Discussion
"Drawing on [...] technological failure as a mode of queer meaning-making, I argue that Wikipedia functions as an accidental queer and asexual archive, not by affirming asexual identities, but by exposing the ideological conditions by which they are denied."
Kim, J. (2026). Glitches, Leaks, and Traces: Wikipedia’s Accidental Queer Archive. The iJournal: Student Journal of the Faculty of Information, 11(2), 23–35. https://doi.org/10.33137/ijournal.v11i2.47513
"Wikipedia's infrastructure is built through open participation and iterative revision, it inadvertently leaves behind traces: edit logs, 'Talk' page debates, reversions, and moments of rupture that record how knowledge is contested and erased."
The paper highlihts three protocols when it comes to editing Wikipedia articles:
'No Original Research', 'Reliable Sources', 'Notability'
"These protocols, though framed as apolitical safeguards, enforce an epistemology of citation that privileges normative visibility and institutional authority."
"Such bias is particularly evident in Wikipedia's treatment of queer fictional characters. Queerness that is not explicitly named by creators or validated by recognized sources is routinely excluded, regardless of its cultural resonance."
"Wikipedia's neutrality is thus not passive, but actively disciplinary. It is a mechanism through which epistemic authority is maintained under the guise of rigor."
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