18 ms·

slave

79 points by itvision 6y ago

itvision 6y ago
Another round of SJW winning over common sense and replacing the things which just work and are easy to understand with alternatives you can easily make errors in and which make understanding the code harder. And what about Black Friday? Should we rename it as well? And all the other set expressions including the words white/black? Also, also, I find the word "control" disturbing and diminishing. They should absolutely replace it with something less offensive!
- jhoechtl 6y ago
  I think brainfuck has the keyword please. Now that sounds nice!
  - japanoise 6y ago
    You're thinking of INTERCAL: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL
    - jhoechtl 6y ago
      You are right: PLEASE GIVE UP to terminate execution sounds overly polite to me :)
  - luckylion 6y ago
    DemocraticQL is needed. It's long overdue to "ELECT * FROM".
- DagAgren 6y ago
  "SJW" is a thought-ending cliché at best, and a racist dogwhistle at worst. This is a real issue, where real people feel unwelcome because of use of terminology with an extremely charged history. Changing it costs next to nothing, and makes those people feel more comfortable with using and contributing to a project. Doing so is a no-brainer.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    Does "blacklist" really have an extremely charged history? I've not found a source suggesting that. I've found sources saying that the term "black sheep" is racist, and I find that idea backwards. "Black sheep" did not become a term to point out individuals that strongly deviate from the norm because of Africans. They did so, because they were rare and stood out (just like people who strongly deviate from the norm), like black swans being very rare but possible. I get the feeling that there's a lot of hysteria involved where "black" is now a taboo word and every usage of it is considered "because of racist motives".
    - lowmagnet 6y ago
      The use of blacklist has been mostly employment-related, and is unrelated to racial issues. Consider why we think black=bad/sin, white=good/pure, however. These are arbitrary choices.
      - luckylion 6y ago
        > The use of blacklist has been mostly employment-related, and is unrelated to racial issues. Exactly, but it's mentioned as being so. > Consider why we think black=bad/sin, white=good/pure, however. These are arbitrary choices. And they're not because of "omg black people". The concept is far older than the transatlantic slave trade and is mostly about opposites, because it's literally black and white. Not brown and grey/pink/reddish-depending-on-weather. White skin tone isn't white, black skin tone isn't black. The use of black and white as polar opposites was not invented after the 16th century.
- codegladiator 6y ago
  > with alternatives you can easily make errors in and which make understanding the code harder blacklist/whitelist => blocklist/allowlist how's that making the code harder to understand ? or errorprone ?
  - rfoo 6y ago
    Maybe because it is inappropriate to use blocklist/allowlist in all cases, so to replace blacklist/whitelist people have to come up with a few different words (blocklist, badlist, denylist, etc) and apply them accordingly. It is certainly pretty confusing to see similar concepts expressed in a few different words, I'd prefer an umbrella word in this case. Of course if we are going to say "blocklist is the word replacing blacklist and it'll go into textbook you don't have to think deeply about it just remember this is the word you must use in all cases" the problem would disappear, but I'm afraid we can't. Master/Slave demonstrate this better. For example, in the context of pseudoterminals, primary/secondary is certainly not precise words to use, it is quite hard to come up with "obvious" words without re-educating everyone. (oh, and it's baked in the API name in various specifications, like "ptsname" => "pseudo terminal slave name")
    - codegladiator 6y ago
      The leader/follower for master/slave seems pretty clear, similarly for blocklist/allowlist. Your argument seems to be 'because we have been doing it like this' or 'has been used in so many places' which I don't agree with too much as a reason to keep using it. This change seems to actually bring in better terms and clearly understandable.
      - rfoo 6y ago
        Sorry, but if you actually click into the link before arguing with me, you would see they replaced "master" and "slave" in pseudoterminal context with "tty" and "processTty", not leader/follower because their relationship are really not leader and follower. https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/236857/5/src/os/signal/internal/pty/pty.go https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/236857/5/src/os/si...
- rvz 6y ago
