Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Edit-a-thons of the Iranian Wikimedians User Group (ID: 22845470)/Final Report
Application type: Standard application
Part 1: Project and impact
1. Describe the implemented activities and results achieved. Additionally, share which approaches were most effective in supporting you to achieve the results. (required)
During the grant period, the Iranian Wikimedians User Group organized three edit-a-thons funded through this Rapid Fund: Wiki Loves Folklore 2025, Women in Red 2025, and the Armenia–Iran Wiki Edit-a-thon. All events were held online, with shared task lists, mentoring support, and short training sessions for newcomers.
Wiki Loves Folklore resulted in 142 uploaded pictures related to Iranian folklore and 32 participants. The Women in Red edit-a-thon produced 1,530 articles with 57 participants. The Armenia–Iran edit-a-thon focused on cultural and historical topics and resulted in 284 articles created by 16 participants.
These activities increased overall engagement in the user group and demonstrated that short, focused online sessions with direct mentoring were the most effective approach.
2. Documentation of your impact. Please use space below to share links that help tell your story, impact, and evaluation. (required)
Share links to:
- Project page on Meta-Wiki or any other Wikimedia project
- Dashboards and tools that you used to track contributions
- Some photos or videos from your event. Remember to share access.
You can also share links to:
- Important social media posts
- Surveys and their results
- Infographics and sound files
- Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects
Below are the main links that document participation, contributions, and outreach related to the three edit-a-thons:
Additionally, share the materials and resources that you used in the implementation of your project. (required)
For example:
- Training materials and guides
- Presentations and slides
- Work processes and plans
- Any other materials your team has created or adapted and can be shared with others
Below are the main materials created or used during the project. All are publicly available and can be reused by other communities:
- Training slides for Wiki Loves Folklore 2025
- Introductory material for Women in Red 2025
- Training webinar for International Women’s Day
3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with this Rapid Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals. Required. Select one option per question. (required)
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Strongly agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Strongly agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Strongly agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement | Agree |
| F. Other (optional) |
Part 2: Learning
4. In your application, you outlined some learning questions. What did you learn from these learning questions when you implemented your project? How do you hope to use this learnings in the future? You can recall these learning questions below. (required)
You can recall these learning questions below: From this project, we hope to learn several key things. Our main learning questions include:
1. How can we effectively increase participation in edit-a-thons among both experienced and new editors? 2. What strategies work best for engaging participants and keeping them motivated throughout the month? 3. How can we measure the impact of our events on the quality and quantity of Persian content on Wikimedia?
In our application, we proposed three learning questions, and the implementation of this project helped us gain practical insights in all of them.
- Increasing participation: We learned that short online events combined with clear instructions, task lists, and active mentoring are the most effective way to attract both new and experienced editors. Simple registration processes and regular reminders also increased participation.
- Sustained engagement and motivation: The best strategy was providing continuous support during the event period, including follow-up review sessions and quick feedback on participants’ work. Introducing small rewards and public recognition also helped keep participants motivated throughout the month.
- Measuring impact: Using Fountain and the Wiki Loves Folklore dashboard gave us reliable data to track contributions. These tools made it easier to evaluate article quality, total edits, and participation trends, giving us a clearer picture of the project’s overall impact.
We plan to use these learnings to design future edit-a-thons with better structure, clearer workflows, and more consistent mentoring so that participation and content quality can continue to improve.
5. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities? This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences? (required)
One unexpected outcome was the higher level of participation in the Women in Red edit-a-thon, which grew much faster than we anticipated. The large number of articles showed strong interest when participants are given clear guidance and accessible sources, confirming that thematic edit-a-thons with well-defined scopes attract more engagement.
Another unexpected situation was the effect of having a CentralNotice banner: many new users became interested and wanted to join, but most did not know how to start. We directed them to the tutorial videos we had prepared on YouTube, but we still needed a group of volunteers to answer repeated questions from newcomers throughout the event.
6. What is your plan to share your project learnings and results with other community members? If you have already done it, describe how. (required)
We shared the results of each edit-a-thon through our social media channels, where we regularly posted updates and outcomes. We also documented each event on Meta-Wiki with a separate report. In addition, we published a detailed article on Diff that highlights the broader impact of our work: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2025/06/10/woman-life-freedom-and-knowledge-documenting-women-on-persian-wikipedia/
Part 3: Metrics
7. Wikimedia Metrics results. (required)
In your application, you set some Wikimedia targets in numbers (Wikimedia metrics). In this section, you will describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used.
| Target | Results | Comments and tools used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 160 | 105 | |
| Number of editors | 80 | 105 | |
| Number of organizers | 6 | 12 |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 1200 | 1530 | 0 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 800 | 150 | 0 |
| Wikidata | 0 | 1530 | |
| Wiktionary | |||
| Wikisource | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | |||
| Translatewiki | |||
| MediaWiki | |||
| Wikiquote | |||
| Wikivoyage | |||
| Wikibooks | |||
| Wikiversity | |||
| Wikinews | |||
| Wikispecies | |||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
8. Other Metrics results.
In your proposal, you could also set Other Metrics targets. Please describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used if you set Other Metrics in your application.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
9. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? (required)
No
9.1. Please state what difficulties you had. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges? (required)
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]10. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency. (required)
2271
11. Please state the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)
2500
12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
Provide the link to the financial report https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MZBNf3yIH58ws26J9FX7I0T5_-5E83eAYdKLase4oYM/edit?gid=928458698#gid=928458698
12.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
13. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
No
13.1. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
13.2. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
13.3. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
14.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
14.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
14.3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)