User:Stevensrmiller

Stevensrmiller

User Stevensrmiller is actually Stevens R. Miller, resident of Loudoun County, Virginia, USA, from 2000 through August, 2021. Currently a resident of College Park, Maryland.

Paid Contributions Disclosure

In anticipation of Wikimedia Foundation's plans to require disclosure of contributions to Wikimedia Projects for compensation, I, Stevens R. Miller, hereby disclose that I am a self-employed person and, as such, everything I do could be considered "for compensation," by some reckoning. I have made edits to pages dedicated to various software tools I use in my work, expecting to return to those pages as reference materials to assist me in my for-profit endeavors. I have made edits to pages I regard as amusing without providing any profit potential, but even those could be related to something I might have done, be doing, or do someday in connection with pursuing money.

I hereby assert, however, that I have never, and will never, misrepresent my personal opinion, point of view, policy preference, or any other principle I hold for money. Because, obviously, the issue is not whether someone gets paid to add material to a site: the issue is whether or not you are being given false information. The idea that, if anyone is paid to publish information, then that person is of suspicious character and their publications are of dubious authenticity, is at odds with the notion that some people are so reliable and so trustworthy that the results of their research might actually be worth paying to receive. Lumping the honest professional writers in with the fakes (who, in all probability, will not abide by this honor-system scheme of mandatory disclosure) insults the pros, and only reinforces the notion that taking payment for doing something implies less integrity than doing it for free.

It is possible to be honest and get paid at the same time. Heck, it has to be.

As of August of 2020 I am no longer self-employed. I am an employee of the state of Maryland.