  Well, I'm satired of these SJW requests because it seems to affect a very tiny delicate sunflower who's 'offended' by its use and meaning, which is never intentional. I don't know why developers bother with such frivolous pull requests since for example master/slave, black/whitelist, has been used for >20 years in the Linux kernel and was never a problem until 'now'. It's a way for the PC crowd to hijack control over a project to ban anyone who disagrees with them. OSI, GNU, FSF, Linux, FreeBSD have all capitulated to this madness. Common sense isn't part of their reasoning, only trying to speak for the entire 'feelings' of those 'oppressed' by words on a computer screen.
noble_pleb 6y ago
Most expected considering Google is so SJW friendly.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  How did "social justice warrior" become a slur? Is there anyone who honestly doesn't think Social Justice is a virtue that it is worth fighting for?
  - yulaow 6y ago
    It's not the name but how that group of people acts that gives the bad connotation. Even "Fascism" as a etimological concept has not a bad connotation ("suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break"), but as a political group which uses it to identify themselves, it really is extremly bad. Long story short: we cannot just look at the etimology of a word, we need the associated context.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      Sure, but what are "social justice warriors" doing that is so horrific that it has become an accusation rather than a political label? That is what I am getting at - the way I see it, social justice continues to mean the same thing as it always did: respect for the rights of all minorities, and a genuine desire to see an end to oppression and of the long-standing effects of oppression for all.
      - naasking 6y ago
        > the way I see it, social justice continues to mean the same thing as it always did: respect for the rights of all minorities, and a genuine desire to see an end to oppression and of the long-standing effects of oppression for all. I'm sure that's the way they see their own actions, but not everyone agrees with that framing. I'm guessing the pejorative sense comes from the tactics sometimes employed, and the way social justice goals are sometimes twisted: 1. Destroying individual lives via doxxing and twitter harassment (twitter mobs), rather than tackling powerful people or systems who benefit from or perpetuate systemic bias. 2. A hyper-focus on token gestures with no real effect, like changing technical jargon. 3. Moving the goalposts by redefining basic social justice terms in order to manufacture consent. For instance, sexism and racism. 4. The sometimes violent suppression of speech, and even basic scientific facts, with which they disagree. And more, some of which very much has the flavour of "the ends justify the means", where the ends are a moving target. For a contemporary analogy, the pejorative view might be that SJWs are to real fighters for social justice as rioters and looters are to protestors. Maybe some of the rioters and looters are just so angry at the systemic injustice that they believe that violence is their last resort, but plenty of them are just opportunists.
austinjp 6y ago
Hmm I notice the change was made to the "master" branch :/ Maybe change that to "main".
- zeeZ 6y ago
  Good thing I don't have a master's degree.
  - lsofzz 6y ago
    > Good thing I don't have a master's degree. Hah. Exactly.
sneak 6y ago
Replacing master/slave with leader/follower makes perfect sense, given historical context. Is blacklist/whitelist inherently racist, or does it have racist origins? Try as I might I don’t see inherent bias in it.
- anonfunction 6y ago
  The connotation is that white is good and black is bad.
  - tomp 6y ago
    Wouldn't it make more sense then to change the name of the race? "Blacks" -> "browns" or something... (and it would also be more physically accurate... same with "whites" -> "yellows" or "roses")
  - rurban 6y ago
    Yes, but I don't see the correlation to any race. black is bad everywhere, probably because of its physical properties. ditto for white. Those who wish to see a racial relation are just racists, and racists should not be fed.
  - j-pb 6y ago
    Which has nothing to do with race, and is heavily rooted in "light" vs. "shadow" mythology. In India it's the other way around, Asia has Ying and Yang. Changing these words is a feel good thing, that does nothing to address our internal biases, prejudices, and racism. It wastes time that could be spend on writing your senator, politician, or being active in a political party. It's a zero effort, zero stakes thing, that makes privileged people feel personal accomplishment, while allowing them to relax into complacency. "I make a million a year, and work for a company that makes money off of algorithmically radicalising people into right wing conspiracy theories, but I don't use the word white- and black-list anymore, because it reminds me of race. I did my part!"
  - leg100 6y ago
    That's a connotation. Another one is that black you cannot see, white you can. Which does have some grounding in physics. And no, absolutely nothing to do with race.
Ygg2 6y ago
No master/slave? That's just bigotry against BDSM culture.
- DagAgren 6y ago
