Balatarin/Donbaleh/Sabzlink

Short History

Balatarin

Launched 2006, a community website through which users can post links to the webpages of their interest, with an emphasis on Iranian audience. Although only registered users can post links to Balatarin, registration is free. New links initially go to the "recently posted" page and once they collect enough positive votes, they are moved to the front page, which increases their chance of being viewed. The underlying idea is a mixture ofreddit, digg, newsvine, and del.icio.us. (Source: Wikipedia)

Donbaleh

Competitor to Balatarin launched in 2008. Similar to Digg, thought to be the second most popular Iranian social news site. No other information could be found (Source: Farsi Wikipedia)

Sabzlink

Launched 2010, first social news site to be utilized by the large Green Movement websites (Kaleme, SahamNews, Rahesabz). Designed as a space that provides an open environment for dialogue free from censorship (except for pornography). Users are welcome to take controversial positions in an effort to reform society through dialogue. Approximately 60,000 links have been submitted. (Source: Personal site admin interview)

How They Work

These sites are social news sites where users submit stories and they are voted on. According to Bronwen:

"Balatarin uses a non-conventional credit system which limits daily activity of new users. Each user has a credit that increases over time based on their activity and contribution in Balatarin. Credit of the user in turn determines their daily energy, the volume of allowed activity. This could prevent overly-active, inexperienced, new users from deteriorating the quality of the system. A fairly complicated quadratic equation is used to calculated the daily energy"

Donbaleh and Sabzlink seem to use traditional voting methods which move stories to the top based on the total number of positive votes.

Why It Works for Iranians

These sites are popular ways to see what is of importance or interest to other Iranians. They also provide an opportunity for discussion, debate, self-promotion, and collaboration. From a civil society point of view these sites also function as public space.

Characterization of National Web Output

External Links

• Balatarin.com (farsi)
• Donbaleh.com (farsi)
• Sabzlink.com (farsi)
• Wikipedia entry for Balatarin
• Wikipedia entry for Donbaleh (farsi)

-- CameranAshraf - 06 Jul 2011