“computer enthusiasts” is not a technical or administrative term and should be rewritten or dropped [closed]

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 (“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)?

Answer 1

There is no problem with the description

The description of the site's intended audience is, well, descriptive. It is non-exclusive and non-binding. It suits us well.

Overly-literal interpretations of site titles† will lead you astray

In the context of the site, 'super user' (and 'power user') does not mean only a user with elevated privileges. It's a neat little pun based on that definition. Similarly, enthusiast doesn't mean someone who says, "gee, I'm so enthusiastic to be working with a computer".

They are terms which, as generically as I can phrase this, refer to people with an interest in solving a goal using a computer.

This site's scope is fine and its terms are broadly understood

In light of the above, this is a site for asking questions about how to achieve things using programs written for computers, by and large and as again as generically as possible. You may feel the title and audience description are lacking technical precision, but since we don't need it to be in technical or administrative terms, that's okay.

What would updating the description practically change?

Perhaps the description being non-technical and non-administrative is not okay for you. I have considered the suggestion from your perspective. I see at least two possible outcomes:

• everyone immediately respects the new description and the site audience's is gatekept -- this would massively reduce the scope of the site; from one of the "big three" to something very narrow

• no-one reads the updated intended audience description, or they ignore it in terms of what is actually on-topic; I don't see this being a useful change

I invite you to try to understand that most don't have an issue with the site's audience description.

We can leave The Truth for philosophers :)

†(so maybe don't ask the stats folks why they are annoyed, and which organisation is vetting them)

Answer 2

The question is a request for strictness. Fine, I'm going to play along.

The phrase "for computer enthusiasts and power users" is not equivalent to "only for computer enthusiasts and power users".

The page containing the phrase is entitled "What topics can I ask about here?". If it was entitled "Whom is this site for?" then I would expect it to answer this exact question comprehensively, so from the lack of descriptions other than "computer enthusiasts" and "power users" I would conclude the site is only for them.

Instead the page is about topics, i.e. about questions, not about users. The sentence "Super User is for computer enthusiasts and power users" is just a preamble and I see no reason to assume there is (or ever supposed to be) an implicit "only" there.

You pointed out that "power user" is reasonably well defined, reasonably well measurable; and "computer enthusiast" (allegedly) is not. What difference does it make? Nobody verifies if any user is a "computer enthusiast" or a "power user"; we have no means to do so even for the well-defined term.

It's not a coincidence "What topics can I ask about here?" exists as a help page and "Whom is this site for?" does not. The important thing is being on-topic (for questions) and answering the question (for answers). Even if one is neither a "computer enthusiast" (whatever it means) nor a "power user", but manages to write a suitable question or answer, then it fits.

For me the phrase "for computer enthusiasts and power users" is fine as it is.