Is the term "users" the right way to refer to people that contribute to the Web's existence? #211
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Hey Manu, Thanks for the review. I think I understand where you're coming from, but I think users is the appropriate term here for a couple of reasons. First, it's commonly shared language. I won't go down the rabbit hole too far, but as an example the web platform design principles uses the framing that we follow here of users being the first amongst our constituencies: https://www.w3.org/TR/design-principles/#priority-of-constituencies Second, I think that other terms such as 'people' or 'participants' are too specific. The first example that comes to mind is that there are organizations that act as the 'end user' whether it be civil rights groups or companies. I think you get close to touching this with "corporations (but really, these are just groups of people in a formal operating structure)" Taking off my chair hat for a second: Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on that take. |
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I don't have the connotation of "user" with "spectator"; I think of using as an active term, connoting active participation or manipulation. If there is some other way we should highlight the active participation of users we can, but given the rampant use of the term across the design principles an Ethical Web Principles, I think we would need to revamp those too. (The EWP does say "The web is for all people", but it then describes that section in terms of "users" too.) I wouldn't want to say "contributors" in its place, though, because I would point out even spectators are a type of web user; passive consumption of content is one use case for the Web. It definitely should not be the only one, though. |
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+1 in favour of changing. If I may give it a shot, my suggestion towards a PR would be the following with some variations:
We believe the World Wide Web should be inclusive and respectful to everyone
The Web is designed for the good of society.
The Web must be safe for individuals and communities.
W3C leads the community in defining a World Wide Web that puts people first
We put the needs of individuals and communities first: above authors, publishers, implementers, paying W3C Members, or theoretical purity.
We intentionally involve stakeholders from end to end in building the Web: developers, content creators, and people using the web. Our work will not be dominated by any person, company, or interest group. |
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+1 to changing. User, individual, community might be appropriate terms in context. However my argument is slightly higher level. I don't think it is enough to say that the W3C cares about users because that isn't a strong enough statement. The W3C should instead invoke a high purpose and I think that is most easily found in the human rights framework. Two citations:
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Yes, strong +1 to @csarven's change suggestions, exactly along the lines of what I was thinking. Also strong +1 to @mallory's reasoning as well. Words are important, especially in a vision, and if we continue to use the detached and sterile "user" we will continue to fail to accurately convey what we care about. What @csarven has written above captures the intent of the vision with more accuracy and is more compelling than just repeating the word "user" throughout. @cwilso and @mgendler I understand that both of you might not read much that is negative into the word "user", and perhaps that's a cultural or generational thing, but it's a word that is affective-neutral at best and disdainful at worst to some of us. It is not a good word because it has multiple meanings and because some of those meanings are negative. Compare that to "person" or "community", which doesn't trigger the same sort of cringe from some of us. @mgendler wrote:
Oh sure, but my point was that those are just collections of people; they're "communities" of people as @csarven put it above. We do need to make sure we serve their interests, and calling out organizations explicitly would be better than lumping them into "user", but we should not make the mistake that corporations have the same standing as people. @mgendler wrote:
Oh yes, I'm aware... and it's not good in most of the places it is used :). I don't agree with its usage in the Design Principles document either. I cringe when reading any standards document that uses the word "user" (for the reasons above). It conveys a sense that we don't really see those individuals, those users, as equals or the pinnacle of whom we serve. "Users" don't have many rights, typically. For example, "End-User License Agreements" are often designed to strip rights away from the user and rarely establish positive rights for the "user" (beyond those required by law). Additionally, we don't call certain legislation "User Rights", we call it "Human Rights".... "We the People"... not "We the Users". Now, I'm not so naive to think that changing this word is going to fundamentally shift how W3C operates, but given the state of the Web today, every shift in a positive direction, even if it is a nudge, has net benefit. We need to humanize those we serve and "user" doesn't do it for some of us. |
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I'm also supportive of @csarven's suggested phrasing. |
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I find myself being swayed here, thank you all for the feedback. I'd like to hear from a few more people especially if anyone has a stronger case than mine for sticking with 'users' for consistency. Thanks to all for elucidating the argument. |
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We did actually review the EWP for "users" and it only remains when used intentionally, ie. when there is a "user of something in particular" in mind. w3ctag/ethical-web-principles#34 |
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I'm not against this in principle, as the motivation seems valuable to me, and denizens of the web should indeed not be seen as primarily passive. However, I'm not on board with some of the specific changes proposed.
