GLAM-Worry
When working with a Wikipedian in Residence, organzations, institutions, lawyers, leaders will still worry. He're’s why they don’t have to:
There is tremendous upside to exposure, engagement, traffic, reach, reputation, public education, pageviews, networking, data exposure, searchability and community. But
Downside risks are small, and they are manageable.
Proof: Wikipedia itself has trillions of data items, billions of pageviews, 10’s of millions of editors, 10s of millions of images, millions of articles…and relatively few legal issues.
The Commons is a legally robust space, with explicit rules against copyright infringement and firm protections for sharing under explicit open licenses.
On Wikipedia, copyright rules are extremely strict, and less permissive than even fair use allows.
There have been over 160 Wikipedians In Residence at institutions as prestigious as the Smithsonian, the Met, the British Museum, the US National Archives, Museu Picasso, and the National Library of Israel.
Modern museums are no exception: MOMA had a successful Wikipedian in Residence.
Wikipedians in Residence are experts at Wikipedia, often with tens or even hundreds of thousands of contributions made over up to 15 years or more. Wikipedians know how to comply with policies around neutrality, copyright, sourcing and citations, and conflict of interest.
Wikipedia’s strong culture of norms and rules typically makes what is risky or legally unadvisable impermissible on the site anyway.
Museums can use discretion, to skip or delay covering or releasing certain subjects, artists, areas, images, etc. While the goal of a Wikipedian in Residence is to share, it is not random, wanton, destructive, uncareful work. It happens in concert with the institution.
Most modern artists want, crave, need, and seek exposure, because their career growth depends on it. Very rare are the folks who can hide and succeed at the same time. Our highly social mediums feed on visibility and context in order to achieve influence.
Wikipedians do not make value judgments on the quality of artworks; instead they cite published opinions making clear that a review or commentary is neither in Wikipedia’s voice nor their own.
Wikipedians publish facts that have already been published in well-vetted sources. They do not do their own original research, so they are not permitted to reveal something that wasn’t already ‘out there’.
Anyone might write about a museum’s artists, architecture, collections, exhibits, etc. A trained Wikipedian can do it better.
Openness can have surprising benefits. After one editathon, in which participants wrote about an artist’s work, a major American museum received a major financial donation from the artist’s estate. At another of that same museum’s editathons, writing about a subject resulted in a prized material donation related to the topic.
Donors value the engagement of everyday people, epitomized by exposure on Wikipedia. Donors want their artworks or objects displayed, described, and seen.
Wikipedians in Residence have been around for over a decade and their are no known, public examples of major harm to reputation, donor giving, public attendance, or media coverage. Risks are rare, and they are manageable.
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WikiBlueprint is an open knowledge, open access, and especially Wikipedia consultancy. Reach out at wikiblueprint.com.