  No, it is not.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    I think it's 99.9% certain that GP was making a joke.
    - DagAgren 6y ago
      Yes, and it was a joke in very bad taste that belittles the very real issues people have with this.
      - Ygg2 6y ago
        Very real issues, being it offends some minority, somewhere. Guess what, everything offends some minority somewhere. In essence, I am against the policing of language to police the mind.
        DagAgren 6y ago
        > Guess what, everything offends some minority somewhere. No. It does not. It most definitely does not. This is a lame excuse, and also a blatant lie.
        dang 6y ago
        Would you please stop using this site for political and ideological flamewar? It destroys what it's supposed to be for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You've unfortunately been doing it a lot, and we've already had to ask you to stop.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
As an immigrant, I find "Go" offensive, as it implies I am not welcome here. I would prefer another more welcoming name for the language.
- jaehong 6y ago
  funny!
- DagAgren 6y ago
  No, you do not. Do not lie to try to make a point. That does no good to anyone.
ngngngng 6y ago
I came across this sentiment on Twitter for the first time just a few hours ago today, and while it almost feels like searching for reasons to be offended (which you will always find) I'm pretty happy with the change. Allowlist/Blocklist is even more obvious than the original.
- neysofu 6y ago
  Deleted
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Same argument against replacing "master / slave". It's a powerful metaphor that sometimes works really well when talking about IT. Whether it works really well depends on cultural loading of the concepts in the audience, that's the nature of metaphor. Choosing terms whose cultural loading has less intense variation will result in more consistent effect.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- rowawey 6y ago
  That describes most "news" and social media.. crybullies, pseudo-thin-skin, and the biggest shouters of trivialities... because outrage is the most valuable currency of virality. There are legitimate causes and actual harm that the SJWs ignore and denigrate through pettiness and demands of arbitrary, baseless conformity. As the SJWs take over, language itself will be destroyed and arbitrarily reshaped to compel everyone to practice their sanitization and control of every possible expression of thought.
  - dang 6y ago
    We've banned this account for using HN for ideological flamewar and ignoring our request to stop. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
azpXXX 6y ago
Nice sideshow. Black and white people are equally screwed by corporations, but this is a cheap way of demonstrating virtue and creating dissent among the plebs. Two minutes later they'll continue to track you or sink your small business by an algorithm mistake.
- profunctor 6y ago
  Are black and white people equally screwed by corporations? Wage theft seems like something that would happen more to poorer people for example and class has a racial component. Additionally workers in the global south, predominantly non-white are totally abused by these large corporations.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
    In absolute terms, white people are screwed up more as they have more money. Not sure if it matters really.
yyyymmddhhmmss 6y ago
Should have used boss/worker instead of leader/follower.
skocznymroczny 6y ago
"It's clear that there are people who are hurt by them and who are made to feel unwelcome by their use due not to technical reasons but to their historical and social context." Any people that aren't white liberals?
- mikevm 6y ago
  Probably not.
kbumsik 6y ago
There is nothing wrong with the change, but I personally not sure if "slave" offends someone. "slave" does not represent a social group anymore.
- mfontani 6y ago
  This might surprise/enlighten you, then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#Contemporary_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#Contemporary_slavery
  - kbumsik 6y ago
    OMG, there're still many of them. Thanks for the link.
- colinjoy 6y ago
  “The International Labour Organization[5] estimates that, by their definitions, over 40 million people are in some form of slavery today. 24.9 million people are in forced labor, of whom 16 million people are exploited in the private sector such as domestic work, construction or agriculture; 4.8 million persons in forced sexual exploitation, and 4 million persons in forced labor imposed by state authorities. 15.4 million people are in forced marriage.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
  - luckylion 6y ago
    You're suggesting that the actual slaves take issue with the usage of the word "slave" in tech?
    - austinjp 6y ago