OK. This goes beyond shifting the perspective from passive users to active participants, and also implies being inclusive and respectful to people who thus far have had nothing to do with the web, but that seems appropriate.
Seems reasonable, though that depends on how this sentence is read. In the sense of "people over profits" or similar considerations, sure, the proposed phrasing would be an improvement. But the original phrasing could also been seen as a call to the priority of constituencies, in which case, see the later point.
Not objecting to this one, but I don't find it effective either. Replacing "users" by "people using the web" uses more words, but doesn't change the perspective away from the limited perspective that can be implied by user/use/using.
Replacing individuals with a collective is not equivalent, and can be used to defend harming the individuals by claiming it is for a greater good. Many totalitarian regimes (on any side of the political spectrum) justify individual oppression and human rights violation by claiming what matters is what is good for society as a whole. I'm not saying that's the intent behind this proposed phrasing, but it opens a door I'd rather keep shut.
Same as above. If a community has some bigoted hateful beliefs that could be undermined by open access to information, people who like that status quo could argue that access to the web would not be safe for the integrity of that community. If a despotic regime might be undermined by freedom of expression, they could argue that access to the web puts their society at risk of seditious people undermining public order which makes their communities less safe…
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@frivoal wrote:
Yes, all good points made in your response and we do need to be responsive to them. I had the same concerns in the back of my mind. We certainly do not want to be inclusive of bigotry, totalitarianism, naked capitalism, pervasive surveillance, and other things that harm individuals (and society)... there are all sorts of things covered in the EWP that we are not tolerant of. So, +1 to @frivoal's fine tuning and +1 to moving away from "users" when we can be more precise about the statement (which is often the case). @frivoal if you'd suggest some alternatives, that don't use user, that might help us move through this faster as you tend to have a very good grasp on balancing the right sort of language. |
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I was inspired by Weaving the Web, Berners-Lee, 1999, Chapter 10: Web of People, p. 123, where he states:
FWIW, and of course minding the distinction between the Web and W3C. IMHO, the W3C's vision ultimately aligns with this perspective. The mere use of "society" here reflects the ambition to build our shared humanity together. So, if "society" in:
risks being stretched to support arguments for totalitarianism (an interpretation I acknowledge as possible but do not endorse ), then "users" in:
or anything similar doesn't particularly clarify the matter either. After all, which users? in what context? The Web is designed not only for the good of its current users but especially for those who are not yet users, so that when they join, they feel welcome. A more inclusive web requires acknowledging diverse societal challenges and creating space for individuals and communities, hopefully will soon join the people using the web. IMHO, the intention behind EWP's "the web is for all people" is aligned with the Web of People passage by TimBL. To me, "for all people" is synonymous with "society". If "society" is potentially problematic here, then so is "for all people". Even the very first sentence in EWP Introduction uses "society":
I can't think of a more fitting word than "society" (where applicable) for the Vision document but I'd gladly welcome any suggestion for a better term. |
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I think the changes proposed by @csarven go in the right direction, for the reasons others have mentioned. |
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+1 to @csarven's proposal |
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+1 to @csarven's proposal. I think we should avoid using the term "users" to refer to the people that use the web. "Users" feels distant; it feels academic. In contrast, everyone who works on and with, and everyone who uses the web, is a unique person with their own needs. With that in mind, we should use language that emphasizes the humanity at the core of the web wherever possible. On a related note, I just published a blog post in which I advocate more broadly for technologists to use "human experience" to refer to the experience people have with technology, instead of "user experience." I plan to use "human experience" in my own work. |
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+1 to @csarven's approach. In the Vision for the Web:
I wonder if we might change "users" to people-first language and include the environment which people rely on. For example:
And in the Vision for the W3C:
I would recommend that "users" there adjust to people-first language, much like we do in the disability community. Using "users" we ascribe a utility. I realize that "people who use the Web" may not seem different. It does assert the agency that people have. I also think we are at a point in time where it is vital that the W3C emphasize the home that we all share in our vision and mission statements. I'm thinking something like the following might accurately express the spirit:
