About Me

Welcome to my user page. I began editing sporadically as an anon in 2005, registered my account on Wikipedia in February 2006, and have been active regularly since the end of June 2006. I have been an administrator since January 2007. From 2008 to 2014, I served as a member of the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee and also held checkuser and oversight rights.

My mainspace contributions have included creating some pages and updating or expanding some articles in the area of law and legal history, but my interests range far and wide and I've been known to chime in anywhere, both in mainspace and WP space. Going forward, with my arbitrator service completed, I look forward to writing and editing more articles, which after all is what I originally came to Wikipedia to do in the first place.

For some kind words that fellow editors have bestowed on me, and a few DYK's and (hopefully in the future) a GA or FA or two, please see User:Newyorkbrad/Decorations.

Some links

My keynote speech at New York Wikiconference 2009, primarily about BLP issues (July 2009) (Ogg Theora Player required. Speech starts about 8 minutes into the video. Also now available on Youtube.)

My posts about Wikipedia on The Volokh Conspiracy (May 2009)

A book review I wrote for the Signpost (July 2014)

A Signpost Q&A on my arbitration work (March 2015)

Not a pretty picture: Thoughts on the "monkey selfie" debacle (January 2016)

Wikipedia:BLP examples for discussion (Jan. 2010)

Wikipedia:Final exam for wikilawyers (Nov. 2013)

My on-wiki blog of occasional wikiessays ... and its talkpage.