@aral Consider "souls" instead.

@aral I like that quite a lot

@aral: whaddya smoke man?

@aral small caveat is that some accounts are for organizations. So I tend to use the word accounts when trying to be precise but generally speaking the word people is best 👌🏽

@aral I'm down -- "users" has icked me out ever since the 90s when I first encountered the usage, with ISPs talking about their customers

@aral
I love this idea!

@aral I love this idea!

@spellacy We don't necessarily know that a person is running an account. There are many bots on masto as well as twitter. Though, most of the bots have their own instance like botsin.space

@aral if I’m one person, but have a separate bot account on an instance, am I now two people? 😉

@aral honestly, this thinking is bullshit.

use --> user ... drive --> driver ... etc

you're looking for problem where is no problem.

@aral I'm not sure I agree. Why not just use the known terms which are fine. It's the commercialisation of 'users' and the 'audience' which is the problem. It's not the terms themselves. It's a losing battle avoiding more and more words as they get coopted. Let's fight for community, not corporate, ownership of language.

@aral This is a design principle at Quora and I love it.

@aral citizens rather than clients

@aral Nope. one people can have more than one user account.

@aral yes! In my day job (IAM Architect) I’m trying to avoid the word ‘User’ as much as possible and instead use either ‘Person’ or ‘Account’ depending on the context. Too often ‘user’ occupies the fuzzy space between those 2 fundamentally different things and regularly leads to miscommunication.

@aral So. Then why not make it a fun demonym? I get it. "People" is humanizing the end-user; the contributor. But this is a community and self-identifying as a community is just as important as how you self-identify.

"There are 42 Mastors online." We are the 'masters' of our community.

@aral appreciate this thread. How about “participants” ?

@aral I agree. Humanize as much as possible.

@aral am game, new to the site just saying hi to all the people #peopleNotUsers though I do like those Tron movies with the line "I fight for the users" #tronlegecy

@aral love this idea!

@aral : for the record, here’s one of your toot from April 17, 2017

https://ploum.be/files/old/Screen-Shot-2017-04-18-at-23.31.10.png ;-)

@aral Okay, on the other hand, there are bots too. So it assumes they don't exist. 😂

@aral excellent idea!

@aral I'm definitely on the embrace this new beginning as a way to be more human and just less shitty.

@aral But not all accounts correspond to actual people. Some accounts may represent companies, e.g. if Apple had an account. Or news organizations. Maybe there’s an account that aggregates information of some kind. There are all kinds of accounts that don’t fall not the “people” category.

@aral 100% facts ❤

@aral that’s a wonderful idea. Language does matter. I’ve wondered if the ways we interact with tech are teaching us to be less humane with each other. I’m a little embarrassed to admit this but, when I ask Siri for something and it gives it’s response, I say ‘Thanks Siri’. Not because I think Siri is sentient or even listening. I just want to make sure that someday I haven’t developed the habit of walking away from someone who helps me and not say ‘thank you’.

@aral whats

@aral
Some people (me included) have multiple usernames, so is a "user" a person or just an account?

@aral This is a good point, though the issue is that not every account is connected to one person (some may have multiple accounts and/or there may be one account that's run by multiple members of a plural system each as their own [usually AFAIK] person [as I am not plural, I don't fully know how that works and am not an expert; I have wondered though how voting and stuff should work, as each system member is generally a person]), or the account may be for an organization or bot.

@aral It really depends. I have 2 accounts on this instance. Does this make me 2 users, or 1 person?

@aral
"End User" is a simple term to separate support and development staff from everyone else. It's straightforward and not offensive. Switching to "people" forces a fork in conversation to separate "people" back to "support" and "not-support" which makes daily support interaction more painful than it already is.

@aral Although, do all accounts belong to individuals, or do some belong to groups or organizations? I know you said "whenever we can," but it might be difficult to tell sometimes.

@aral not all users are people

@aral like the idea

@aral I like that. I’m a health care worker and we try really hard to avoid saying “the appendix in bed 6”, and I’d say people vs users would be the same principle. But then, I’m no techie and I’m hanging out in your world @mastodon.social so I’ll play by your rules

@aral ok but

"person with mastodon"

@aral people sounds so much better than user.

@aral There's a professional technical definition of the term, to refer to people who actively use a service, and the different types of use. But I agree that it's not useful as a public facing term where technical clarity isn't needed. Like vi vs emacs in the unix/linux world, users vs people is an ancient debate in the UX world.

@aral 42 people and 10 (good) bots.

@aral This kind of thing is due to the fact that the dev of mastodon ... are dev, so they talk like dev (where a user is a user because he "use" our software).

It's a Good idea, and i will push it more, to ask volunteer and other to actually find a report on mastodon git this kind of informatics word to be corrected.

#idea #mastodon #volonteer #dev

@aral Do cats count as people?

@aral
I fully support your proposal of #PeopleNotUsers even if you would not been the original thinker 🙂

I am also a big fan of #REScoops (Renewable Energy Sources Cooperatives) where people are not just consumers but citizens taking energy production into their own hands. We can do way more ourselves than companies and vested interests want us to believe!