      I don't think this is the thrust of the issue, but since you mention it, yes. I'm pretty sure someone who lives in modern slavery would find it sickening to learn that the word "slave" is used casually without consideration for those it describes. But we all know the historical role of slavery in many cultures, and the legacy it has left in current life, which is more the issue. It's a selfish and unjustifiable situation to be in, where one group of people casually uses language that describes a different group in questionable terms without considering how the other group might feel. It's trivial to implement. Questioning it is a hair's breadth from defending it.
Tade0 6y ago
I'm conflicted about this, because on one hand I don't enjoy Americans exporting their notion of racism (which is historically loaded and makes sense only in the context of US history), on the other hand I'm writing this on an American site using software developed mostly by Americans etc. So I guess it's "take it or leave it".
- hellofunk 6y ago
  > makes sense only in the context of US history Sorry but I must disagree. The U.S. slave era was not uniquely American. Who operated those slave ships to "import" the blacks from Africa? It wasn't the Americans. No, the Dutch had a big role, as did other cultures. And as the protests around the world have demonstrated, racial discrimination is a global issue with similar problems in many countries to what you see happening in the States.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  Yes, I think it's important to remember - both for American as well as outsiders - that racism-related notions are different and sometimes are completely alien in other countries/cultures. For example, some Americans believe that racism doesn't include prejudices towards the dominant "race"/ethnicity, and find it offensive to even suggest that it might be so (some even invented the term "inverse racism" for that). For example, the racist implications of painting one's face black are so alien in other cultures that every few years there is a big storm about someone doing blackface in Europe, having no idea it will offend Americans (recently it was Gigi Hadid in Vogue Italy). For example, as an European, when someone says "slave", I immediately think about ancient Rome. To think that in the USA you had slaves only recently always strikes me as really strange. To say nothing about the segregation period quite recently. In any case, I still wonder: you can remove these words from software and try to banish their current metaphorical usage. But will it really make a difference to your history? These seems like nervous attempts at "making everything right" in a situation where no right can be made - at least there is no easy way to do so.
tkfu 6y ago
Good for them! When it was first pointed out to me that these terms feel harmful for many, I rolled my eyes a little bit. But after thinking about it for a while, a few things became clear: (1) There's no particular reason to start using the terms in a new project (2) Leader/follower is much more accurate and clear than master/slave in basically every way (3) It's a lot less difficult than I originally thought to fix legacy docs and code with nicer language (4) The fact that master/slave has never bothered me personally has absolutely zero bearing on whether I should support their continued use.
- abafazi 6y ago
  On (2), leader/follower isn't clear to me what it means
- hliyan 6y ago
  I initially rolled my eyes too, but if there's one thing I learned in the last two weeks is that you can't "imagine" how something is perceived by a member of a persecuted minority. No amount of thought experimentation can reproduce a lifetime of experiences that hurt your self-worth. That said, leader/follower and allowlist/blocklist are both better than the older terms in every way. The represent the actual mechanisms better and they're less metaphorical.
  - david38 6y ago
    That’s absolutely false. It’s gatekeeping, pure and simple. I’m a guy, so I can’t imagine the pain of pregnancy? I had a large kidney stone once. The female doctor who had two children of her own told me that I experienced was more painful by a good bit than a pregnancy. I’m also Hispanic, from a super high crime rate country. You think I don’t know what fear is, fear of random government kidnappings, fear of cartel kidnappings? Trust me, I do. Racism? Check. Genocide? Check. Now should I be able to tell my white friends they can’t imagine what I’ve felt? Bullshit. I suppose SpaceX couldn’t imagine a self landing rocket either. They absolutely can imagine it. Maybe some people can’t imagine it. Maybe some people are so closed off they really can’t try to put themselves in that position. But everyone? Nah. It used to be guys were told they couldn’t imagine what it was like being a woman. It was their reserved space, so the gatekeepers claimed. Then trans became more of a thing. Suddenly it was politically incorrect to say these guys couldn’t imagine being a woman when they had been thinking about it for years.
bmurphy1976 6y ago
