The mwilson effect

I got started with Linux in 2000. (I realize that I spend a lot of time writing about things that happened a long time ago. I do also live in the present and will try to acknowledge that in my writing.)

My first distribution was debian potato (2.2) I've always been happy that my intro to Linux was codenamed potato. Installing it was beyond me at the time, but a good friend was an enthusiast. He invited me over to his place, helped me install it on an old PC and got me set up on the #debian IRC channel on irssi. It was 2000. We were on dialup. We didn't have time to install anything fancy like a graphical desktop. That was a "kick it off before you go to bed and maybe it'll be there tomorrow if you don't get disconnected overnight" sort of operation.

I spent a lot of time on that IRC channel. Years. I talked to a lot of people. I asked a lot of questions. As time went on, I answered a lot of questions. But there's only one nick I remember from all that time: mwilson.

Now, I don't know anything about mwilson except that they were on #debian even more than I was. They may be a delightful person to run into at the local coffee shop. But one thing became clear to me very quickly...

You DID NOT want mwilson to notice your question.

If mwilson responded to your question, you were getting an answer. You just probably weren't getting an answer to your question. You were going to learn why you shouldn't have asked it. Or why you shouldn't have asked it the way you asked it. Or what else you should have done before you asked it. Or why you shouldn't even be trying to do the thing that led you to ask the question in the first place.

Now, mwilson wasn't the first person to make you feel small when they answered your question. They weren't the last. It's a well-known phenomenon. But at that time, in that space, mwilson was the Michael Jordan of withering responses.

For the younger set, Michael Jordan was the Lebron James of basketball players who are older than Lebron James.

I was never actually on the receiving end of an mwilson screed, but I saw enough of them that they affected the way I interacted with #debian. I stopped seeing it as a place where help was given. Instead, it became a place where help was earned. After mwilson, I don't think I ever just typed up a question and hit Enter. I proofread it. I thought about whether I'd really done all the research I could have. I deleted it and tried to do more research. I added the research I'd done. I explained why I was doing what I was doing and qualified it with a bunch of "this might be wrong" and similar statements.

In short, I groveled.

I can understand mwilson's motivation. I got pretty good at getting USB working on debian (not compiled into the kernel back then!), so I helped a lot of people. I spent a lot of time answering the same questions over and over. I spent a lot of time answering questions whose answers were published elsewhere. I spent a lot of time reanswering questions from people who didn't do the thing I suggested the first time I answered their question. So I could get why someone would adopt a world-weary RTFM posture on #debian.

But those answers weren't always easy to find. If you did find them, they weren't easy to follow. And even if you could follow them, they involved things like RECOMPILING YOUR KERNEL. The community at the time didn't sympathize with the fact that this was a terrifying thing to anyone who had enough know-how to end up on a Linux IRC channel but not enough to get USB working. I tried to show some empathy, but I never expected to receive any.

I still don't. It takes me forever to write a blog post. Or an email to someone. Or a reply to an email someone sent me. Or a text. I've been thinking about this for a while and I've realized that one of the reasons is that I'm suffering from the mwilson effect. I expect the reader to have their knives out. So I proofread everything at least 3 times. I worry about how it might be misinterpreted. Did I get the tone right? Did I actually say what I meant to say? Is it obvious that I said what I meant to say?

But a more insidious behavior has crept into my writing. I anticipate the attacks that are going to come. Maybe you wouldn't have done what I did. Maybe your experience was different. Maybe you felt otherwise. Whatever the reason, I start crafting your withering reply in my head. Then I try to beat you to the punch.

I'll say things like "You might be thinking..." or "Before you tell me..." or "I know this isn't how most people would do it..." If I say it first, then someone else is less likely to attack me, right? I'm so worried about being called out that I spend more energy responding to hypothetical reactions than I do writing the actual thing I wanted to say.

Now that I see the behavior, it's time to ditch it. Maybe I'll write more quickly, or at least with less mental fatigue. I think my writing will improve.

But more importantly, I see now that I've been being disrespectful to you. By assuming you're going to attack me, I don't give you the opportunity to do otherwise. Maybe you agree. Maybe you disagree but would have discussed the disagreement respectfully. Too late. I'm so worried that you'll assume the worst of me that I've turned around and assumed the worst of you. That I've been blind to that this whole time doesn't make the revelation any less painful.

The most annoying thing is that in a lot of ways the mwilson method worked! I learned a lot more than I ever would have if I hadn't gotten into the habit of trying to make sure I had no other option before I asked a question. I owe a lot of my career to the skills I developed as a result. But it was scarring and now I realize I'm still carrying those scars.

Scars heal, even though they linger. I've let this one linger without healing for long enough. So, mwilson, wherever you are, thanks for making me a better debian user. I genuinely appreciate it. But now it's time to be a better writer. And a better person. Let's let that be the mwilson aftereffect.