No, but it's the first paid one at a US educational institution I believe... and possibly the first paid one worldwide at a traditional university.

But that doesn't change the impact that the position will have. Congratulations!

Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992

Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).

*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*

On 19 March 2014 12:57, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:

Pine,

This isn't the first paid Wikipedian-in-Residence position you know :)

Russavia

On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 3:00 PM, ENWP Pine deyntestiss@hotmail.com wrote:

...

This was covered by the Associated Press and a number of other news organizations. According to these stories UC Berkeley is the first US university to hire a WIR. I've seen WIR positions advertised at other US universities but this is the first paid position. Congrats to Kevin.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/uc-berkeley-hires-first-wikipedian-in...

...

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/03/copyright/kevin-gorman-berkeleys-wikipe...

...

http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_25364220/uc-berkeley-hires-first-wik...

...

I hope we'll see more universities taking this path. (:

Pine

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On 19 March 2014 13:11, Tomasz W. Kozlowski tomasz@twkozlowski.net wrote:

Neither of these is true: Wikimedia Foundation hired a paid Wikipedian-in-Residence at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a research center within the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, back in 2012.

I described that hire in a blog post last month: http://twkozlowski.net/the-pot-and-the-kettle-the-wikimedia-way/.

Thanks for highlighting the history. It is amazing how quickly the community forgets past projects, or indeed past contributors.

Fae

Hi all -

Thanks :)

Fae: there isn't currently an on-wiki page fully summarizing what I'll be doing, partly just for the simple fact that I haven't had time to write one yet. I'm hoping to have one up in the near future, the first couple months I've spent here (and it's also only a part-time position,) have been pretty swamped between working on instructional design issues, doing direct hands-on work with students, liasing with some of our GLAM institutions, and dealing with media inquiries. I'm more or less trying to combine two things in to one: I'm working with several courses affiliated with our American Cultures program in the context of the USEP, and I'm trying to get some of Berkeley's historically significant collections released under free licenses. USEP-wise, we put a _lot_ of time in to instructional design for the classes we're working with with a specific focus on trying to avoid the problems that USEP classes often run in to, and so far (though most stuff is still in a pre-wiki stage,) it's looking like many aspects of our design and implementation are going to be successful in doing so. We'll be releasing all of our instructional design materials as well as a detailed post-mortem after the semester.

GLAM-wise - a lot of our neat stuff is already digitized, it's just sitting in silos with extremely limited access. I'll be focusing on historically significant collections related to the material in-line with what the AC program here covers ('theoretical and analytical issues related to race, culture, and ethnicity in the United States,") especially collections unique to Berkeley - unreleased media dealing with the free speech movement, etc. I won't be limited to that, though - one neat collaboration already came up by complete happenstance. The SF Chronicle sent someone out last week to cover my position, and by complete happenstance, the photographer they sent was scheduled to shoot the inside of the [[Lawson Adit]] after he finished up with me - an ENWP article I wrote about a really neat historical oddity on Berkeley's campus, a horizontal mineshaft dug by Berkeley students directly through the Hayward Fault, one of the Bay Area's two really major faultlines. It was a bit surreal to see the inside of the Adit (it's rarely opened, and even more rarely opened to the public,) since it still uses its original ca. 1918 loadbearing redwood timbering and is dug through a major fault - and also kind of hilarious to show up to see that the ENWP article I had written about it years ago was being used as a major source of reference by the journalists and Berkeley person present. UCB is preparing to install seismographic equipment in an old secondary deeper inside the mine than I went - I'll be going back when they do with a real camera, and should get some of the first interior shots of the mine with full electric lighting (since they just strung it) in decades, let alone freely licensed shots. I should be starting substantial outreach to internal GLAMs within the next couple weeks about stuff directly related to the AC program, and should have some media donations lined up in the not too distant future.

Tomasz is right that Belfer was first... but Belfer was done so under the radar that I actually had never even realized that someone had been hired for the position until I stumbled across Tomasz's blog about it, some time after the initial announcement of my position at Berkeley. I had a conversation about the matter afterwards with Berkeley's news people and with most of the journalists who have contacted me about it since the initial NewsCenter posting, and the general feeling has pretty much been that Belfer's practices were different enough from the norm of what a Wikipedian-in-Residence is that people have been comfortable running the story without a bunch of caveats to explain Belfer. There's also Arild Vågen's previous position at SLU, which is why most places are going with "first US university" rather than "first university."

