Puddin' Man wrote:
....

One of the black wires was stripped about 1 " in the middle (where
the wire was not cut), kinked, and wire-nutted (nothing else in the
nut, just the kink). Both the strip and the wire nut serve no
purpose whatsoever that I can see.

Has anyone seen anything like this? If so, know why they did it?
....

Well, no I don't think anybody is going to "know", but the guess would
be there was at one time a splice there if, indeed the wire hasn't been cut.

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