@aral But what about all the cat and dog accounts? 🙄

@aral Thank you! I was deeply dismayed over at the blue birdie when Musk referred to his newly acquired Social Media Site as his "product." 🙄

@aral I dig it.

@aral

They are your herd.

@aral Agreed. At work, I endeavour to change our language in the same way; e.g., “the user” => “our customer”. We have to stop othering people and erecting more artificial barriers between us.

@aral I’ve just signed up moments ago and I’ve no idea what any of this means at all but I do not feel human

@aral
(dislike of language wars) < (appreciation of valuing human dignity)
So, 👍👍

@aral true

@aral i like it

@aral I can get behind this.

Of course, bots are neither users not people. Is there a way to further distinguish personhood to address bots?

@aral I'm not sure if assuming accounts to be people is appropriate for a network like this, where organisational accounts might have multiple admins using them or one person might have multiple accounts.

@aral I wonder if attempts to distance the use of the term from “drug users” comes from a lack of compassion towards people who struggle with drug addiction, and also stigma towards people who legally use drugs recreationally.

I think the term can be used in a neutral sense, especially if you’re specifically speaking from the perspective of a designer/developer/PM/etc. We are users of a lot of things in our lives that bring utility and joy.

@aral I work in IT, that's a hard thing to unlearn

@aral

It would be even better if "instance" could be replaced as well.

@aral enter peoplename and password?

@aral

My instance has exactly one people. And is in desperate need of a better admin person.

@aral nice idea

@aral @_ohcoco_ not nearly as bad as what they call people at work ... "resources"

Last boost: totally this. Fediverse is already people-first in the way that it works (fantastic community on this and sister instances) so very much up for using appropriate language.

@aral A previous CEO of mine used to remark that only two “industries” referred to their clients/customers as “users”: drug-dealers, and the IT sector.
Like so much jargon that has escaped from technical back-rooms, it’s not fit for public consumption, and too often represents the (unconscious) tech-bro orientation of IT development (and I should know, 50 years programming).

@aral i like the humanizing touch. Does “subject” do the trick?

@aral What about robots? Are they people too?

@aral That word "instance" is .bit of an alienating barrier, too

@aral had never felt like a dumb user. until now. 😬

@aral Day #18356 on the internet.

They still don't know I'm a dog.

@aral I'm good with that.

@aral Maybe "users" is also a nod to bots and sock puppets and not just "people" on any given instance? ♥️💔

Can't quite decide if there is a there there. Or people is always better than users.

@aral "Language matters" I love that!! Words by themselves mean nothing but their effect can be enormous!! Thank Marshal McLuhan for inspiring that thought!

@aral A fine idea… and one that every person should agree with. Even the most übergeek developer is a person.

My only concern is that is is also the thinking behind why “corporations must be treated as people too” laws exist.

Shades of Monty Python and the Holy Grail “You are all different!”… followed by the solitary voice in the vast crowd meekly saying “I’m not”

@aral Not sure I really get this concern. "User" is just a tech-specific word for person. Do you think it's problematic for doctors to refer to the people they treat as "patients", or for teacher to refer to the people they teach as "students"?

@aral Yes!
Let’s do that with other spaces too:
• employees = working people
• beneficiaries = people benefiting
• unemployed = unemployed people

@aral We love the idea of #people. It helps us find suitable minions.

Er...friends. Yes. Friends

@aral it’s a good idea, I’ve always found both “users” and “consumers” dehumanising

@aral You're presuming "users" doesn't include bots. "Participants", perhaps.

I don't see what the kerfuffle is about calling users users.

@aral This is really well said.

@aral what about bots?

@aral I prefer "bone filled meat sacks".

@aral Doesn't that discriminate against the non human users here?

@aral It is interesting that the name "users" is applied to both consumers of software and consumers of illegal drugs.

@aral How about 'My one flesh' or 'fellow creatures'? It's what the Ranters would have wanted.

@aral I agree! "User" can be helpful in instructions, but we "users" of the product should see each other as people!

@aral This is a mindset I've been practicing in my UX projects and I love it. I'm a huge fan of humane design!

@aral not a bad idea at all.

@aral a single person can have multiple user IDs though, right?

@aral@mastodon.ar.al the correct term is technically "actors", but that's just ActivityPub talk :)

@aral Maybe we could explore a range of potential names. Like "citizens" or "cosmopolites" (citizens of the world). Just "people" has some unwanted connotations of its own, e.g., the fourth definition in Meriam-Webster, "people," "the mass of a community as distinguished from a special class." https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/people. Giorgio Agamben's work touches on this issue.

@aral how will I be able to live out my fantasy of existing in the Tron universe if I can’t call people user?

@aral "Users" or "Accounts" is a good neutral term. There is not a 1 to 1 correspondence between users and persons.

@aral As far back as the 80s, when I was a consultant, a customer said, "Keep calling us users and we'll start calling you pushers."

@aral I’ve been in tech since the 80’s, never been comfortable with calling people users, and try not to. I’m for #peopleNotUsers

@aral agree!

@aral. Agreed! The reduction of people to numbers is exactly the kind of de-personalisation that has led us to this time and place, globally.

@aral who cares

@aral good point

@aral I like this idea. Have been searching for way to constantly reinforce ideas that counter loss of common sense/civility I experience as an onslaught too often. Thx.