective of the organization is to "address and eradicate the practice of human rights abuses and impunity that empowers officials of the Islamic Republ ...
,
Open Democracy
openDemocracy is an independent media platform and news website based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2001, openDemocracy states that through reporting and analysis of social and political issues, they seek to "challenge power and encourage de ...
,
Radio Zamaneh
Radio Zamaneh ( fa, رادیو زمانه) is an Amsterdam-based Persian language exile news platform and former radio broadcaster. "Zamaneh" is the Persian literary term for "time".
Radio Zamaneh is an independent Persian-language exile media a ...
and other news outlets, the
Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance
The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance ( fa, وزارت فرهنگ و ارشاد اسلامی, ''Vâzart-e Ferheng-e vâ Arshad-e Eslâmi'') ("Ministry of CIG") is the Ministry of Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Iran, ...
and the
Iranian Cyber Army
The Iranian Cyber Army is an Iranian computer hacker group. It is thought to be connected to Iranian government, although it is not officially recognized as an entity by the government. It has pledged loyalty to Supreme Leader of Iran.
According t ...
may be interfering the Persian Wikipedia, although the
Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...
denies that there is abuse taking place. In 2019, German news outlet
Deutsche Welle
Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service con ...
reported that WMF had launched an investigation.
Censorship
In a November 2013 report published by the
Center for Global Communication Studies
The Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) is a research center located within the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. CGCS serves as a research hub for students and scholars worldwide studying comparativ ...
of the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
, researchers Collin Anderson and Nima Nazeri scanned 800,000 Persian language Wikipedia articles and found that the Iranian government blocks 963 of these pages. According to the authors, "Censors repeatedly targeted Wikipedia pages about government rivals, minority religious beliefs, and criticisms of the state, officials, and the police. Just under half of the blocked Wiki-pages are biographies, including pages about individuals the authorities have allegedly detained or killed." Anderson said that Persian Wikipedia, as a microcosm of the Iranian internet, is a "useful place to uncover the types of online content forbidden and an excellent template to identify keyword blocking themes and filtering rules that apply across the greater internet."
On 2 March 2020, during the
COVID-19 pandemic in Iran, the Persian Wikipedia appears to be disrupted in Iran after the death of
Mohammad Mirmohammadi, who is a close confidant to the country's
Ali Khamenei
Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei ( fa, سید علی حسینی خامنهای, ; born 19 April 1939) is a Twelver Shia ''marja and the second and current Supreme Leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously the third president o ...
.
Gallery
File:Fa Wikipedia-logo 100000 2.png, 100,000 entries celebration logo (August 2010)
File:Persian Wikipedia's Featured Nowruz Logo (2015).svg, Persian Wikipedia's Nowruz
Nowruz ( fa, نوروز, ; ), zh, 诺鲁孜节, ug, نەۋروز, ka, ნოვრუზ, ku, Newroz, he, נורוז, kk, Наурыз, ky, Нооруз, mn, Наурыз, ur, نوروز, tg, Наврӯз, tr, Nevruz, tk, Nowruz, ...
logo (21 March 2015)
File:Persian Wikipedia's Featured Nowruz Logo (2016).svg, Persian Wikipedia's Nowruz logo (21 March 2016)
File:Persian Wikipedia's 500,000 article featured logo.svg, Persian Wikipedia's 500,000 article logo (27 July 2016)
File:Persian Wikipedia's Featured Nowruz Logo (2017).svg, Persian Wikipedia's Nowruz logo (21 March 2017)
File:Persian Wikipedia's 600,000 article green logo.svg, 600,000 entries celebration logo (March 2018)
File:Persian Wikipedia Nowruz Logo 4.svg, Persian Wikipedia's Nowruz logo (21 March 2019)
File:Persian Wikipedia's 800k-4.svg, 800,000 entries celebration logo (May 2021)
File:Persian Wikipedia's 900k.svg, 900,000 entries celebration logo (April 2022)
See also
*
List of Wikipedias
Wikipedia is a free content, free multilingualism, multilingual open source wiki-based online encyclopedia open collaboration, edited and maintained by a Wikipedia community, community of volunteer editors, started on as an English Wikipedia, E ...
*
Tajik Wikipedia
References
External links
Persian Wikipedia mobile version
{{Wikipedias
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
Persian-language websites
Wikipedias by language