Can we call them "contacts" instead of "followers". The latter has a cultish feel to it I always found creepy. Now that we can edit the source code and define our own perspectives, it's time for a rethink.
@trinsec Clearly I am not the first one to voice this out loud. And yes the directionality question pops up immediately, which reflects the asymmetry. Contacts seems to imply reciprocal connections. What other names for this have been discussed before?
@albertcardona No clue, I don't really busy myself with this kind of detail. Probably because they're just words to me that I take at face value.
Maybe you can find something about this on the Mastodon project page? Not sure where it is, maybe github or similar. Might be able to find the info on their site or the documentation links here.
@albertcardona
I may agree on the cultish feel, but followers/following reflect the relation directionality.. Contacts has no such meaning
@albertcardona is there a way to propose a fork to qoto's code?
@albertcardona Somewhat agreeing with *followers* as a term being kind of eh, but not really sure if a friendlier term would help much long-term. Facebook used *friends* for example and that become mostly meaningless, eventually.
The term *contacts* seems like it'd fit well for a separate list of what people refer to as *mutuals*, in the same vein as contact books of times past. A list of people that know and want to stay in touch with each other.
@albertcardona Heh. The thing is that you can't please everyone. Someone else might take offense at contacts. ;)
And followers does describe it nicely. We could be contacts, but not be following each other.