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with merged change, chair+editors think we should close this. |
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I disagree with the merged changes, and thus with closing this issue. In particular, I find the change from "good of its users" to "good of society" to be problematic for the reasons @frivoal cited above:
Regarding @msporny's point that "the very first sentence in EWP Introduction uses 'society'", yes, it's true. But it uses it in the phrase "an equitable, informed, and interconnected society", which is not subject to the type of problematic interpretation that "the good of society" is. This isn't even a historical problem, we're seeing "the good of society" currently and increasingly used to justify all kinds of Internet censorship and cyberstalking programs, etc. I would also prefer if we could find more direct language: "those who use it" anchors on a completely amorphous pronoun that's not even definitively human, and relies on a subordinate clause consisting of two more amorphous pronouns and a verb to define its antecedent. It ends up feeling more distant, imho, from the people it's meant to refer to than even "users" does. As @jenstrickland says, let's put the focus on people. @csarven suggested "everyone" here, let's use it:
@jenstrickland suggested "people" here, let's use it:
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+1 to @fantasai's (and @frivoal's) concerns, they resonate with me as well. I was a bit dismayed that the PR didn't go as far as I wanted it to (to make the focus on individual people and to remove dehumanizing language that can be interpreted as individuals purely as consumers/users). That said, I took any change in a positive direction as a win (so, thank you for that), but given that others are still not happy with the language not going far enough, +1 to keep pushing to improve the language along the lines that @fantasai, @jenstrickland, and @csarven have suggested. |
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Thanks everyone for the depth of feedback here. I'm going to ask whether or not @fantasai and @msporny (and perhaps some of the other tagged/participating folks) would consider this a blocker to moving forward? I ask for two reasons: 1) I do think the most recent changes were made with a bit of compromise in mind, trying to find the happy medium between different opinions. I want to be clear, I don't think this is good enough to say it's closed forever, but I do think we've reached a pretty solid point for this version of the Vision, and I would like to propose deferring this to Vision2 if no-one considers this a blocker. |
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If I am the only person standing in the way, I will yield to the group and say that this is not a blocker for me. I care more about the Vision being updated and published than the confusion created by using the word "user".
Ah, so that resonates with me. You're using the most generous definition of the word "user", which is what I expect most of the people suggesting that there is no issue with "user" to be doing. Yes, we are not prioritizing publishers and developers above people that engage with the web to go about their daily business and we don't want to lose that when we update the language. As a compromise (which, again, I'd rather not compromise unless I'm the only person that finds issue with the updated language), perhaps we should explain what we mean by "user" when we use it in this document? We're not talking about publishers, we're not talking about developers, we are talking about the majority of the individuals on the planet that get utility out of the Web as they go about their daily lives. |
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I feel deeply uncomfortable with "users."
I am moved to establish a vision that prioritizes humanity over individual gain. Tim Berners-Lee's original vision of a free web is fading every day as everything becomes privatized and human rights are taken away. It's been a dangerous week in the US as we join other countries that, well, I think you know. I work in the public sector. Users is a term many of us moved away from, in favor of taxpayers, Veterans, community members, citizens, the public, etc. We can focus on principles of justice, as Michael Sandel spells out in his book Justice: work for the good of society as a whole, protect the freedom to pursue interests, and cultivate virtue amongst society. Society can be a loaded word, as noted by @fantasai. The word "users" reminds me of the film, Blade, where users are essentially bags to feed the vampires. I used to be hyperbolic, yet data now supports that. Can we dedicate the vision to commit to TBL's original inspiration? |
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Maybe "people who use the web for (gosh, a lot of things), as opposed to businesses". So messy. |
I am feeling, given that I've reduced quite a bit the use of the term "user", particularly from prominent places, that removing that term everywhere is, in fact, what is being argued for. My apologies if my choice of word seems overbearing; that is what the feedback here was evoking in me.
