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walter4096

@aral principle of least surprise: stick to social media norms. "user" is a useful term with context and its not offensive. also a user might be a bot, not a person.

2 comments
walter4096

@aral ( * ok you specifically say *people* not bot users.. but the point remains. the term is useful, it gives context. it is accurate: a user is *using* something. and so on.

Lukas Orsvärn

@walter4096 @aral I agree with this line of thought.

Calling it "people" or "users" might even be misleading. Do you actually know that there are that number of people or bots using the software? What if one person or bot created 5 accounts?

The accurate way to talk about this is the number of accounts. Perhaps number of active accounts in a certain time period.

I agree with treating people as people and that words are a powerful way to affect people’s actions. I also think it’s important to be accurate though, because otherwise you might open up yourself to warranted criticism.

@walter4096 @aral I agree with this line of thought.

Calling it "people" or "users" might even be misleading. Do you actually know that there are that number of people or bots using the software? What if one person or bot created 5 accounts?

The accurate way to talk about this is the number of accounts. Perhaps number of active accounts in a certain time period.

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