I started replacing master/slave with primary/secondary in my code 20 years ago. I was never happy with the terminology (been programming for over 30 years now, didn't like it what when I was 14, still don't like it at 44). As for blacklist/whitelist, my first thought was that I'd change it to allowlist/blocklist and sure enough that's exactly what they did. There's nothing wrong with this change. If you have a problem with it you need to look deep inside yourself and reexamine your own biases. That's where the real problem lies.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  > I started replacing master/slave with primary/secondary in my code 20 years ago. But primary/secondary doesn't mean the same as master/slave. Consider master/slave from say i2c protocol. Switching to primary/secondary would completely obscure what is going on, you might as well call them apple/orange, while with master and slave it is very clear.
  - lowmagnet 6y ago
    The changes in code in this case concerned the terminal package, which was changed from 'master/slave' to 'pty/procTTY', which are more accurate terms.
    - magicalhippo 6y ago
      I replied to the part I quoted. The renaming from master/slave to pty/procTTY might be a good change in that specific case.
  - dtech 6y ago
    Would leader/follower work in this context? I find it difficult to think of a context where they aren't similar enough to be replacements. Sure you can nitpick about how strict the leader/follower relationship is, but master/slave doesn't necessarily tell you that accurately either.
    - 6y ago
bambam24 6y ago
This is common practice already I can say at least 10 years.
Yajirobe 6y ago
By removing 'master/slave' you are inadvertently implying that 'master=white, slave=black' - that is to say, by removing the words you are perpetuating the problem. If you're going that route, why not get rid of 'kill', 'abort', etc.?
- nindalf 6y ago
  Sounds like "if you're fixing this one thing, why not fix everything? And if you can't fix everything, why fix anything?" No. We can fix things one at a time. Master/slave doesn't upset me but it does upset some people. Ok, if they're willing to put in the effort to update the code and all the docs then I'm willing to adopt the new terminology. If you can make a bona fide case that 'kill' or something else upsets you and I'm convinced that you're sincere, and you have a superior alternative like 'leader/follower', you'll have my support to make a similar change.
  - lsofzz 6y ago
    > No. We can fix things one at a time. Master/slave doesn't upset me but it does upset some people. Ok, if they're willing to put in the effort to update the code and all the docs then I'm willing to adopt the new terminology. I have nothing against change but _context_ matters. When I read about `pty` masters or slaves, I think of pseudo-terminals not humans.
  - Yajirobe 6y ago
    So just because some people find it offensive, it's a reason to change the terminology?
- temptemptemp111 6y ago
  These racists just "blacklisted" "slave" hahahaha You can't cure stupid. Just start firing these liars before they create laws stating one of them will have to be in every company. #Communism #inclusion #diversity
- netsharc 6y ago
  Geez... how about seeing it as them wanting to remove references to slavery in general?
raverbashing 6y ago
From the file changes it is not very clear in which context these words are used. I mean, if it was a library or a DB sure, but these seem to be more in the language core.
slim 6y ago
This is just stupid. Words are polysemic, they have multiple meanings depending on their context, but more importantly they don't have any meaning outside any context. Words are offensive because their context is offensive. If you don't change the context, you don't solve the problem. I've never thought master/slave offensive in the context of computers. Those words imposed their inoffensive meaning in the culture of computer users for half a century. Now they just ruined it, they actually changed the context to make those words offensive again. Sometimes you just have to fight the cultural battle.
- tyleo 6y ago
  I agree that the context determines the intent to offend but I think some words may be offensive or at least distracting to some despite the context. If you have seen a word used in a certain context enough it can become difficult to ignore that context in other uses. Similarly, after watching an actor play a role well it may be hard to separate them from that role while watching other movies. It may also be useful to imagine master/slave replaced with words that are offensive to you to imagine what it’s like for someone else. For example, if they were called pimp/bitch servers I’m sure others would find that offensive. Different sets of words will be offensive to different individuals. I’m sure we could find 2 words which are less offensive to all.
- Frost1x 6y ago
  Definitely. And "blacklist"/"whitelist" is used for a lot of contexts outside computing that have, to my understanding, not even a historic relation to racism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting#Origins_of_the_term https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting#Origins_of_the_... What's next, blackboards and whiteboards? What about red-black trees? Do we really need to shuffle around well established non-offensive terms just because they have a color in their names? If there was some truly offensive embedding in our nomenclature im all for removing it but this seems like a silly PR stunt. We're turning completely benign ideas into something offensive.
