Agreeable-absurdist

Hi! I'm new here. Well, my account is. I've been around a while.

Did you know?

Wikipedia, of course, has a Did you know section. I thought it might be interesting to have my own section, featuring things I've learned on Wikipedia recently.

• The Caribbean Netherlands is a constituent part of, and not identical to, the Dutch Caribbean. This is because the Netherlands is a constituent part of, and not identical to, the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
• From 1968 to 1973, the inhabitants of the Chagos Archipelago (now the British Indian Ocean Territory) were expelled by the United Kingdom at the request of the United States to facilitate the construction of a military base. In doing so, the UK also separated the territory politically from their possession of Mauritius, so that when the latter country gained its independence, it did so without the Chagos Archipelago. In 2019, the International Court of Justice issued an opinion that the UK "has an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible"; in 2021, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea said that the UK has "no sovereignty over the Chagos Islands."
• The Colorado potato beetle, a common agricultural pest, has four larval stages. This next part I did not learn from Wikipedia, but you may be interested to know that when the beetle is in its fourth larval stage, it enjoys eating, and is roughly the same size as, peas, so that on rare occasion one may find an unfortunate specimen amidst one's frozen vegetables. According to some Internet commenters, it can in theory be eaten as "bonus protein," though I did not try this myself. I did, however, eat the rest of the peas after fishing out the beetle, and so far am none the worse for wear.

Interests

Enduring areas of interest

In no particular order, these are subjects I've taken interest in since I was quite young, and can quite easily foresee enjoying for the rest of my life.

• Surreal humor, narratives, and conceptual frameworks
• Public transportation, particularly trains
• Music from decades past, particularly that of Bob Dylan
• Pacifism and social justice
• Mathematics
• Animals of particular aesthetic appeal, especially the Internet's favorite
• Geography, particularly human geography
• Overthinking

Current areas of interest

In no particular order, these are subjects (fandoms, really) for which I've developed a passion within the last several years, and which I don't necessarily expect to be lifelong interests.

• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
• The Locked Tomb
• Homestuck (whose fandom has a particularly fraught reputation, so it's taken me a while to come to terms with the idea that I'm a member)

Disclosure

I have made many edits to Wikipedia in the past, under a number of different IP addresses and, once upon a time, with an account other than this one. For personal reasons, I prefer to create a new account rather than resume using the old one.

I recognize that there are a number of reasons someone might want to do this, and many of them may give cause for mistrust. I've read the clean start policy, and I'll address specific issues here. If you have questions or reservations that you don't feel are adequately addressed, please let me know.

• Ban or other disciplinary evasion: Neither my previous account nor, to my knowledge, any IP contribution I've made has been the subject of disciplinary action or warning. At one time (over 5 years ago), I did receive a notice on my talk page that I'd made inappropriate use of dispute moderation processes. This was due to ignorance on my part, and I haven't repeated the error.
• Escaping a poor reputation from behavior that didn't rise to the level of rules violation: Throughout my Wikipedia career, I've made an effort to contribute constructively; this account isn't being created to outrun any mistakes.
  • The only issues with my prior behavior that I can think of are two occasions on which I engaged in talk page discussions in a somewhat heated manner. For me, this does not entail loaded language or personal attacks. The main problems are overconfidence, excessive verbosity, and an inclination towards rules-lawyering. In the first case, I eventually stopped contributing to the talk page; in the second case, I realized I was overstepping my bounds and ended up participating in a discussion that led to a consensus to edit the page.
  • I believe my constructive contributions to Wikipedia far outweigh the problematic behavior described above (which did not approach the level of a rules violation and was limited to the specific talk page discussions in question). Nonetheless, I do want to acknowledge it, so that I can feel confident in saying that I have nothing to hide – and to remind myself to keep a sense of perspective if and when I decide to get involved in any other discussions I have strong feelings about.
• Sockpuppetry: All of my IP edits have, to the best of my knowledge, been unrelated to edits I made under my previous account. Editing under an IP address was not an attempt to conceal my history, but rather because I wasn't logged in but still wanted to make edits. I've edited under a number of different addresses because I was using mobile devices that sometimes change IP address; I've never deliberately changed my IP address to obfuscate my identity, nor have I ever used more than one address concurrently to create false impressions.
  • Now that I have this account, I'm officially discontinuing use of my previous account; I'll also try to abstain from making edits from devices where I'm not logged in. If I do make any such edits, they'll be minor and unrelated to the activity of this account (e.g., correcting typos, rather than getting involved in disputes).
  • My understanding is that, per Wikipedia policy, I'm not obligated to list past accounts or IP contributions; I'm almost certain that I'd be unable to make a completely exhaustive list no matter how hard I tried, given that I've probably made a number of minor contributions under various IP addresses I've since forgotten. In the unlikely case that I want to involve myself in a discussion or dispute that is related to anything I've done under another identity, I'm confident I'll remember my previous involvement. I'll then find my contributions and disclose them on the relevant talk pages before reinvolving myself; I'll also add to the list below.

Disputes and discussions that pertain to this account and also to edits I made before this account was created

None currently