It seems the profile of N’Adom Darko-Asare, the reigning champion of Ghana’s The Spelling Bee competition has been deleted from the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
N’Adom Darko-Asare is a two-time champion of the competition. She won in 2022 and 2023.
After Miss Darko-Asare’s first win in 2022, a Ghanaian Wikipedian and co-founder of the Ghana Pidgin Wikimedian Community, Faisal created an article to immortalize the 10-year-old girl who represented Ghana in the US.
This was rejected, and varied reasons were given by another editor who nominated it for deletion.
Wikipedia profiles [also known as articles] are deleted for many reasons and this action can only be taken after a consensus within the community.
To create an article on Wikipedia, the profile is assessed per Wikipedia’s notability guidelines.
Even after creation, these profiles can be selected for deletion as happened in a recent case with Tiktok sensation, Asantewaa.
Who is N’Adom Darko-Asare?
Miss Darko-Asare is a Ghanaian student who lifted her first The Spelling Bee competition trophy in 2022 and rose to the challenge to win the 2023 edition of the competition. She represents Ghana alongside her colleagues at the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition in the US.
During an interview, the N’Adom expressed optimism, stating that “I will do my best to make Ghana proud at the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee”.
Now 11, the DPS International School pupil spelt her word in the 17th round word ‘douroucouli’ to win The Spelling Bee 2023.
Deletion on Wikipedia and matters arising
On 9 February 2023, a wiki editor tagged N’Adom Darko-Asare’s article for deletion with the reason that she is “notable only for one event” and as a minor, she needs to be protected to prevent her from being a subject”.
While her story is inspiring, as an African, the editor further explained that she is “a young woman with no strong claim to enduring permanent notability. The notability claim here is that she won a spelling bee competition, which is not grounds for permanent inclusion in an encyclopedia as it fails the ten-year test for enduring significance—and while there are a couple of genuinely reliable sources here, the article is also heavily reference bombed to a lot of primary sources that don’t support for notability at all.”
The editor cautioned with the intention to protect Darko-Asare from harm stating that “we also have an established rule that due to the potential for a Wikipedia article to cause harm to its subject (e.g. becoming a magnet for vandalism or attack editing), we have to be especially vigilant and strict about the notability of children.”
“Obviously no prejudice against recreation in the future if and when she has a stronger notability claim, but nothing here is “inherently” notable enough to warrant an encyclopedia article at all as of right now.”
Don’t Delete Alliance
A number of Wiki editors who opposed the action stated that:
“I think this young girl meets the basic threshold of notability, The Spelling Bee is one of the world’s notable events for young spellers. There can be improvements made to the article, yes, but it needs to stay,” a wiki editor, Owula Kpakpo stated.
About The Spelling Bee
The Spelling Bee-GH is a literacy programme targeted at primary school children in Ghana, with pupils aged from 7 to 13 years. It teaches them how to use the English language effectively.
Over the past fifteen years, the Scripps Spelling Bee-franchised programme has been running in Ghana. The Spelling Bee has impacted over 30,000 students throughout the regional capitals of the country.
The Spelling Bee-GH operates an inclusive policy where students with special needs are supported to participate in the programme. Young Educators Foundation, a Ghanaian NGO, holds the Ghana franchise.