- effie 6y ago
  Very well said! I might add, some people seem to look for things to get offended by just to bamboozle others into thinking they deserve special treatment and as a result, gain some political power.
bavdc 6y ago
Let's organize a nationwide demonstration with public burning of MasterCards [tm].
npiit 6y ago
This is insanity. In our search for justice we've become tyrants and irrational ourselves. This is like the French revolution or the Russian revolution but without blood. But the tyranny of the virtue signaling and political correctness has gone to an insane level. How the hell is whitelist/blacklist master/slave offensive? I have a dark skin and I never even thought of that before those SJWs infiltrated tech with their lousiness. Should we then stop using USB? Maybe USB is racist and offensive even though it was designed by an Indian engineer? As far as I know it uses slave/master terminology in its specs, as well as many other communication protocols. What about other terms? I develop Kubernetes controllers and I use extensively the terms `oldObject` and `newObject` after a resource is updated to compare the `Spec` field. I don't like the word `old` and I find it offensive to old people. How about that? Also why should arrays keep the order of objects? Why should the objects pushed first remain first? isn't that offensive and unfair to objects that were pushed later?
- zeeZ 6y ago
  If you really wanted to you could probably label male and female connectors as sexist and the act of using them rape. I think that's both insanity and distracting/undermining the real problems actual humans have.
  - npiit 6y ago
    The term master/slave of all terms is widely used and established in many fields of EE and CS especially in networking. I was exposed to it since I was a college student endless times and never ever thought of it having any kind of racist meaning, and again, I have a dark skin myself. The term is used in thousands of seminal textbooks and published papers by many great scientists who worked for decades and retired without even thinking that this term could map to the history of racism in the US or anywhere else. What's next? should we organize book burning parties and burn the textbooks of Leslie Lamport and Donald Knuth because they contained the master/slave term? These lousy radical groups are only brave at the things that don't fight back and are very dedicated to solving non problems and the rest of us is obliged to either bow to their irrational nonsense or labeled as racist by their primitive mob mentality.
tomp 6y ago
Slavery is only bad if the slaves are people (or, generally, any self-aware entity with its own agency). I, as a human, love being a master to my computer slaves.
- wahern 6y ago
  There are animal rights advocates offended by usage of the terms master and owner when referring to an animal's guardian--their preferred term.
  - tomp 6y ago
    Why would I (or anyone else) care? The important question is, are the animals offended? Besides, I think owner is the correct legal term - if you own an animal, you're responsible for it (and for any harm it might do to others).
onikolas7 6y ago
My least favorite tech term is "infant mortality"[1] from reliability engineering. Just very bad naming taste. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
austinjp 6y ago
ITT: reductio ad absurdam.
taylodl 6y ago
I’ve been using the term controller/worker since the 80s as have many others. It also better connotes what’s going on. I do like allowlist/blocklist. Though blocklist sounds really close to blacklist. Maybe we should use denylist instead?
- wahern 6y ago
  deny has 4 letters, while allow and block have 5. Having the same number of letters for the variable component(s) of a set of interface names is quite convenient.
flippinburgers 6y ago
This shows a strange inability to differentiate between computers and humans.
lol139189 6y ago
Enjoy another four years of Trump - that's what all these public purity tests and struggle sessions are bringing you towards. Unless you finally manage to get rid of private elections, that is. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me.
bassman9000 6y ago
I mean, if we're nitpicking Anyway, allowlist and blocklist are more self-explanatory than whitelist and blacklist, so this change has negative cost. No, it does not. All changes have cost. They just can't see it now, or chose not to see it now. Aside from the obvious cost in the very same patchset.
zeroimpl 6y ago
It seems to me that if they had used those replacements names in the first place, nobody would have ever submitted a PR to change them to master/slave or blacklist/whitelist. Thus most people complaining are just making a fuss over nothing.

