Article written by Vanessa Ayotte, Research Support Documentation Technician – Library Services, École de technologie supérieure. This event received a micro grant from Wikimedia Canada.

On March 18, 2026, our very first Wikipedia editing marathon took place at the École de technologie supérieure library as part of International Women’s Day and the 2025–2026 Art+Feminism campaign: “What would a truly feminist Internet look like?”

The marathon was preceded by two training sessions held on February 18 and 25 (Wikipedia 101 and 102). These sessions attracted about ten people, most of whom were new to editing on Wikipedia.

During the two and a half hours allocated to the activity, the nine contributors made a total of 35 edits, including the addition of 30 references. As a result, 15 articles on women in science and technology were improved thanks to this collective effort. Over the entire monitoring period (March 18–22), this represents 21 edited articles, 57 added references, and a total of 57 edits. We were thus able to achieve our initial goal of editing 20 articles as part of our activity. This allowed us to introduce about ten people to contributing to Wikipedia (16 participants in total for the training sessions + 9 at the marathon) and to raise their awareness of biases and the work involved in the online encyclopedia. The participants seemed very motivated to continue editing on their own following the event.

Although the number of registrations fell short of our expectations, using the space in front of the library’s circulation desk gave the event a lot of visibility and helped attract the attention of several curious people who really liked our initiative. This sparked great conversations and generated excitement for a future edition of the event.

Photo credit: Vanessa Ayotte