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