79 points by itvision 6y ago

Another round of SJW winning over common sense and replacing the things which just work and are easy to understand with alternatives you can easily make errors in and which make understanding the code harder. And what about Black Friday? Should we rename it as well? And all the other set expressions including the words white/black? Also, also, I find the word "control" disturbing and diminishing. They should absolutely replace it with something less offensive!

jhoechtl 6y ago
I think brainfuck has the keyword please. Now that sounds nice!
- japanoise 6y ago
  You're thinking of INTERCAL: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL
  - jhoechtl 6y ago
    You are right: PLEASE GIVE UP to terminate execution sounds overly polite to me :)
- luckylion 6y ago
  DemocraticQL is needed. It's long overdue to "ELECT * FROM".
DagAgren 6y ago
"SJW" is a thought-ending cliché at best, and a racist dogwhistle at worst. This is a real issue, where real people feel unwelcome because of use of terminology with an extremely charged history. Changing it costs next to nothing, and makes those people feel more comfortable with using and contributing to a project. Doing so is a no-brainer.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Does "blacklist" really have an extremely charged history? I've not found a source suggesting that. I've found sources saying that the term "black sheep" is racist, and I find that idea backwards. "Black sheep" did not become a term to point out individuals that strongly deviate from the norm because of Africans. They did so, because they were rare and stood out (just like people who strongly deviate from the norm), like black swans being very rare but possible. I get the feeling that there's a lot of hysteria involved where "black" is now a taboo word and every usage of it is considered "because of racist motives".
  - lowmagnet 6y ago
    The use of blacklist has been mostly employment-related, and is unrelated to racial issues. Consider why we think black=bad/sin, white=good/pure, however. These are arbitrary choices.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > The use of blacklist has been mostly employment-related, and is unrelated to racial issues. Exactly, but it's mentioned as being so. > Consider why we think black=bad/sin, white=good/pure, however. These are arbitrary choices. And they're not because of "omg black people". The concept is far older than the transatlantic slave trade and is mostly about opposites, because it's literally black and white. Not brown and grey/pink/reddish-depending-on-weather. White skin tone isn't white, black skin tone isn't black. The use of black and white as polar opposites was not invented after the 16th century.
codegladiator 6y ago
> with alternatives you can easily make errors in and which make understanding the code harder blacklist/whitelist => blocklist/allowlist how's that making the code harder to understand ? or errorprone ?
- rfoo 6y ago
  Maybe because it is inappropriate to use blocklist/allowlist in all cases, so to replace blacklist/whitelist people have to come up with a few different words (blocklist, badlist, denylist, etc) and apply them accordingly. It is certainly pretty confusing to see similar concepts expressed in a few different words, I'd prefer an umbrella word in this case. Of course if we are going to say "blocklist is the word replacing blacklist and it'll go into textbook you don't have to think deeply about it just remember this is the word you must use in all cases" the problem would disappear, but I'm afraid we can't. Master/Slave demonstrate this better. For example, in the context of pseudoterminals, primary/secondary is certainly not precise words to use, it is quite hard to come up with "obvious" words without re-educating everyone. (oh, and it's baked in the API name in various specifications, like "ptsname" => "pseudo terminal slave name")
  - codegladiator 6y ago
    The leader/follower for master/slave seems pretty clear, similarly for blocklist/allowlist. Your argument seems to be 'because we have been doing it like this' or 'has been used in so many places' which I don't agree with too much as a reason to keep using it. This change seems to actually bring in better terms and clearly understandable.
    - rfoo 6y ago
      Sorry, but if you actually click into the link before arguing with me, you would see they replaced "master" and "slave" in pseudoterminal context with "tty" and "processTty", not leader/follower because their relationship are really not leader and follower. https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/236857/5/src/os/signal/internal/pty/pty.go https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/236857/5/src/os/si...
rvz 6y ago
Well, I'm satired of these SJW requests because it seems to affect a very tiny delicate sunflower who's 'offended' by its use and meaning, which is never intentional. I don't know why developers bother with such frivolous pull requests since for example master/slave, black/whitelist, has been used for >20 years in the Linux kernel and was never a problem until 'now'. It's a way for the PC crowd to hijack control over a project to ban anyone who disagrees with them. OSI, GNU, FSF, Linux, FreeBSD have all capitulated to this madness. Common sense isn't part of their reasoning, only trying to speak for the entire 'feelings' of those 'oppressed' by words on a computer screen.

noble_pleb 6y ago

Most expected considering Google is so SJW friendly.

tsimionescu 6y ago
How did "social justice warrior" become a slur? Is there anyone who honestly doesn't think Social Justice is a virtue that it is worth fighting for?
- yulaow 6y ago
  It's not the name but how that group of people acts that gives the bad connotation. Even "Fascism" as a etimological concept has not a bad connotation ("suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break"), but as a political group which uses it to identify themselves, it really is extremly bad. Long story short: we cannot just look at the etimology of a word, we need the associated context.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    Sure, but what are "social justice warriors" doing that is so horrific that it has become an accusation rather than a political label? That is what I am getting at - the way I see it, social justice continues to mean the same thing as it always did: respect for the rights of all minorities, and a genuine desire to see an end to oppression and of the long-standing effects of oppression for all.
    - naasking 6y ago
      > the way I see it, social justice continues to mean the same thing as it always did: respect for the rights of all minorities, and a genuine desire to see an end to oppression and of the long-standing effects of oppression for all. I'm sure that's the way they see their own actions, but not everyone agrees with that framing. I'm guessing the pejorative sense comes from the tactics sometimes employed, and the way social justice goals are sometimes twisted: 1. Destroying individual lives via doxxing and twitter harassment (twitter mobs), rather than tackling powerful people or systems who benefit from or perpetuate systemic bias. 2. A hyper-focus on token gestures with no real effect, like changing technical jargon. 3. Moving the goalposts by redefining basic social justice terms in order to manufacture consent. For instance, sexism and racism. 4. The sometimes violent suppression of speech, and even basic scientific facts, with which they disagree. And more, some of which very much has the flavour of "the ends justify the means", where the ends are a moving target. For a contemporary analogy, the pejorative view might be that SJWs are to real fighters for social justice as rioters and looters are to protestors. Maybe some of the rioters and looters are just so angry at the systemic injustice that they believe that violence is their last resort, but plenty of them are just opportunists.