I was not dismissing anyone's concerns, nor saying their concerns were weak. "I don't agree with your change" or "I have different perceptions" is not the same as saying "your concern is invalid."
We have had a W3C Glossary for a long time, and "user" is defined there: https://www.w3.org/2003/glossary/keyword/All/user.html?keywords=user.
Nothing is ever solved for all time here. :). I fully expect someone will come along and completely rewrite this document. @jenstrickland said:
...and those terms do not necessarily carry the same implications for everyone. Each of our lived experiences will leave us with biased perceptions, and we cannot avoid every one. (Personally, I will never be able to use the word "mosaic" in a normal usage.). (Also, please be advised that frequent reference to the current political landscape is deeply triggering to some of us. I know it's not possible to ignore or completely avoid, but please don't lean into it so hard.)
I would hope you realize that this is precisely why we started this work, and precisely why I've been working on it for four and a half years. If the wording wasn't important, we would have been done at least four years ago.
Jen, this isn't just "bike shedding" - it's that multiple individuals each trying to pick what words sound perfect according to their lived experiences will have different words, and they will sometimes give directly conflicting guidance (sometimes even from the same person. I will point out you, among others, explicitly supported Sarven's suggestion of "for the good of society" when it was suggested.). The Vision will never be perfect according to any one person; it needs to be good enough for everyone, and good enough for now. Though the point of having a Vision is absolutely to function as a guiding light for positive direction, we cannot prevent every possible misinterpretation of every phrase and still have a readable document. We do need to try to balance out perception and bias through the lens of many people's lived experiences, and try to get a readable guiding light document - that's what we've tried very hard to do, for years now. I will admit to a strong bias of not wanting to abstract everything, and end up with a document that says "Do all the good things and none of the bad things, for all life on earth" - because that is not possible, and it too suffers from perception bias. I want to be clear that your (all of you) feedback here is valuable, and it is not being judged as "weak". When you replace a word or phrase that has unintended implications to one set of people with another word or phrase, that replacement may come with baggage to a different set of people, and we're trying to navigate all of these complexities. I'm stepping back for a fresh look at this, and will respond again in a day or two. |
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Just to clarify, I work in government and see the impact of the W3C words in efforts to progress/counter the chaos during my day-to-day. I know we have people from other government types and welcome their input. I hope for something that works across all kinds of orgs, sectors, etc. I don't necessarily think we need to wipe out the word "user" everywhere, just be mindful of when we use it and any implications. "Society" is the one that makes me grab the antacids most. |
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All thread participants: please review PR#250, which has been merged. I believe this should resolve outstanding concerns. |
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My apologies for needing to say something outside of the discussion. I referred to three people as POC, and later realized I have no idea how others identify. I used an ignorant assumption and presumed anyone that didn't seem like X as POC. That was ignorant and wrong of me. I've apologized to the individuals (no one raised it with me; it nagged at me afterwards) and hope they'll forgive me. I tried to understand what was different, why we seemed to differ from others. It wasn't okay. I'm sorry to everyone here for my error and hope you'll show me grace, especially those I painted in my own failure to process my ignorance. |
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It resolves a number of concerns, but not all. While I am not enamored with the word user in the original "The Web is designed for the good of its users", I liked that it talked about the good of individuals. Replacing it with a collective, be it society or humanity, to me, makes the sentence lose nearly all of its value. It is a well meaning phrase, but one most easily subverted. Countless horrors in the history of humankind of been justified by an appeal to some collective greater good. From slavery to eugenics, genocide, colonialism, or war, there's hardly any tragedy in the long list of human atrocities that hasn't been proclaimed (and accepted, at least by some, at least for a while) as being in the name of some collective greater good. Of course, it's also possible to harm an individual while claiming it's for their own good, but individuals can speak for themselves and challenge it. Society, humanity, etc, cannot speak for itself, and so the collective good is up for interpretation. Take a simple example: any individual will agree that it's better for them to be granted the means to speak (and use the web) in their native language, or a language they understand. i18n is good for individuals. But society as a whole? I'd like to think so too, but countless throughout history have argued society as a whole would work better if we all spoke the same language, and used that to suppress minority languages and to justify cultural erasure. When the same phrase can easily be used to justify pretty much anything, from the most empowering to the most abhorrent, then I'd argue it's not a very useful phrase. Incidentally, the ethical web principle linked to "no harm to society", isn't equivalent. An appeal not to harm a collective is not the same as an appeal to help individuals, which itself, as discussed above, is also not the same as an appeal to a collective greater good. Having stated the problem as I see it, here are a handful of suggestions for alternatives:
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Strong -1 to the proposed changes applied by the editors.
