LGBT by country). There are ninety-nine subcategories associated with the Catégorie LGBT par pays of which eighty-six are about specific countries. The Catégorie LGBT au Canada is divided into subcategories, which includes, as a subcategory, the Catégorie LGBT au Québec.
The previous table (Table 2) is a breakdown of LGBTQ+ content as of October 24, 2020, in the WikipédiaFR based off of country or region using the Wikimedia Foundation Labs’ PetScan Tool3 that provides the number of articles associated to a category as well as the number of articles associated to a category’s subcategories. The depth of analysis goes as deep as the eleventh subcategory. After the eleventh subcategory, the number of results ceased to increase.
This data indicate that there is possible underrepresentation of Francophone countries and an overrepresentation of the United States in LGBTQ+ country-specific information in the WikipédiaFR. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, however, the content of Wikipedia reflects the interests of its contributors; perhaps there is more interest in creating Francophone LGBTQ+ content related to France and the United States. Librarians and other organizers can help build interest in creating Wikipedia content about underrepresented topics by hosting events and other activities to train and onboard new editors; in the next section, the author will discuss his role in hosting such an event.
Where It All Started
My passion for this project started in August 2017 in Montréal, the Francophone province of Québec’s largest, and Canada’s second largest, city. Montréal celebrated its 375th anniversary, Canada celebrated its 150th, Wikimania and the WikiConference North America were en ville, and it was the month of the world’s largest Francophone LGBTQ+ Pride celebration, Fierté Montréal (Tourisme Montréal, 2019). During a Wikipédia aime les bibliohtèques event, in a moment of introspection, I wondered if my intersecting identities—a gay, cisgender, néo-Québécois, originally from Michigan, and born of a Korean mother who was adopted by my white American grandparents—were represented in Francophone Wikipedia (WikiédiaFR).