Best, Kevin Gorman

On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 7:03 AM, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:

This is the only thing approaching a complete list I've seen. Kevin is on it, but the information is stale.

https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence

Update please!

-Andrew

On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 9:29 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:

...

On 19 March 2014 13:11, Tomasz W. Kozlowski tomasz@twkozlowski.net wrote:

...

Neither of these is true: Wikimedia Foundation hired a paid Wikipedian-in-Residence at the Belfer Center for Science and

International

...

Affairs, a research center within the John F. Kennedy School of

Government

...

at Harvard University, back in 2012.

I described that hire in a blog post last month: http://twkozlowski.net/the-pot-and-the-kettle-the-wikimedia-way/.

Thanks for highlighting the history. It is amazing how quickly the community forgets past projects, or indeed past contributors.

Fae

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Hi Russavia -

I'll copyedit it for clarity later, but I see absolutely no contradiction between what I wrote and what I've said since. Your last email contained a pretty substantial suggestion that doesn't seem to be backed up by anything I've written anywhere. Honestly, from your last email, I'm not entirely certain you actually *read* the statement about paid editing that I have on my talk page. As I say in it, I believe that most collaborations between cultural institutions and Wikipedia are likely to be quite fruitful, that current 'corporate' paid editing should be greeted with a grain of salt, and that most current 'corporate' paid editing is inconsistent. I've said nowhere that all WiR positions result in awesomeness, and have equally said nowhere that all 'corporate' paid editing is bad - just suggested that we approach traditional WiR collaborations with initial good faith because our missions line up quite well most of the time, and approach 'corporate' paid editing with a grain (or ten) of salt because we're much less likely to have congruent mission.

I'd love to see a full report about what happened at Belfer, and I suspect that what happened there falls in to the portion of collaborations with cultural institutions that are *not* quite fruitful. The details I've gathered of what hapened at Belfer suggest that it was significantly more ethical than Wiki-PR or most of the other 'corporate' paid editing I run in to, but certainly suggest that it fell short of what we should aspire to. I know a couple dozen current WMF employees, but so does most of this list - that doesn't really make me part of any 'in-crowd'. If you can explain how you somehow thought that the snippet of my paid editing post you quoted indicated '''in context''' that I support unethical practices on the part of WiR's, please let me know, so I can clarify the wording so no one else encounters the same confusion.

Best, Kevin Gorman

On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 8:56 PM, Russavia russavia.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:

Kevin, I am intrigued by your comments in relation to Belfer.

Whilst your paid position at Berkeley is a great opportunity, and congrats on that, I can't help but think that you haven't been exactly forthcoming with the media. Or you are in denial about numerous things.

I see at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Kevin_Gorman&oldid=59577... you present your views on paid editing, with an interesting caveat at the bottom:

"Nothing in this section is intended to apply to Wikipedian in Residence-type programs, and similar collaborations between Wikipedia and cultural and educational institutions. I think that our missions match up with cultural institutions quite well, and I think that collaborations between us and them are likely to be quite fruitful."

I, and many in the community, couldn't disagree more. If anything, the ethical standards for a paid Wikipedian-in-Residence are higher than a commercial outfit. The very reputation of the WiR program depends on it.

Unfortunately, the Belfer Wikipedian in Residence was anything but ethical, and since Odder's blog post I have done some research on this, and I am gob-smacked at what I have found. Kevin, you are part of the in-crowd of the WMF, perhaps you could ask them for their report on the Belfer position. It is required for all grants I believe. As someone who is so vocal on the ethics of paid editing (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/wikipedia-editors-locked-in-battl...) you will surely want to see the report. Perhaps it will answer why, in your words, the position, and everything surrounding it, was "so under the radar".

Cheers

Russavia

On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 11:32 PM, Kevin Gorman kgorman@gmail.com wrote:

...

Tomasz is right that Belfer was first... but Belfer was done so under the radar that I actually had never even realized that someone had been hired for the position until I stumbled across Tomasz's blog about it, some time after the initial announcement of my position at Berkeley. I had a conversation about the matter afterwards with Berkeley's news people and with most of the journalists who have contacted me about it since the initial NewsCenter posting, and the general feeling has pretty much been that Belfer's practices were different enough from the norm of what a Wikipedian-in-Residence is that people have been comfortable running the story without a bunch of caveats to explain Belfer. There's also Arild Vågen's previous position at SLU, which is why most places are going with "first US university" rather than "first university."

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