This is a functionally neutral change, so it's acceptable... but it's not better, and I think it is less eloquent.
Agree entirely with @frivoal's argument against this phrasing. This is also a neutral change, and therefore does not solve the problem of "good of society" valuing the collective over the individual, which has been articulated multiple times in this thread. The original wording was "good of its users", and we are very far away from that now.
This change dilutes the point, which was a strong statement about valuing the safety of the individual using the Web in every aspect, and now is limited to security (of the system?) and "respecting privacy" (which is vague, but also limited in function). Lastly I want to caution on us leaning too hard on the idea of picking words out of the EWP. Those words have a different context in the EWP. You can't just pluck one or two out and expect it to carry the same meaning. This section of the Vision needs to be able to stand on its own without misinterpretation, because these are the principles that we will be quoting without context in our Communications. CC @koalie |
2. Changes "good of all humanity" to "good of all people" to avoid prioritizing the "good" of a collective over its individuals, which has inspired so much evil in the past and present. See w3c#211 (comment) 3. Returns "secure and respect people's privacy" to a stronger concept of safety for the users. See w3c#250 (review) 1. Returns "for all people" to "for all humanity" (revert from PR#250), since cwilso agrees the original phrasing was more eloquent, and it is no longer awkward due to repetition in w3c#2.
2. Changes "good of all humanity" to "good of all people" to avoid prioritizing the "good" of a collective over its individuals, which has inspired so much evil in the past and present. See w3c#211 (comment) 3. Returns "secure and respect people's privacy" to a stronger concept of safety for the users. See w3c#250 (review) 1. Returns "for all people" to "for all humanity" (revert from PR#250), since cwilso agrees the original phrasing was more eloquent, and it is no longer awkward due to repetition in w3c#2.
