Since you are asking... July 2011 is right for the join date and some time later is when I voiced any opinion related to the QM sequence and MWI (I did read through it once and browsed now and again since). No, I did not have another account before that, as a long-term freenode ##physics IRC channel moderator, I dislike being confused about user's previous identities, so I don't do it myself (hence the silly nick chosen a decade or so ago, which has lost all relevance by now). On the other hand, I don't mind people wanting a clean slate with a new nick, just not using socks to express a controversial or karma-draining opinion they are too chicken to have linked to their main account.

I also encourage you to take whatever wedrifid writes about me with a grain of salt. While I read what he writes and often upvote when I find it warranted, I quite publicly announced here about a year ago that I will not be replying to any of his comments, given how counterproductive it had been for me. (There are currently about 4 or 5 people on my LW "do-not-reply" list.) I have also warned other users once or twice, after I noticed them in a similarly futile discussion with wedrifid. I would be really surprised if this did not color his perception and attitude. It certainly would for me, were the roles reversed.

I'm also interested in this. Hopefully it's not an overt lie or something.

This is the second time you mention shminux having talked about QM for years. But I can't find any comments or posts he's made before July 2011. Does he have a dupe account or something else I don't know about?

I don't keep an exact mental record of the join dates. My guess from intuitive feel was "2 years". It's April 2013. It was July 2011 when the account joined. If anything you have prompted me to slightly increase my confidence in the calibration of my account-joining estimator.

If the subject of how long user:shminux has been complaining about the QM sequence ever becomes relevant again I'll be sure to use Wei Dai's script, search the text and provide a link to the exact first mention. In this case, however, the difference hardly seems significant or important.

Does he have a dupe account or something else I don't know about?

I doubt it. If so I praise him for his flawless character separation.

I'm glad you pieced out the exact reasoning behind the scenes here.

If it is as right as it is insightful (which it undeniably is), I would expect those who come across wedifid's explanation to go back and change their vote, resulting in %positive going sharply down. It doesn't appear to be happening.

You are right. In my mind I read it as "I read through everything up until this, and this quantum thing looks scary and formidable, but it's next, so I better get on with it", which could have been a total misinterpretation of what was meant. So yeah, I have probably jumped in a bit early. Not that I think it was a bad advice. Anyway, it's all a moot point now, I have promised EY not to give unsolicited advice to newcomers telling them to skip the QM sequence.