Wikipedia and me

I started editing in 2004, wrote over a hundred articles, became an administrator, then appointed to the email response team ('OTRS') and shortly afterwards the Arbitration Committee in December 2007. In these roles, I have dealt with content writing, content policy, editorial disputes, community matters, privacy and sensitive issues, and a large number of fairly nasty editors and inappropriately-behaving admins. We're here as volunteers to write a reference work, which means fair handling is important. As of 2012 I'm still writing articles.

I lean towards community approaches and a level field. I pushed for communal input in the Checkuser/Oversight appointment process, provided the first on-wiki analysis of Checkuser tool use, and a load of others. At Arbcom itself I fought hard for better process, a formal structure for proposals to be examined and voted on, and better collaboration/workflow.

As of October 2009, I stepped down from some roles. I'm still round though. In 2009-10 I served on the Foundation's 5 year strategy taskforce, in 2010 I was asked to visit and contribute at the Foundation's offices, in 2011 I was invited onto the WMF Communications Committee. In 2012 I was active in the SOPA community decision, primarily co-ordinating and reviewing our messages, posts, and information flow. I was also heavily involved in the 2011 - 2012 review of the site's legal Terms of Use and urged in 2009 and again in 2010 the creation of the 'Draft:' namespace, eventually created in 2013.

Areas of interest:

  • Writing content - I've written over a hundred articles and substantively contributed to many more. I have a wide interest; my contributions include physics and legal rulings, film plots and clinical science, technology and religion.

I also have a "real" life, and balancing the two's important. But I'm free to choose my work hours. It helps :)

I'll update this at some point. Right now the old version's just a little out of date.

Recent article activity (occasionally brought up to date)

Incomplete list

Russians (song)
July 2013   historical context added historical context on early atomic age, prompted by Sting's appearance in a film and his song Russians.
Hollingsworth v. Perry and Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
June/July 2013   major expand/update very high profile current events (and widely awaited US Supreme Court ruling) in US and UK, expand and updating legal/legislative aspects
Fermat's Last Theorem
May 2013   major expand/refactor High interest article (and also its related topics) - was poorly and confusingly covered, and missing considerable encyclopedic info
Boston Marathon bombings April 2013   updating current event  
Erection April 2013   refactor Rework article to be more science based and provide primarily a clinical/biology approach (the core knowledge of the topic is not its social nicknames!)
Death and funeral of Margaret Thatcher
April 2013   Expand/refactor Considerable missing information and context in some areas. Prompted by death of Margaret Thatcher in the news.
Kermit Gosnell April 2013   major reorganization/cleanup High profile media abortion case currently at trial - article had survived deletion but was in an awful condition and was also getting extensive attention and scrutiny from media and activist groups.
Memory Reference Code February 2013   New article Described by sources as "one of the most important aspects of the BIOS" for an Intel-based motherboard.
Declaratory judgment September 2012   Extension and refactor of intro Article came to potential attention via this post in the Internet Brands/Wikitravel/Wikimedia legal matter, noting our relevant article was very weak (both were poor, one a stub). Quick "band-aid" to give a more solid start.
List of file copying software September 2012   New article  
Pregnancy from rape August 2012   Expansion and reorganization of new + high profile topic Media uproar over 'legitimate rape' and pregnancy comments by US politician Todd Akin led to other users creating (and AFD'ing) this article. Although a clear AFD "keep", it was of inadequate quality for a now-prominent topic, aspects such as rape and pregnancy in war and statutory rape contexts were clearly missing, along with research cite data on these, and the article was also in need of cleanup and reorganizing, partly due to likely high viewing level.
File hosting service January 2012   Major update Included legal matters from the Megaupload seizure and distinguishing features from Atari v. Rapidshare AG.
Murder of Stephen Lawrence
December 2011   Major expansions and refactors Prompted by a verdict after 17 years on one of Britain's highest profile racial crimes of all time, this one case changed the social and cultural world of a country and its police force.
Fusion power December 2011
March 2011
  Major expansion and reorganization  
Higgs boson
December 2011 - Jan 2012
& July onward 2012
Higgs boson submitted for peer review as GA Expansion and reorganisation The Higgs Boson hit the news hard in December, but our article didn't explain much about this crucial area of cutting edge physics, nor the linked areas behind it. When the July 2012 discovery was announced, the article and related articles gained from considerable research and many new sections to both make explanations clearer and add new more exact technical and history information.
TRESOR December 2011   New Novel encryption module for Linux, notable as the only system known to defeat cold boot attacks.
Laws of robotics October 2011   New Actual laws studied in the real world, as opposed to the fictional one.
Exile April 2011   Major expansion and rewrite Resulting from Arab Spring media reports.
DDR4 SDRAM April 2011 DYK   New DDR4 is the newest up-and-coming memory type for desktop computers. First test samples were produced in Q1 2011 - expect to see this hitting the market in 2012 and going mainstream around 2014-2015.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems April 2011   Rewrite of proof sketch of first theorem  
Shōgun (novel) February 2011   Rewrite of plot  
Mustafa Abdul Jalil February 2011   Expansion and reorganization Ex–justice minister and Chairman of National Transition Council in Libya
Instinctive drowning response
December 2010   Drowning response: New Along with Drowning (cleaned up) a crucial article. This one article is one of those I value most. This article isn't about mere information. Wikipedia will directly over time save many lives. It's humbling.
(Earlier...)