Informatics Educational Institutions & Programs

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. I served as a member of the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee from 2008-2014, 2017-2018, and 2020-2021. As an arbitrator, I also held checkuser and oversight rights, which I used infrequently, and surrendered when my terms expired.

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. Other special interests include Nero Wolfe and Sherlock Holmes.

There is a mainspace BLP about me, which I did not solicit or draft, at Ira Brad Matetsky. An ensuing AfD discussion reached no consensus as to whether I'm notable or not.

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.

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.