Rising Demand, Weakening Supply: Persian Wikipedia as a Language-Technology Resource, 2016–2025, in 20 Language Editions

Purpose. Wikipedia is one of the main open text sources for training and evaluating language models, so the health of a language edition shapes the language technology available to its speakers. We ask whether Persian Wikipedia is under-supplied relative to demand and how its demand, editor base and content creation have evolved relative to 19 other languages. Design and methods. We combined Wikimedia statistics and monthly metrics for 20 language editions (user pageviews 2016–2025, active editors, new articles by registered users, anonymous users and bots) and compare Persian with the others in cross-section (supply, demand and editors, with regression-based prediction intervals) and in trajectories (percentage changes and ranks). Findings. In cross-section Persian is typical: 1.09 million articles, 2.24 billion user pageviews in 2025 (2,044 per article; peer median 1,664), 3,427 active editors, and 1.53 editors per million pageviews (peer median 1.47); observed editors were 0.95 of the number predicted from demand (95% prediction interval 0.49–1.86). Trajectories differ. Persian demand grew faster than in any other edition except Türkiye, whose edition was blocked until 2020 (+76.7% in 2019–2023 versus a peer median of +2.7%; first among 19 excluding Türkiye), then fell 24.0% in 2023–2025 (peers −13.8%). Active editors rose 26.4% in 2019–2021 and fell 27.2% in 2021–2025 (peers +7.8% and −16.9%), and fell 20.6% in 2025 alone (peers −9.8%; 18th of 20). Articles created by registered users peaked in 2022 (182% of the 2019 level against 105% for peers), fell by 53.4% in 2023 (peers −7.2%, the largest fall of 20) and were 16% below 2019 in 2025 (peers +7.6%). Bot-created articles, 45% of new articles in 2017, have been negligible since 2022. Originality. The study documents, with open metrics and a 20-language benchmark, that Persian Wikipedia's content creation and editor base weakened while demand rose, and separates the typical cross-sectional position of the edition from its atypical recent dynamics.