Post #1978071 · Elektrine

2026-04-19 22:32 UTC

@johannab > One of my biggest lightbulb moments in systems theory class was realizing that even humans who may never directly interact within the scope of your design are very much still stakeholders Exactly, very true. It is funny.. a couple years ago and inspired by @aral tooting about it, I started practicing avoidance of the word "user". This now comes very natural to me, to the extent that so many uses of the word really poke me in the eye with how artificial, unnatural, distancing, and yes.. even inhumane they are. #CodingIsSocial #people! We "social code the social code" of #society. "User" is a #tech word, same as "Reverse proxy" or "Factory class". And its a leaky #abstraction that serves to lose all #nuance, and is best avoided. Furthermore it implies an #ownership relationship between devs and their captivated audience, that doesn't, shouldn't exist. I'm behind schedule on a #ParadoxOfEmergence blogpost, may address this.. https://discuss.coding.social/t/sx-sustainable-ecosystem-evolution-see/836 Ditch use of #user! ✊

Replies (2)

@khinsen@scholar.social 2026-04-20 11:30

@smallcircles I have made various attempts in the past to explain to FLOSS communities that they need to have at least their users implied in their governance, and ideally even more distant stakeholders. With little success. The typical reaction is one of - Users get our work for free, they have no right to complain. - Users can join our community, e.g. by contributing to documentation, and then they have a say as well. @johannab

Open ##1978072
@arclight@oldbytes.space 2026-04-20 12:01

@smallcircles @johannab @aral I was writing a section on software risk for a proposed book and identified stakeholders - institutions originating/funding the system, those building it, those who directly use it, and those affected by it but don't directly use it and maybe don't even know it exists. Each of those groups except the last has a clear common name except the last. The best I could come up with was "victims".

Open ##1991405