FYI. :-)

Regards, Tanvir Rahman Wikitanvir on Wikimedia

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Laura Hale laura@fanhistory.com Date: Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 01:47 Subject: [Gendergap] Global perspectives on women and Wikimedia projects: Bangladesh To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects < gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org>

In preparation for WikiWomenCamp and the sister conference open to people of all genders for discussing the gender gap (we'll get a name chosen and do a formal announcement soon!) , we're writing and asking for your assistance in writing about the involvement of and content related to women on Wikimedia projects from around the world. Today, we're looking at Bangladesh. If you can help improve this, please do. Many thanks to Tanvir, WM-BD's secretary, for providing insight into what is going on.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomenCamp/FAQ/Perspectives/Bangladesh

[image: Flag of Bangladesh.svg] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh Bangladesh [image: people standing in a group wearing Wikipedia shirts]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kite_flying2011_065.JPG http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kite_flying2011_065.JPG A Wikipedia 10th Birthday celebration in Bangladesh

Bengali Wikimedia projects have very few female contributors. Those that they do have do not contribute on a consistent, regular basis; they edit sporadically. In Bangladesh, women often attend events by the Chapter and others in the country. There are female participants who attend every meet-up. Most of the time, these are new faces and there is a problem in getting the same women to consistently show up to events in order to build up a regular base of active female participants. Currently Wikimedia Bangladesh http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Bangladesh has no female members in the board. The board is planning to find a woman from the country to be a a Bengali participant in at WikiWomenCamp in Argentina.

In December 2011, there were 1,700 women of all ages from Bangladesh who were interested in Wikipedia on Facebook.[1]https://www.facebook.com/ads/create/ 0.06% of all Wikipedia traffic comes from Bangladesh.[2]http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerCountryBreakdown.htm Most editors in Bangladesh edit the Bengali Wikipedia but 91.1% view English Wikipedia. There are many articles about Bengali actresses on the Bengali Wikipedia. These articles were mostly created by male contributors. There is an effort by a Bengali editor to take the Bengali language article about Angelina Joliehttp://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%85%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%9E%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%9C%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%A8%E0%A6%BE_%E0%A6%9C%E0%A7%8B%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BF to Featured. As of December 2011, there are zero featured articles about women on Bengali Wikipedia. There are two articles about female sport people: an athlete and a chess player. There are 10 articles about female film actresses from Bangladeshhttp://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%B7%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BC%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%A3%E0%A7%80:%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%82%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%80_%E0%A6%85%E0%A6%AD%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%A4%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%80, 10 articles about female television actresses from Bangladesh, 3 articles about female Bangladeshi stage actresses and 13 articles about Bangladeshi singers. On Bengali Wikipedia, there are 4 articles about Bangladeshi social workershttp://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%B7%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BC%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%A3%E0%A7%80:%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%82%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%80_%E0%A6%B8%E0%A6%AE%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%9C%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%AE%E0%A7%80, 3 of whom women. The amount of women specific content in Bengali, and Bangaldeshi women content, is limited. The Bengali word for User is gender neutral; the name space does not indicate the gender of the user on Wikimedia projects.

On English Wikipedia, there are 11 articleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bangladeshi_women_in_politics women in politics, 4 articleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Bangladeshi_feminists about Bangladeshi feminists‎. There are 0 articles about women's basketball teamshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Category:Women%27s_basketball_teams in this country on English Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's basketball teamshttp://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%C3%A9gorie:Club_de_basket-ball_f%C3%A9minin in this country on French Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's basketball teamshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:%E5%A5%B3%E5%AD%90%E3%83%90%E3%82%B9%E3%82%B1%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E3%83%9C%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%81%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0 in this country on Japanese Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's basketball teams in this country (he:קטגוריה:קבוצות כדורסל נשיםhttp://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%92%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94:%D7%A7%D7%91%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%9B%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%A1%D7%9C_%D7%A0%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%9D) on Hebrew Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's association football clubs in this country on Farsi Wikipedia (fa:رده:باشگاه‌های فوتبال زنان بر پایه کشورhttp://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%87:%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B4%DA%AF%D8%A7%D9%87%E2%80%8C%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C_%D9%81%D9%88%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84_%D8%B2%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A8%D8%B1_%D9%BE%D8%A7%DB%8C%D9%87_%DA%A9%D8%B4%D9%88%D8%B1). There are 0 articles about women's association football clubshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Women%27s_association_football_clubs_by_country in this country on English Wikipedia. There are 0 articles about women's association football clubshttp://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F:%D0%96%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D1%84%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D0%BA%D0%BB%D1%83%D0%B1%D1%8B_%D0%BF%D0%BE_%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BC in this country on Russian Wikipedia. Bangladeshi women do not appear to be given much coverage on non-Bengali Wikipedia. This is for several reasons, including a lack of participation of women in certain categories, language issues that make it difficult to report on Bangladeshi women, and a general lack of interest in existing contributors in covering their issues. [image: group cutting a cake]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:10_years_of_Wikipedia_celebration_Chittagong_009.jpg

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:10_years_of_Wikipedia_celebration_Chittagong_009.jpg 10th Birthday celebrations in Chittagong

In December 2011, according to Alexa, Wikinews was ranked the 17,538th most popular site in the country.[3]http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org On Portuguese Wikinewshttp://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/n:P%C3%A1gina_principal, 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. A December 2011 search on English Wikinews for Women Bangladesh found 5 articles that mentioned both words.[4]http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=women+Bangladesh A December 2011 search on Spanish Wikinews for Bangladesh mujeres found 1 article that mentioned both words.[5]http://es.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Especial%3ABuscar&search=Bangladesh+mujeres&fulltext=Search&ns0=1&redirs=1&profile=advanced A December 2011 search on Portuguese Wikinews for mulheres Bangladesh found 1 articles that mentioned both words.[6]http://pt.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=Especial%3APesquisar&search=mulheres+Bangladesh&fulltext=Search&ns0=1&redirs=1&profile=advanced

Bangladeshi women are absent on other projects connected to the Wikimedia Foundation. There is one woman who has contributed to the language incubatorhttp://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page who uses Bengali http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language. She made one edit and is the only Bengali speaker to make an edit on incubator. There are no bureaucrats, male or female, from Bangladesh on MediaWiki.Org.[7]http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:ListUsers/bureaucrat In December 2011, according to Alexa, Wikibooks was ranked the 1,653th most popular site in the country.[8]http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikibooks.org Some of the visitors are likely to be women. Bangladeshi women also do not appear to factor into the WMF's wider strategy to appeal to the region: During the December 2011 fundraising appeal, no Bangladeshis, men or women, were featuredhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011#A_Parade_of_Appeals.21_December_22.2C_2011 are part of the appeal. During the 2011 Summer of Researchhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikimedia_Summer_of_Research_2011, 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.