User:Metalicat

What I do

I research and write articles on professional boxing in Britain, roughly 1880–1940. Most of my work starts in the British Newspaper Archive or at The National Archives, tracing careers, legal proceedings and institutional histories through contemporary reporting, census returns and civil registers. I supplement this with modern scholarship where it exists, but for many of the people I write about, the newspaper record is the only detailed source.

My main interests are the National Sporting Club, its officials and fighters; the early history of the Lonsdale Belt; soldier boxers of the First World War; and the small-hall and East End boxing scene in London before 1920. I have a separate interest in how digital platforms shape information distribution, which led me to write on algorithmic amplification and online regulation.

Articles

Article	Status	Notes
Pat O'Keeffe		British middleweight champion and Lonsdale Belt holder. Built from a stub using BNA, BoxRec, census records, IWM oral history, The Age (Trove) and Harding (2016). Career, military service with the 1st Surrey Rifles, post-boxing life in the licensed trade, and death.
Arthur Frederick Bettinson	Under development	Co-founder and manager of the National Sporting Club. Restructured from institutional history to biography following GA review. Sources include Deghy (1956), Harding (2016), Bettinson's own publications (1902, 1922), and extensive BNA coverage of legal proceedings.
National Sporting Club	Under development	Substantially expanded. Foundation, governance, legal status, championship boxing, non-boxing activities, and dissolution. Separated the original Covent Garden club from the later successor organisation.
Lonsdale Belt	Occasional contributions	Weight divisions, early belt holders, pension disputes.
Algorithmic amplification	New article	How recommendation algorithms on digital platforms increase content visibility. Covers mechanisms, effects on information ecosystems, political content, mental health, and regulation across the EU, UK, and US. Sourced from peer-reviewed academic literature and primary legislative material.

How I work

Most of my sourcing comes from the British Newspaper Archive, cross-referenced against Trove, Newspapers.com, FreeBMD, census returns and Ancestry where genealogical claims are involved. For career records I use BoxRec, verified against contemporary reporting in the BNA. Beyond the newspapers, I draw on a small (but growing) shelf of secondary sources, principally:

• Deghy, Noble and Manly (1956) — the only dedicated history of the NSC
• Harding, Lonsdale's Belt (2016) — essential for championship and belt history
• Bettinson & Tristram, The National Sporting Club: Past and Present (1902)
• Bettinson & Bennison, The Home of Boxing (1922)
• Corri, Refereeing 1,000 Fights (1915)

I'm happy to share sources or discuss editorial decisions on any article I've worked on. If you're working on a British boxing biography and need a BNA check, leave a note on my talk page.

Reviews

I participate in the GA nomination process as both nominator and reviewer, and occasionally contribute to peer reviews. Recent reviews include work on Jimmy White, Israel Keyes and Hurricane Joaquin.