USERS: THREAT OR MENACE?

[ivorygates]

I'm looking for input on terminology here, because I'm running across more and more translation strings with the word "user" in them, and it's my understanding that Dreamwidth wants to avoid using that term. Now, frequently "user" can be replaced with "you", but just as frequently it can't, as in "Similar Users" or "No users are similar to [[user]]." (I could go on. And on.)

ETA: Judges' Ruling: "users" will be replaced with "accounts" throughout translation strings where "user" or "users" cannot reasonably and logically be replaced with "you".

What are we going to do in these situations? "Individual" is too cold-corporate; "People" is misleading (because sometimes the "USER" referenced in the translation string might also be a community or communities); "Persons" has the same problem as "People" (and is grammatically-hideous into the bargain).

I'm just about ready to replace "user" with "dude or dudes"....

Your thoughts?

Comments

[rainbow]

"Journal"?

[norabombay]

"dudes, or dudettes"? In the best Bill & Ted voices you can muster.

Actually the entire thing being written in the voices of Bill & Ted would be awesome.

[brownbetty]

Well, if you're looking for something less antiseptic, there's "members"?

[ame]

Personally I think "member" and "group of members" might be better terminology. :)

[niqaeli]

Member has other more pressing issues than immature readings as it implies -- well, okay, certainly one of the beauties of this services is that users *are* going to have a lot of input. But member implies a direct vote in decisions: as in, member of the Board; member of an organisation. And that's a dangerous thing to imply to people when it's not -- I don't believe, anyway -- an accurate portrayal of how their input will be taken in.

Account, perhaps? Modified appropriately where need be: a person's account, a community account?

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Two more thoughts:

"Entity" (although I'm not sure about the tone of that one)

"JoC" (Journal or Community)

[forthwritten]

I quite like accounts - you're not talking so much about people but what they've made available, so feasibly there could be users very similar to myself but who use their journals in very different ways.

[mark]

Just commenting to suggest you try to keep the terminology to something that will mesh well when we have the ability to link accounts and have sub-accounts, alt-accounts, or whatever.

I think "account" probably works fine for that situation, but I just want to toss it into the pot.

[bohemianeditor]

Just wanted to note that, based on this post and other edited text I've come acrosss, I'm changing "users" to "account holders" in strings like The gender breakdown of our account holders:. (The accounts don't have gender, the people who hold the accounts do.)