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Merge pull request #495 from jafiala/The-personhood-of-users-#466
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Update grammar.adoc with guidance on inanimate users
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bburt-rh authored Aug 7, 2024
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Expand Up @@ -128,4 +128,30 @@ Avoid long introductions and unnecessary context. Shorten unnecessarily long sen
=== Principle 5: Error recovery, verification, and troubleshooting
Recognize that people make mistakes and need to verify that they have completed a task. Be sure to include troubleshooting, error recovery, and verification steps.

[[users]]
== Users
In most cases, the word "user" refers to a person or a person's user account, and therefore would be considered animate. In these cases, use animate personal pronouns such as "who".

In certain technical cases, these users are not persons but instead system accounts or more abstract concepts (inanimate). For example, Linux `root` and `guest` users do not relate to any person. Applications and services might run as specific Linux users with no person controlling them. SELinux users such as `user_u` or `sysadm_u` are identifiers of one or multiple Linux users for access control purposes. In these specific cases, refer to these inanimate users with inanimate personal pronouns such as "that".

In these specific cases, and only if you cannot write around it, you can refer to these inanimate users with inanimate personal pronouns such as "that".

.Examples
* Animate user
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image:images/no.png[no] Experienced _users that_ can configure their own systems...
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image:images/yes.png[yes] _Users who_ want to install their own packages...

* Inanimate user
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image:images/no.png[no] A Linux user has the restrictions of the _SELinux user who_ it is assigned to.
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image:images/no.png[no] A Linux user has the restrictions of the _SELinux user_ to _whom_ it is assigned.
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image:images/yes.png[yes] Specify a _user that_ is allowed to perform the requested action.
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image:images/yes.png[yes] A Linux user has the restrictions of the _SELinux user that_ it is assigned to.


// TODO: Add new style entries alphabetically in this file

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