Hi all,
As you may have heard <http://blogs.archives.gov/aotus/?p=5179>, I am now a
full-time, permanent staff member at the US National Archives employed to
work on Wikipedia initiatives. This makes me, even more clearly so than
previous Wikipedians in Residence which are often temporary workers or
interns, a paid editor.
I have rewritten my user page
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic>on Wikimedia projects
where I am active to reflect my job (and position
with my chapter). I am publishing my entire job description on Wikipedia. I
have also written a somewhat lengthy
FAQ<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic/FAQ>about my personal
history, motivations, and what I will and will not be
doing as a paid editor. This statement has been approved by NARA, so it
represents their intentions as an agency as well as my personal thoughts. I
would encourage you to read it.
I realize that this is going well beyond the conflict of interest statement
we usually suggest of cultural professionals editing Wikipedia. I'm
essentially doing this for two reasons. First, out of an abundance of
caution, I would like to demonstrate a high level of transparency and
thoughtfulness, since I am a very public example of being a paid editor.
Second, I am hoping that the way I have expressed the rationale for my
participation on Wikimedia projects can be an exemplar, both for
prospective GLAM partners interested in best practices, and for the
Wikipedia community, which is probably sorely in need of positive examples
of non-advocacy paid editing right now.
To that end, I'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this approach
generally or specifically on the statements I've published. I am still
willing any necessary changes if you have a good suggestion.
Dominic