[development] what's a "user"? (was re: Have you ever laughed fate in the face?)

[Derek Wright]

On Jul 18, 2006, at 10:16 AM, Gabor Hojtsy wrote:
>
> Nope. A lot of people work here to set up sites and then leave to  
> others to administer. Then those admins use what they got. So they  
> have never bothered downloading the site software, they might not  
> even know that they are administering a Drupal based site. Admins  
> is not the right terminology, it only assumes ongoing maintanance  
> IMHO.

maybe.  if you think so, please propose a better terminology,  
instead. ;)

however, i think your distinction doesn't matter that much... if  
someone is a "site admin" "site maintainer", whatever you want to  
call it, they've got access to [site]/admin/* (note the URL, that's  
what i'm talking about when i say "our existing terminology...") and  
things we do (like the settings page re-org) will effect them, even  
if they don't necessarily use the word "drupal".  they're an "admin"  
IMHO.  not all "admins" necessarily download and install the software  
themselves.  some have a working, basic site handed to them by a  
drupal hosting service, others by a consultant/web designer/etc.  i  
don't really care.  if they mess around in [site]/admin/*, have power  
to ban/approve users, do administrative stuff, etc, they're an  
"admin"...

if you really want to split out the sub-group of admins that install  
their own site from the ones that have it handed to them by a  
consultant or hosting company, you could add a 4th term to my list:  
"site builder" (or something).  so, you'd have:

developer
site builder
admin
user

would that make you happier?  true, some changes only effect site  
builders and not admins, so in the interest of avoiding ambiguity, i  
suppose that 4th classification could be helpful.  and, i guess that  
themeing and "designing" is a layer that usually lives between  
developer and admin, so that's another group of folks to lump in as  
"site builders".  that said, my goal is to use concise terminology,  
so if you're talking about a change that only matters for people  
doing themeing, you can just say so...

i still think "user" means "end-user-of-the-drupal-site", i.e. what  
the majority of us are in relation to drupal.org[1], not just dries/ 
steven/killes since they "downloaded drupal and installed the  
site" (vast oversimplification, just trying to make the point)...

thanks,
-derek

[1] yes, obviously some of us have some limited "admin" rights on  
drupal.org, e.g. to admin content, but that's not the main idea.   
obviously, there are MANY shades of grey.  i'm just talking about the  
big picture.