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@msporny asked for another try in #250 (comment), so I posted #252 |
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Hey @msporny sorry I was away for a week, so just catching up today on Vision questions. I am seeing a lack of consensus around #252, and believe that we're not in a place where it can be approved. I personally have a few issues with some of the changes in it, and I believe the editors have expressed a fair number of their own in the PR notes. I'll note this is currently our most argued issue (Which is good, please don't take that as a negative statement, I'm really enjoying the debate to be honest.) As chair (although I did check with the editors), I'm going to move this from Candidate to Close to Defer. The AB is planning on voting to move the Vision to Statement, and I think we've made a significant amount of progress here from the initial concern that was raised, and while I agree we should always strive for better, I do not believe that at this point that it's a blocker. I would sincerely like to thank everyone for the in-depth conversation here, and please don't take this deferral as anything other than a practical need. I imagine this will be the first issue we re-open on Vision 2.0. |
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I truly appreciate everyone's engagement on the issue and look forward to continuing the discussion during the v2.0 work. :) In the interim, this issue should be enough to counter any misunderstandings of what is meant by "user". With thanks to the Chairs, Editors, and everyone that improved the language... Let's ship this puppy! |
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Hmm, given the comment by one of the Editor's that PR attempt #252 is (paraphrasing) "unproductive and unhelpful" ... our organization plans to object to the Vision on the grounds of this issue (it will not be a formal objection, as we still want the document to proceed), but at this point, it doesn't seem like at least one of the Editor's feels that the issue is worth addressing and we want to make sure the W3C Membership understand that we don't have consensus on the language and we do expect it to be worked on in Vision 2.0. EDIT: Presuming #255 is merged, our organization no longer plans to object but rather support the publication of v1.0. We still desire to continue the discussion in v1.1, but trust that will happen in time (next 3-6 months). |
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Hey Manu, I just want to assure you, as the chair, that the opinion of the editor here (while taken into account) will not be a blocker on working on this for Vision 2.0 and I expect to keep this issue open regardless of the outcome of the vote for statement. Of course, feel free to object as it's your right, but I just wanted to put that on the record from the chair's perspective. |
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Presuming #255 is merged, our organization no longer plans to (informally?) object (on this specific issue) but rather support the publication of v1.0. We still desire to continue the discussion in v1.1, but trust that will happen in time (next 3-6 months). Thanks to everyone, again, for working through this. |
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Hi all, I want to relay the input from those in the W3C Team who rely on the content of the Vision document to strengthen and support other efforts we are tasked with (to name only the most relevant: the W3C comm Team, CEO, strategy and project Lead). For context: We deemed "camera ready" (as I recently clarified to @cwilso and @fantasai) many months ago the 4 bullet points that have been wordsmith'ed through this issue and pull requests referenced herein. So we must track changes, try to keep up, and ultimately update or risk "fragmentation". I agree with this which has been written in this very thread: "those terms do not necessarily carry the same implications for everyone". I will also add that in the pursuit of avoiding speculative connotations, we risk not only diluting strong and clear statements, but also introducing unfortunate imprecision. This is the case with the change from "The Web is designed for the good of its users." to "The Web is designed for the good of all people." This form simply shifts the focus from those who ARE concerned (whether they are spectators, consumers, actors, etc.) to those who MIGHT be concerned, and the former is more appropriate for W3C to be deliberately concerned about. The current form is simply weaker. Not a lot weaker, but still weaker. The other change also shifts the focus to be more generic, but is less of a regression. It is my assessment that the W3C Team can make this updated wording work. But I wanted to be on record that we preferred the earlier version. I am very grateful that the term "humanity" was preserved 🙏 |
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Hi Coralie,
I very much appreciate the context you provided. The reason it is so important to move beyond the users of the web is that each of us must remember that what we do with the web has consequences beyond the web, to the environment, myriad forms of society, and people who do not use the web. There’s a call to consider the consequences of our actions to others and our future. I’m honestly and proudly a tree hugger. 😉
Jen
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I've performed an independent review of https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/NOTE-w3c-vision-20241018/ , which is excellent. Thank you to those that put in the time to create the document. It captures what I've seen W3C doing for many years now and places those observations into a coherent narrative.
The only bit that was a bit jarring to read was that we keep referring to people as "users". Users have a number of connotations, but the most concerning one is that they are spectators... they just "consume" and that is not aligned with the Vision of the Web. It's a tool for human collaboration, which means producing AND consuming content.
We must also tread lightly, because there are other types of "users" of the Web... corporations (but really, these are just groups of people in a formal operating structure), traditional software (but again, usually operating on behalf of one or more individuals), and most recently AI that approaches and will quite possibly surpass human intelligence. Are we building the Web for an AI agent with super human intelligence? Are their needs more important than human needs? Are they just like software, ultimately acting on behalf of people.
IOW, "user" is the wrong word to use throughout the document; it evokes ambivalence and/or consumerism. If our priority of constituencies places people first, we need to humanize the language more.
Some alternate (and imperfect) choices include:
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