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I mean, I don't disagree with your premise that very few people are actually offended, but this is one of those low-effort, doesn't-matter changes so why not do

I mean, I don't disagree with your premise that very few people are actually offended, but this is one of those low-effort, doesn't-matter changes so why not do it? If it does offend anyone at all, why not change it? If it might offend anyone at all, why not change it? It's not like we're redefining the color blue to appease red-ists. There's a dozen synonyms that convey the same relationship construct as master/slave without using the word slave. It's not the hill to die on, or take a stand on.

strken 8y ago
He touches on something very important when he describes the change as being "for Americans to make peace with their past" and says "it focuses on formalities, but actually it has a real root of prejudice against others". I'd hazard a guess that most of the people who are offended are offended because they feel guilty, and not because they're harmed by the terminology. Maybe those people should feel guilty. Maybe, as a European, he doesn't want American guilt to control the way he uses language.
menacingly 8y ago
"If it might offend anyone at all, why not change it?" is simultaneously gracious, well-meaning, and completely oblivious to the actual mechanisms that drive these offense debates. It doesn't offend anyone. If it does, it's easily cleared up with a broader understanding of the english language. That doesn't matter, though, because it doesn't offend anyone. The hunt for these righteous stances _is_ the goal. You don't change it, because 1) it's a weird bid to control the behavior of someone else, 2) you didn't gain anything. the priesthood wants to find your dirty stain, shine the light of an extremely flexible outrage on it, make an example of your submission to their humbling cleansing, then move on. All you've done is apologize to the no one who was actually harmed, add fuel for the next imaginary incident, and waste your time.
iamwil 8y ago
"I originally copied the terms from MySQL, and now they are the way we call things in Redis, and since I do not believe in this battle (I’ll tell you later why), to change the documentation, deprecate the API and add a new one, change the INFO fields, just to make a subset of people that care about those things more happy, do not make sense to me." Sounds like it's more work than you imagine.
Twisol 8y ago
> this is one of those low-effort, doesn't matter changes antirez, at least, says otherwise. > [...] to change the documentation, deprecate the API and add a new one, change the INFO fields, [...]
- smachiz 8y ago
  Please - it's a find/replace. The API is a bit stickier, but they can of course just map the old 'slave' designation to a new call.
  - SteveNuts 8y ago
    Feel free to submit a PR, just make sure it passes all the tests!
  - devmunchies 8y ago
    what about log history? If I want to find a history of slave errors I need to account for both words? Its not worth it.
wskinner 8y ago
> If it does offend anyone at all, why not change it? If it might offend anyone at all, why not change it? Did you read the article? He answers this question. He devotes the last four paragraphs of the article to exactly that. Edit: tl;dr is that a) it's not as simple a technical fix as you might think and b) it's not just a technical issue.
- smachiz 8y ago
  With no compelling reasons... If we instead called it Guard and Concentration Camp Prisoner would more people feel differently? Yes, if we go to the fringes there are ridiculous things that people can get upset by - but this doesn't seem like one of them. There are plenty of words that are just as descriptive that we can use in place of master/slave at literally zero cost to clarity.
  - meowface 8y ago
    "master" and "slave" are abstract concepts that don't just apply to humans or even organisms at all, while "concentration camp prisoner" and "concentration camp guard" are very specific human concepts. If it took no effort to make this change, this discussion probably wouldn't even be an issue in the first place since many project owners would change the terminology just to stop the whining and discussion. But it's not that easy, so many people have decided to not bend over backwards for every term that could possibly be twisted into being considered offensive when taken out of context, including "master / slave", "whitelist / blacklist", "forking", and "killer app". Yes, people have taken issue with all of those terms [1] and will probably take issue with even more if developers start to appease them. This kind of thing is a slippery slope. [1] https://twitter.com/andrestaltz/status/1030200563802230786 https://twitter.com/andrestaltz/status/1030200563802230786
digitalnomade 8y ago
Because as Antirez pointed out, it is not that simple. One has to change documentation, API, code. It cascades from there.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Turing_Machine 8y ago
> If it does offend anyone at all, why not change it? If it might offend anyone at all, why not change it? Because giving in to thought-policing bullies is always a bad idea. Note how quickly the wannabe bully in this case went from demanding the change to calling the maintainer every vile name in the book.
edejong 8y ago
Because it reeks of voluntary self-censorship pressed by political correctness? Also, where to draw the line? Should we rename Brainfuck? Is white-space PC?
- evil-olive 8y ago
  > Is white-space PC? There has been a push to rename "whitelist" and "blacklist": https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/51088/alternative-term-to-blacklist-and-whitelist https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/51088/alternativ...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
the8472 8y ago
Because being offended is cheap and it being real is unverifiable. Thus there is a cost asymmetry which makes it trivially exploitable. > It's not like we're redefining the color blue to appease red-ists. I am deeply offended that your source control denigrates people from non-conventional families[0]. Please purge this insult from the internet on my behalf. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/git#Etymology_1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/git#Etymology_1
savethefuture 8y ago
Because at what point do you stop and who dictates what offends people and what does not. It is all opinion based and is a never ending catastrophe of ever changing definitions and verbiage. This is just more distractions from what really matters, writing coding and completing the task at hand. Like you said, "one of those low-effort, doesn't-matter changes", so why change it?
barry-cotter 8y ago
> I mean, I don't disagree with your premise that very few people are actually offended, but this is one of those low-effort, doesn't-matter changes so why not do it? Not doing what this particular brand of moralising busybodies wants sends a message to them, other busybodies and more importantly everyone else involved with Redis that this organisation will not instantly roll over to pressure. If you remember the Drupal controversy where some activists were trying to get someone expelled from the community for their sex life the maintainers rolled over until over a hundred contributors and sponsors said to reverse the decision or they’d fork Drupal. The principle is the same. If you pay the Danegeld you will never be rid of the Dane. If you don’t feel like giving a mile, consider very strongly whether to give an inch.

