this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2025
1191 points (98.8% liked)

Selfhosted

60934 readers
814 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Detailed Rules Post

  1. Be civil.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts are to be related to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

  7. Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.

  8. AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 46 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I am of the mind that servers belong in restaurants.

Like... Why do I need someone to take my order and bring me a meal at an office?

[–] itslola@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Of all the American vernacular for job titles, "server" is probably the one that makes my poor Aussie brain glitch most frequently. While you're wondering why people are bringing you a meal in the office, I'm looking at the same sentence and wondering why diners are being forced to work as sysadmins over dinner.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

What's wrong with "server"? They serve you food, much like a computer server serves files.

I think it's much better than "waiter" (which we also use) because I want them to bring food, not wait.

[–] some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It makes me think of a machine, not a person. I prefer to just use "staff"

[–] itslola@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Yeah, I tend to use "staff" or sometimes "waitstaff" to describe them, particularly in cafes, where the owner and/or manager might also be waiting tables. "Waiter" or "waitress" I'd mostly use when recounting something that happened while eating out, and I'm trying to specify who's who in the story.

[–] itslola@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Hmmm, well, the "wait" in waiter/waitress/waitstaff refers to the act of serving someone, usually in a restaurant or cafe. (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/wait-on?topic=providing-and-serving-meals.) Like a lot of words in English, "wait" has more than one meaning.

There's nothing wrong with "server", per se, other than that we already had an established set of words for that role, and a server was also an existing word for a piece of IT equipment prior to US vernacular shifting (somewhere between the 90s and the 2010s, I think - we've always had a lot of US media pumped into Australia, but the vocab used to align on this one when I was a kid, and then at some point it changed).

Not saying Americans should do things the way we do it (vive la difference), just that the linguistic shift still throws me off. It would probably confuse me less if you'd always called them servers.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

We also use waiter/waitress, maître d', and sometimes steward/stewardess (esp. on airplanes). There's technically a difference:

  • waiter/waitress - brings food
  • server - person the customer interacts with (i.e. takes orders)
  • maître d' (hotel) - head of wait staff
  • steward/stewardess - serving customers is usually a secondary duty

I think "server" has become more popular because it's gender neutral, but "waiter/waitress" is still quite common and most don't make the distinction between the two.

I personally like the overlap between computer server and restaurant server because both exist to provide things upon request. The term "wait" that "waiter" comes from is pretty archaic.

[–] Sir_Simon_Spamalot@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Because we're busy!