Return to Question

This site claims to be “for computer enthusiasts and power users” as of 2024-02-22.

A power user can be roughly associated with a user performing system-related tasks, including tasks for many users simultaneously, doing system administration (also partially), or having elevated privileges of some form. (Of course, it might be possible to improve the definition of this term – that's not the point of the question.) In any case, the term “power user” is thus at least approximately defined in technical or administrative terms, and is thus measurable in general.

On the contrary, the term “enthusiast” refers to someone who is enthusiastic. This noun expresses how a person feels (rather than what he/she does, how he/she does this, or his/her formal roles), and is thus not well measurable (unless you're into poetry, prose, or any other kind of artistic means to express your feelings, or psychology, which this site is probably NOT about). Subjectively, though emotional stuff (say, xkcd jokes) is sometimes posted here, I consider feelings to be chatty and in general off-topic here on this site. Further, it is questionable whether the enthusiasm of a person is as persistent as his/her duties, tasks, or roles. To give an example of the volatility: in the morning, you might feel enthusiastic about writing a bash script, and in the evening, you're tired, and, colloquially, it just sucks.

In this meta question, we ask to either

• replace the term “computer enthusiasts” by a more precise term that is better measurable given a user's textual content (question, answer, comment, or chat message) or
• remove the phrase “computer enthusiasts” altogether.

Of course, though you could simply take a better measurable related concept instead, such as “computer addict” (addiction, being an illness, is defined, characterized, and studied more precisely than enthusiasm), I believe that this community is capable of doing better on formulating the scope. Or am I wrong (concerning this capability)?

This site claims to be “for computer enthusiasts and power users” as of 2024-02-22.

A power user can be roughly associated with a user performing system-related tasks, including tasks for many users simultaneously, doing system administration (also partially), or having elevated privileges of some form. (Of course, it might be possible to improve the definition of this term – that's not the point of the question.) In any case, the term “power user” is thus at least approximately defined in technical or administrative terms, and is thus measurable in general.

On the contrary, the term “enthusiast” refers to someone who is enthusiastic (“filled with enthusiasm” according to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enthusiast). This noun expresses how a person feels (rather than what he/she does, how he/she does this, or his/her formal roles), and is thus not well measurable (unless you're into poetry, prose, or any other kind of artistic means to express your feelings, or psychology, which this site is probably NOT about). Subjectively, though emotional stuff (say, xkcd jokes) is sometimes posted here, I consider feelings to be chatty and in general off-topic here on this site. Further, it is questionable whether the enthusiasm of a person is as persistent as his/her duties, tasks, or roles. To give an example of the volatility: in the morning, you might feel enthusiastic about writing a bash script, and in the evening, you're tired, and, colloquially, it just sucks.

In this meta question, we ask to either

• replace the term “computer enthusiasts” by a more precise term that is better measurable given a user's textual content (question, answer, comment, or chat message) or
• remove the phrase “computer enthusiasts” altogether.

Of course, though you could simply take a better measurable related concept instead, such as “computer addict” (addiction, being an illness, is defined, characterized, and studied more precisely than enthusiasm), I believe that this community is capable of doing better on formulating the scope. Or am I wrong (concerning this capability)?

This site claims to be “for computer enthusiasts and power users” as of 2024-02-22.

A power user can be roughly associated with a user performing system-related tasks, including tasks for many users simultaneously, doing system administration (also partially), or having elevated privileges of some form. (Of course, it might be possible to improve the definition of this term – that's not the point of the question.) In any case, the term “power user” is thus at least approximately defined in technical or administrative terms, and is thus measurable in general.

On the contrary, the term “enthusiast” refers to someone who is enthusiastic. This noun expresses how a person feels (rather than what he/she does, how he/she does this, or his/her formal roles), and is thus not well measurable (unless you're into poetry, prose, or any other kind of artistic means to express your feelings, or psychology, which this site is probably NOT about). Subjectively, though emotional stuff (say, xkcd jokes) is sometimes posted here, I consider feelings to be chatty and in general off-topic here on this site. Further, it is questionable whether the enthusiasm of a person is as persistent as his/her duties, tasks, or roles. To give an example of the volatility: in the morning, you might feel enthusiastic about writing a bash script, and in the evening, you're tired, and, colloquially, it just sucks.

In this meta question, we ask to either

• replace the term “computer enthusiasts” by a more precise term that is better measurable given a user's textual content (question, answer, comment, or chat message) or
• remove the phrase “computer enthusiasts” altogether.

Of course, though you could simply take a better measurable related concept instead, such as “computer addict” (addiction, being an illness, is defined, characterized, and studied more precisely than enthusiasm), I believe that this community is capable of doing better on formulating the scope. Or am I wrong?

This site claims to be “for computer enthusiasts and power users” as of 2024-02-22.

A power user can be roughly associated with a user performing system-related tasks, including tasks for many users simultaneously, doing system administration (also partially), or having elevated privileges of some form. (Of course, it might be possible to improve the definition of this term – that's not the point of the question.) In any case, the term “power user” is thus at least approximately defined in technical or administrative terms, and is thus measurable in general.

On the contrary, the term “enthusiast” refers to someone who is enthusiastic. This noun expresses how a person feels (rather than what he/she does, how he/she does this, or his/her formal roles), and is thus not well measurable (unless you're into poetry, prose, or any other kind of artistic means to express your feelings, or psychology, which this site is probably NOT about). Subjectively, though emotional stuff (say, xkcd jokes) is sometimes posted here, I consider feelings to be chatty and in general off-topic here on this site. Further, it is questionable whether the enthusiasm of a person is as persistent as his/her duties, tasks, or roles. To give an example of the volatility: in the morning, you might feel enthusiastic about writing a bash script, and in the evening, you're tired, and, colloquially, it just sucks.

In this meta question, we ask to either

• replace the term “computer enthusiasts” by a more precise term that is better measurable given a user's textual content (question, answer, comment, or chat message) or
• remove the phrase “computer enthusiasts” altogether.

Of course, though you could simply take a better measurable related concept instead, such as “computer addict” (addiction, being an illness, is defined, characterized, and studied more precisely than enthusiasm), I believe that this community is capable of doing better on formulating the scope. Or am I wrong (concerning this capability)?