Deaf News: Wikipedia project aims to increase number of deaf entries

A friend browses Wikipedia. A hearing British Sign Language (BSL) student, she’s tasked with researching well-known members of the deaf community. On the online encyclopaedia, however, she could only find 15 entries.

“I thought this was shocking,” the founder of BSL Lives, who asked to remain nameless, tells The Limping Chicken. “I know of hundreds of amazing deaf people. So I thought, ‘come on, we need to do something about this!’”

With the aim of boosting the number of pages on Wikipedia about public figures in the BSL community, BSL Lives will see entries added to the website on a weekly basis throughout 2021. The organiser explains that the project is run anonymously, with a focus on those profiled, rather than who creates them.

Happy New Year!
On @Wikipedia, there are very few pages about Deaf people, and even fewer about British Sign Language users. We need better representation. This project aims to add one new entry every week for a notable BSL user to Wikipedia in 2021. 1/2

— BSL lives (@BSL_lives) January 3, 2021

“Deaf people are under-represented on Wikipedia,” they continue, “which means the skills, gifts and talents of deaf people remain unknown and unrecognised by most of those outside the deaf community. Wikipedia is a powerful tool, but for too long, deaf people have been ignored.

“We are bringing together information to set up new profiles for BSL users in the public eye. This information, sometimes only currently available in BSL, is spread across multiple platforms, such as BSL Zone, The Limping Chicken, history books and museums and, of course, in the collective memory of the community.”

Over one month into the project, BSL Lives has already created profiles for actors Brian Duffy and Jean St Clair, as well as scientist Dr Audrey Cameron and poet Paul Scott.

They go on to add: “The end result of BSL Lives is that deaf people will gain more recognition for their achievements both from within and outside of the community. In most cases, pioneering deaf individuals are invisible on Wikipedia.

“It’s also important to make links between entries,” they say. “Think of those online journeys you’ve made, when you look up one thing, and three hours later you’ve found out all of these things you never knew before! So I am trying to link and categorise as many different entries as possible.”

Sharing a new entry every week of this year, the project would see 52 deaf people added to Wikipedia by the end of 2021 – but the organiser tells me they haven’t got a finalised list of names, and the project may continue into 2022 if they have too many suggestions for this year.

“We need to have good balance of ages, genders, sexualities and ethnicities, and from as many different fields as possible,” they say, “sportspeople, actors, campaigners, entrepreneurs, scientists, influencers, researchers, and so on. The deaf community is an amazing place!”

Week #4: we present you with some poetry to brighten up your week. Paul Scott is a talented deaf poet. You can read his entry here: https://t.co/M1B7LzjItZ #BSLLives #BritishSignLanguage #poetry #signPoetry pic.twitter.com/oy6zgj0KQ8

— BSL lives (@BSL_lives) January 26, 2021

An unfinished list isn’t the only challenge facing the project, though. Wikipedia users who don’t have a registered account, and those without “sufficient editing experience” have to use the site’s Articles for Creation process to get an entry reviewed and approved by an editor. Anyone with a “conflict of interest” is also encouraged to submit through this method, too.

It hasn’t been easy for BSL Lives, though, who have so far seen half of their written entries rejected on the first try upon review by an editor, in what the founder describes as “bias issues”.

“Most of them are white, male and – of course – hearing,” they explain. “They know nothing of the deaf community, but they are the ones who decide if someone is ‘worthy’ or ‘notable’ enough.

“Another challenge is finding the references that the editors expect. Sometimes deaf people have achieved amazing things, but there are few citable references online that can be used to back this up.

Despite the founder’s “hard going” setbacks, they explain that their draft articles can be edited again and resubmitted for review.

‘The important thing is not to give up,” they say.

More information about BSL Lives can be found on their Twitter account. Anyone interested in being a part of the project can send an email on BSLLives@mail.com and fill in an online form to suggest entries.

Photo: BSL Lives/Twitter.

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is a mildly deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He wears bilateral hearing aids and can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.