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:Dominicon 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 FAQhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic/FAQabout 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
Having had numerous chances to interact with you in person back when you were still in Boston, and having seen your track record on WMF projects for a while, I never personally had any concerns about your becoming a "paid editor". You are not the first person to serve in a roll as a compensated liaison (the WMF has several). You won't be the last one either. Done right, it's not a big deal.
That being said, I would absolutely advocate that you create a second account for use when you are on the clock and only when you are on the clock, and cease making edits from your main account while on the clock. Just because I, and most of the community, trust you a great deal does not mean that you should be allowed to do what I consider to be bad practice. Ultimately you are serving as a template for what I hope will be a type of position that becomes increasingly more common, and like the Wikimedia Foundation liaisons, you should go out of your way to separate on the job and off the job edits and comments. This is not just in the interest of transparency but also in the interest of providing a good model for other people in similar positions to follow.
TLDR: I trust you personally, but in the role that you are serving in you really should have a second account for your paid actions.
Sven On Oct 30, 2013 5:35 PM, "Dominic McDevitt-Parks" mcdevitd@gmail.com wrote:
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:Dominicon 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 FAQhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic/FAQabout 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
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
Sven,
I don't think your advice is as clear cut as you make it out to be. There is no clear line in which a secondary account is necessary or not, especially when Dominic has been working for various GLAMs under a long time. All of his edits should be under scrutiny, not just the ones that he does while at work (just as all of my own edits should be under scrutiny when I support various GLAMs). Separating accounts suggests that there is a clear line between personal and GLAM related activities, but with the community consistently active 24 hours a day, we know that that is not the case. Also, because GLAMs are repositories of knowledge, not advocacy groups, often the contributor's other interests will revolve around that knowledge pool anyway (making the editing line even more grey).
Also, like other GLAM professionals and unlike Wikimedia foundation staff, his edits to content do not represent the organization he is working for. We have been treating GLAM professionals as subject matter experts, and separate accounts would suggest that they are something more then that (some sort of official presence in the community). As the community has long established, paid actions by a subject matter expert are radically different then paid actions by a PR representative of a company, etc or an official staff member at the Foundation.
Alex Stinson User:Sadads
On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Sven Manguard svenmanguard@gmail.comwrote:
Having had numerous chances to interact with you in person back when you were still in Boston, and having seen your track record on WMF projects for a while, I never personally had any concerns about your becoming a "paid editor". You are not the first person to serve in a roll as a compensated liaison (the WMF has several). You won't be the last one either. Done right, it's not a big deal.
That being said, I would absolutely advocate that you create a second account for use when you are on the clock and only when you are on the clock, and cease making edits from your main account while on the clock. Just because I, and most of the community, trust you a great deal does not mean that you should be allowed to do what I consider to be bad practice. Ultimately you are serving as a template for what I hope will be a type of position that becomes increasingly more common, and like the Wikimedia Foundation liaisons, you should go out of your way to separate on the job and off the job edits and comments. This is not just in the interest of transparency but also in the interest of providing a good model for other people in similar positions to follow.
TLDR: I trust you personally, but in the role that you are serving in you really should have a second account for your paid actions.
Sven On Oct 30, 2013 5:35 PM, "Dominic McDevitt-Parks" mcdevitd@gmail.com wrote:
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 pagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominicon 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 FAQhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic/FAQabout 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
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
Thanks, I appreciate your trust. :-) For others' convenience, you're referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic/FAQ#Why_do_you_edit_under_your_pe... specifically.
I'm going to push back a little, because, like Alex, I'm skeptical of what a separate account would really accomplish. Certainly, I still have a conflict of interest when it comes to my employer whether or not I am on the clock. Wikimedia Foundation employees have separate accounts not for conflict of interest reasons, but because they are editing the site run by the same organization that employs them, and so there is a need within the community to provide clarity as to whether their actions are official actions of the WMF or not. However, the National Archives, like every editor and any other third-party organization or individual, has no special authority within the Wikimedia community, so there is no such confusion when I make an edit about whether it is any more official than any other editor.
We've never required, or even suggested, separate "on-the-clock" accounts for anyone outside of the WMF. To me, my personal and professional contributions represent a single body of work, and I am open on my user page about my employment, so I don't think this is a transparency issue.
Dominic
On 30 October 2013 17:52, Sven Manguard <svenmanguard@gmail.com<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'svenmanguard@gmail.com');>
wrote:
Having had numerous chances to interact with you in person back when you were still in Boston, and having seen your track record on WMF projects for a while, I never personally had any concerns about your becoming a "paid editor". You are not the first person to serve in a roll as a compensated liaison (the WMF has several). You won't be the last one either. Done right, it's not a big deal.
That being said, I would absolutely advocate that you create a second account for use when you are on the clock and only when you are on the clock, and cease making edits from your main account while on the clock. Just because I, and most of the community, trust you a great deal does not mean that you should be allowed to do what I consider to be bad practice. Ultimately you are serving as a template for what I hope will be a type of position that becomes increasingly more common, and like the Wikimedia Foundation liaisons, you should go out of your way to separate on the job and off the job edits and comments. This is not just in the interest of transparency but also in the interest of providing a good model for other people in similar positions to follow.
TLDR: I trust you personally, but in the role that you are serving in you really should have a second account for your paid actions.
Sven On Oct 30, 2013 5:35 PM, "Dominic McDevitt-Parks" <mcdevitd@gmail.com<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'mcdevitd@gmail.com');>> wrote:
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 pagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominicon 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 FAQhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic/FAQabout 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
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org');> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org');> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
"Paid editor". What an excellent example of why being a paid editor doesn't necessarily make one the personification of all things evil, as some argue :>
Keep up the good job, Dominic.
Great job Dominic, I'll use it as a template and as an example for further Wikipedians in Residence on my area. I do also agree with the one account principle. I've always only used @kippelboy despite i've collaborated with several institutions, so people can track my whole history.
Best luck! Looking forward to help in some of your NARA projects (specially on translations or similar)
2013/10/31 Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl
"Paid editor". What an excellent example of why being a paid editor doesn't necessarily make one the personification of all things evil, as some argue :>
Keep up the good job, Dominic.
-- Piotr Konieczny, PhDhttp://hanyang.academia.edu/PiotrKoniecznyhttp://scholar.google.com/citation...
On 10/31/2013 6:35 AM, Dominic McDevitt-Parks wrote:
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 pagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominicon 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 FAQhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic/FAQabout 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
GLAM-US mailing listGLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
Myself, the only real reason I use DGG (NYPL) when at NYPL Performing Arts as their WPedian in Residence is because I consider their computer system too insecure to be willing to use my admin password when I am there, no matter what it is I am doing. (And it provides a little publicity for my position there.) As they don't pay me, I do not concern myself with time clocks.
On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:53 AM, Àlex Hinojo alexhinojo@gmail.com wrote:
Great job Dominic, I'll use it as a template and as an example for further Wikipedians in Residence on my area. I do also agree with the one account principle. I've always only used @kippelboy despite i've collaborated with several institutions, so people can track my whole history.
Best luck! Looking forward to help in some of your NARA projects (specially on translations or similar)
2013/10/31 Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl
"Paid editor". What an excellent example of why being a paid editor doesn't necessarily make one the personification of all things evil, as some argue :>
Keep up the good job, Dominic.
-- Piotr Konieczny, PhDhttp://hanyang.academia.edu/PiotrKoniecznyhttp://scholar.google.com/citation...
On 10/31/2013 6:35 AM, Dominic McDevitt-Parks wrote:
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 pagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominicon 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 FAQhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic/FAQabout 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
GLAM-US mailing listGLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us