strken 8y ago

He touches on something very important when he describes the change as being "for Americans to make peace with their past" and says "it focuses on formalities, but actually it has a real root of prejudice against others". I'd hazard a guess that most of the people who are offended are offended because they feel guilty, and not because they're harmed by the terminology. Maybe those people should feel guilty. Maybe, as a European, he doesn't want American guilt to control the way he uses language.

menacingly 8y ago

"If it might offend anyone at all, why not change it?" is simultaneously gracious, well-meaning, and completely oblivious to the actual mechanisms that drive these offense debates. It doesn't offend anyone. If it does, it's easily cleared up with a broader understanding of the english language. That doesn't matter, though, because it doesn't offend anyone. The hunt for these righteous stances _is_ the goal. You don't change it, because 1) it's a weird bid to control the behavior of someone else, 2) you didn't gain anything. the priesthood wants to find your dirty stain, shine the light of an extremely flexible outrage on it, make an example of your submission to their humbling cleansing, then move on. All you've done is apologize to the no one who was actually harmed, add fuel for the next imaginary incident, and waste your time.

iamwil 8y ago

"I originally copied the terms from MySQL, and now they are the way we call things in Redis, and since I do not believe in this battle (I’ll tell you later why), to change the documentation, deprecate the API and add a new one, change the INFO fields, just to make a subset of people that care about those things more happy, do not make sense to me." Sounds like it's more work than you imagine.

Twisol 8y ago

> this is one of those low-effort, doesn't matter changes antirez, at least, says otherwise. > [...] to change the documentation, deprecate the API and add a new one, change the INFO fields, [...]

smachiz 8y ago
Please - it's a find/replace. The API is a bit stickier, but they can of course just map the old 'slave' designation to a new call.
- SteveNuts 8y ago
  Feel free to submit a PR, just make sure it passes all the tests!
- devmunchies 8y ago
  what about log history? If I want to find a history of slave errors I need to account for both words? Its not worth it.

wskinner 8y ago

> If it does offend anyone at all, why not change it? If it might offend anyone at all, why not change it? Did you read the article? He answers this question. He devotes the last four paragraphs of the article to exactly that. Edit: tl;dr is that a) it's not as simple a technical fix as you might think and b) it's not just a technical issue.

smachiz 8y ago
With no compelling reasons... If we instead called it Guard and Concentration Camp Prisoner would more people feel differently? Yes, if we go to the fringes there are ridiculous things that people can get upset by - but this doesn't seem like one of them. There are plenty of words that are just as descriptive that we can use in place of master/slave at literally zero cost to clarity.
- meowface 8y ago
  "master" and "slave" are abstract concepts that don't just apply to humans or even organisms at all, while "concentration camp prisoner" and "concentration camp guard" are very specific human concepts. If it took no effort to make this change, this discussion probably wouldn't even be an issue in the first place since many project owners would change the terminology just to stop the whining and discussion. But it's not that easy, so many people have decided to not bend over backwards for every term that could possibly be twisted into being considered offensive when taken out of context, including "master / slave", "whitelist / blacklist", "forking", and "killer app". Yes, people have taken issue with all of those terms [1] and will probably take issue with even more if developers start to appease them. This kind of thing is a slippery slope. [1] https://twitter.com/andrestaltz/status/1030200563802230786 https://twitter.com/andrestaltz/status/1030200563802230786

digitalnomade 8y ago

Because as Antirez pointed out, it is not that simple. One has to change documentation, API, code. It cascades from there.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Turing_Machine 8y ago

> If it does offend anyone at all, why not change it? If it might offend anyone at all, why not change it? Because giving in to thought-policing bullies is always a bad idea. Note how quickly the wannabe bully in this case went from demanding the change to calling the maintainer every vile name in the book.

edejong 8y ago

Because it reeks of voluntary self-censorship pressed by political correctness? Also, where to draw the line? Should we rename Brainfuck? Is white-space PC?

evil-olive 8y ago
> Is white-space PC? There has been a push to rename "whitelist" and "blacklist": https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/51088/alternative-term-to-blacklist-and-whitelist https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/51088/alternativ...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

the8472 8y ago

Because being offended is cheap and it being real is unverifiable. Thus there is a cost asymmetry which makes it trivially exploitable. > It's not like we're redefining the color blue to appease red-ists. I am deeply offended that your source control denigrates people from non-conventional families[0]. Please purge this insult from the internet on my behalf. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/git#Etymology_1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/git#Etymology_1

savethefuture 8y ago

Because at what point do you stop and who dictates what offends people and what does not. It is all opinion based and is a never ending catastrophe of ever changing definitions and verbiage. This is just more distractions from what really matters, writing coding and completing the task at hand. Like you said, "one of those low-effort, doesn't-matter changes", so why change it?

barry-cotter 8y ago

> I mean, I don't disagree with your premise that very few people are actually offended, but this is one of those low-effort, doesn't-matter changes so why not do it? Not doing what this particular brand of moralising busybodies wants sends a message to them, other busybodies and more importantly everyone else involved with Redis that this organisation will not instantly roll over to pressure. If you remember the Drupal controversy where some activists were trying to get someone expelled from the community for their sex life the maintainers rolled over until over a hundred contributors and sponsors said to reverse the decision or they’d fork Drupal. The principle is the same. If you pay the Danegeld you will never be rid of the Dane. If you don’t feel like giving a mile, consider very strongly whether to give an inch.