topic Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users? in Tech Talk

Another term for User when referring to...Users?

tmekelburg1 — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 19:57:31 GMT

"There are only two industries that call their customers ‘users’: illegal drugs and software.” Edward Tufte

“There are only two industries that refer to their customers as ‘users’, one is of course IT, the other is the illegal drugs trade…” — Edward Tufte

Full disclosure, I did not fact check the accuracy of illegal drugs and software (IT) as the only two industries who call their staff \ customers 'Users'.

I am, however, trying to get rid of 'User' from our policies and standards documents. So far using staff or employees has worked out well. Then I came across the phrase 'user level passwords' in our AUP and thought staff level passwords didn't sound right.

While, I do welcome suggestions for this fix, the main point of the post is to get the Community's thoughts on improving the language used in IT/Security that may not age well as time goes on. I had heard of this quote before and didn't think much about it until one of our Counselors, who specializes in addiction, mentioned this as well. They weren't offended necessarily but it did spark up a good conversation on the matter.

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

denbesten — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 21:16:53 GMT

Perhaps "account holders" would work in policies.

The problem with trying to come up with a more precise term is that that it tends to result in exclusions for populations you did not consider, such as "contractors", "interns", "volunteers", etc. And, the more you enumerate, omissions seem increasingly intentional.

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

tmekelburg1 — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 22:32:25 GMT

That's true, Users are the larger group. Anything referenced within that group would exclude certain types of users. Maybe we need another word that's equitable to User? Idk what that would be. I'm also pretty sure it's not really a problem for most people. It weirdly sticks out to me everytime someone says it though.

We could take Account Holders and break that into Admin account holder and Basic account holder. You may be onto something there. I'll need some more time to chew on it.

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

alekos — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 00:33:04 GMT

You can use multiple different terms in place of “user” but I think “user” tends to be the most appropriate one. Consumer could have been an appropriate term if it wasn’t already taken.
I was recently writing a report and I used “team members” instead of users. The thing is, when you run into the “user level passwords” dilemma nothing seems to fit better than “user”.

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

jmikesmith — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 12:57:24 GMT

How about "workers"? Define it to include managers/executives, but not administrators. Then you have worker-level passwords and administrator-level passwords.

Or, you could have regular workers, privileged workers, and management workers or executive workers.

Mike

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

tmekelburg1 — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 14:20:32 GMT

Microsoft's Synonyms for Users: Operators, Workers, Employers, Manipulators, Handlers

Any votes for 'Manipulators'? LOL

@jmikesmith Yeah, I think whatever we decide to standardize on we'll need to first define what we mean. It's hard to find a word with the same strength and as well known as 'User'. I like 'Operator' as well. We used that in the Military when referencing anything that could be completed or conducted at the owner / user level.

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

ericgeater — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 15:28:36 GMT

Someone else said "account holder", and I concur that's a good choice. I would modify that and create a compound word: accountholder

Why the compound word? Indexing. Depending on how indexes are created and searches are parsed, when you need a granular, or pinpoint-specific result, doing searches for accountholder will yield better results than either account or holder.

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

ericgeater — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 15:30:26 GMT

How about "workers"?

If you counted my coworker at my previous employment, there may be some disagreement on the usefulness of that term.

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

Beads — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 16:17:54 GMT

Census as in company census or members comes to mind. I also say end users not the derogatory "users" as in the drug connotation. Sounds overly sensitive but that would be true of most things today.

- b/eads

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

ericgeater — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 16:59:32 GMT

whatever we decide to standardize on we'll need to first define what we mean.

I once asked this forum about a word. The definition is "a device in current use, which may be subject to near-term or EOL replacement", and the best term I could find is extant. The word itself is used by zoologists, typically to describe the status of a threatened species. There are other uses, but it seems an appropriate term for a specific stage in a device's lifecycle.

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

ericgeater — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 16:57:52 GMT

Your post reminded me of something else. I consider accountholder a good way to describe a role which may use an account. voicemailaudit or journaling are a couple of examples that represent a named account which a person probably won't interact with. The accountholder, then, is the role of the account itself.

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

tmekelburg1 — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 17:19:14 GMT

Accountholder as one word does check out and it does have the added benefit of easy indexing. Probably works out well in database field naming conventions, e.g., accountholder_firstname, accountholder_lastname, etc.

Extant is an interesting word for sure. I feel like you deserve to make up your own word for that specific of a definition.

Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

rslade — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 18:42:37 GMT

> jmikesmith (Newcomer III) posted a new reply in Tech Talk on 03-24-2021 08:57 AM

> How about "workers"? Define it to include managers/executives, but not
> administrators.

So, you're saying that those of us in IT and security don't do any work?

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Re: Another term for User when referring to...Users?

jmikesmith — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 13:56:40 GMT

@rslade wrote:
> jmikesmith (Newcomer III) posted a new reply in Tech Talk on 03-24-2021 08:57 AM

> How about "workers"? Define it to include managers/executives, but not
> administrators.

So, you're saying that those of us in IT and security don't do any work?

Administration isn't work! It's fun! 😉

Mike