User:The Duke of Waltham
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 | This user is of Greek ancestry. |
 | This user is of German ancestry. |
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Greetings. I am Vasileios Peidis, or Basil Peidis for those of you who think of the Greek language as little more than the epitome of scientific gibberish. Although I enjoy my ducal persona and indulge in frequent bursts of concentrated pomposity, I have never cared much about keeping my identity secret. This is partly because editing Wikipedia is far less popular in Greece than in the great countries of the developed world and therefore I am unlikely ever to discover a Wikipedian in the wild—indeed, I haven't met a single one so far, even though users of the encyclopaedia are many. It's also less likely here to find those sorry lunatics who would take an on-line dispute and start stalking or threatening the object of their misdirected hatred. (Greece may be up to its neck in debt, but this level of insanity is mostly limited to the workings of the government—and I wrote this long before the country became world-famous for its financial troubles.) Finally, I like to keep myself honest, and to ensure that my actions and words will be true to who I am. Anonymity is nice, but it is never completely assured, and I do not wish to do something for which I'll be ashamed if it is traced back to me.
I live on the edge of Katerini, a fairly average town in northern Greece with a rather popular beach (especially for Eastern Europeans) and neighbouring mountains more famous than itself. I am male, Caucasian and in my mid-twenties, which means I fall squarely in the main demographic of Wikipedia editors, though my activity levels peaked early (in 2008) and have since lingered mostly in the double digits per month. As the sole concession to privacy (and to not having people mistake the above for a dating profile), I have decided not to upload a photograph of myself, so if you want a pictorial representation of me that is more human-looking than my fictional coat of arms, just picture a dashing young man, dark-haired and clean-shaven, with piercing brown eyes and an athletic build I cannot help you much. Imagine a stranger, though, a man in tails and a top hat, emerging through the shadows to speak absurd things and use his lion-headed walking stick to strike people in the shins, before disappearing again. The mysterious figure will be completely out of place on the warm, sunny, distinctly un-foggy shores of the Thermaic Gulf, of course—not to mention sweating profusely—but you will choose to ignore that, won't you?
