UPDATE: I’m collecting the new ideas from this thread up here, in case we want to rerun the poll with a more expansive slate of candidates:
Beekeepers
Beeminders
Beeminderers
Beemindees
Beelievers
Bees
Userbees
Beeminder users
Beemind-y McBeefaces
Beeminderators
Beeminditizens
Beemindemos
Beeminditors
Beemindists
Buzzybodies
Beemindarians
Akratics
Beeminder-ers
Beeminderers
Beeminders
Beemindees
Beelievers
Beekeepers
0voters
We talked about this in Discord some months ago and I’m moving it here for posterity. At one point I thought “Beeminders” should refer to the founders, but now I like “workerbees” for that. So maybe “Beeminders” is hard to beat as the official demonym but, well, I guess this poll can be what makes that official, if it’s still the winner!
(Thanks to @theospears for adding “Beekeepers” (cuz they keep to their pledges, get it?) which did have an ancient other meaning but I’m declaring the term recyclable.)
I say “goals” or “graphs”. Or most often, since I edge-skate everything, I refer to “my beemergencies”. Some people (maybe mostly Australians?) say “beemos”, which is pretty cute.
But this is a good point that “beeminders” might want to be reserved for the goals, not the users. Or maybe it works for both and context disambiguates?
I call a goal in Beeminder a “Beeminder” to differentiate it from the goal itself, the telos in my mind. The Beeminder is the thing that tracks and motivates my progress (or lack thereof) towards the goal.
It rhymes with “reminder,” and it has an analogous relationship with a goal that a reminder has with a todo list item.
I also use Beeminder to refer to my goals, e.g. “I’m all done with my Beeminders for tonight” or “I should make a Beeminder for that.” (I’ll also add that the three users I know IRL do the same.)
If I had to pick, I would reserve Beeminder for goals, since it’s a way more frequently used concept for me.
I really don’t consider a goal to be “a Beeminder”, and I always find it strange and jarring when people ask me to “fix their Beeminder” or such. To me, it’s a goal or a graph. The system of goals and how they work (however many or few you have) is “Beeminder”.
I guess I don’t really have a term for “a person who uses Beeminder”, but “Beemindee” makes the most sense to me.
I originally ticked Beeminders but now I’m not so sure
This bit is fixed:
so Beeminders beemind goals, is already starting to sound convoluted.
Beekeepers beemind goals, I quite like the connotation that we keep to our goals, except for that whole derailing is good thing I guess.
Beemindees beemind goals, I feel like a Beemindee should be something that’s beeminded, so it makes more sense as a word for a goal/graph than a user, except Beeminder users beemind Beemindees is utterly unclear even before you start on denonyms.
I tried to come up with something about Beeminder users being members of the hive or the swarm but that’s just Bees? Bees beemind goals? Userbees beemind goals? I like the parallel with workerbees but am otherwise unsure on it.
Beeminder users beemind goals, at the end of the day I think this is the clearest way to say it but not cute or demonymical.
Maybe coming up with a word for Beeminder goals/graphs[1] that differentiates them from, um, goals would be an idea? A Beeminder goal is more sticking to a path towards something than the target itself.
I was going by the analogy with mentor/mentee. Beeminder is the mentor, the user is the mentee; the user is the person whose behaviour is being managed by Beeminder, therefore the beemindee.
To me, “Beemindee” is the thing that is being beeminded - so goals, and it feels really weird to refer to myself as a Beemindee, as if I’m the one being beeminded, not the one doing the beeminding. It’s the the mentor/mentee analogy, but the Beeminder is the one beeminding, and the Beemindee is the thing being beeminded (that is, goals).
Ah, you people are amazing. I started thinking out loud more in the Discord just now but I should repeat here. It’s funny, @shanaqui immediately swayed me toward “beemindees”, then @k1rsty swayed me away, then Nicky swayed me back again.
Anyway, this of course is a monarchy not a democracy but I’m inclined to go with whatever sticks, so do keep making arguments!
I like the concept that Beeminder minds you, making it the minder and you the mindee, even though it’s also true that you mind your goals. But the -ee suffix is just for people, right? The goals are just minded things. (Ah, I wrote this prior to seeing @gbear605’s latest but it turns out to be an apt reply.)
I think you couldn’t say that “I was a mentor to a goal”, but you could say “I was a mentor to a beemindee”, so that’s why “goal” and “beemindee” being synonymous doesn’t really make sense to me with how I think about it.
In the end though, I’d probably just say “Beeminder users”…
I really like “Bees” or Beelievers. I think Beemindee or other stuff just sounds unnatural to say. And I think it is really important how the word sounds as you will silently speak it in your head everytime you will read it or write it. Funny example everyone is saying “swifties” today if they are a Taylor Swift fan just because it just sounds really good. You really need something that feels satifisying to say. Bees would take some time to get coded into my brain as it is different from all the other suggestions but it somehow is natural. the end of Beemindee is weird to pronounce and the word still feels open to me at the end. it sounds unnatural like Beeminderers. just the mental effort you have for saying those endings…
I refer to my goals as bees, so it would be extremely weird for me if we started calling users bees . And if I have to quantify it with a reason, goals will sting you if you don’t do them, but users will not, so “bee” is more apt for the goal.
I don’t like “Beemindee” because it sounds like a passive role, when users actually take a very active role in minding their goals. “Beeminder” might get confusing, especially to newbees, considering that’s the name of the service. “Beekeeper” is trying too hard, in my opinion. “Beelievers” is… weird. “Beeminderers” is (somehow) the one that makes the most sense to me. It fits in with the informality of the rest of everything around here and it’s pretty clear in that it’s referring to “people who use beeminder.”
Although, a strong case could be made for “userbee” too, since that fits nicely with the terminology already in play. Workerbee, newbee, userbee.
My opinion continues to shift all over the place as I hear different arguments here. Feel free to just start using your favorite demonym to try to get it to stick. That may be the ultimate test of what the best term is.
Any new name ideas I’ve missed in the following list?
Or how do you call them?
Well now I am. Except the verb is always “to beemind” so this is going to take further workshopping…