austinjp 6y ago

Hmm I notice the change was made to the "master" branch :/ Maybe change that to "main".

zeeZ 6y ago
Good thing I don't have a master's degree.
- lsofzz 6y ago
  > Good thing I don't have a master's degree. Hah. Exactly.

sneak 6y ago

Replacing master/slave with leader/follower makes perfect sense, given historical context. Is blacklist/whitelist inherently racist, or does it have racist origins? Try as I might I don’t see inherent bias in it.

anonfunction 6y ago
The connotation is that white is good and black is bad.
- tomp 6y ago
  Wouldn't it make more sense then to change the name of the race? "Blacks" -> "browns" or something... (and it would also be more physically accurate... same with "whites" -> "yellows" or "roses")
- rurban 6y ago
  Yes, but I don't see the correlation to any race. black is bad everywhere, probably because of its physical properties. ditto for white. Those who wish to see a racial relation are just racists, and racists should not be fed.
- j-pb 6y ago
  Which has nothing to do with race, and is heavily rooted in "light" vs. "shadow" mythology. In India it's the other way around, Asia has Ying and Yang. Changing these words is a feel good thing, that does nothing to address our internal biases, prejudices, and racism. It wastes time that could be spend on writing your senator, politician, or being active in a political party. It's a zero effort, zero stakes thing, that makes privileged people feel personal accomplishment, while allowing them to relax into complacency. "I make a million a year, and work for a company that makes money off of algorithmically radicalising people into right wing conspiracy theories, but I don't use the word white- and black-list anymore, because it reminds me of race. I did my part!"
- leg100 6y ago
  That's a connotation. Another one is that black you cannot see, white you can. Which does have some grounding in physics. And no, absolutely nothing to do with race.

Ygg2 6y ago

No master/slave? That's just bigotry against BDSM culture.

DagAgren 6y ago
No, it is not.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  I think it's 99.9% certain that GP was making a joke.
  - DagAgren 6y ago
    Yes, and it was a joke in very bad taste that belittles the very real issues people have with this.
    - Ygg2 6y ago
      Very real issues, being it offends some minority, somewhere. Guess what, everything offends some minority somewhere. In essence, I am against the policing of language to police the mind.
      - DagAgren 6y ago
        > Guess what, everything offends some minority somewhere. No. It does not. It most definitely does not. This is a lame excuse, and also a blatant lie.
        dang 6y ago
        Would you please stop using this site for political and ideological flamewar? It destroys what it's supposed to be for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You've unfortunately been doing it a lot, and we've already had to ask you to stop.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

As an immigrant, I find "Go" offensive, as it implies I am not welcome here. I would prefer another more welcoming name for the language.

jaehong 6y ago
funny!
DagAgren 6y ago
No, you do not. Do not lie to try to make a point. That does no good to anyone.

ngngngng 6y ago

I came across this sentiment on Twitter for the first time just a few hours ago today, and while it almost feels like searching for reasons to be offended (which you will always find) I'm pretty happy with the change. Allowlist/Blocklist is even more obvious than the original.

neysofu 6y ago
Deleted
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Same argument against replacing "master / slave". It's a powerful metaphor that sometimes works really well when talking about IT. Whether it works really well depends on cultural loading of the concepts in the audience, that's the nature of metaphor. Choosing terms whose cultural loading has less intense variation will result in more consistent effect.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
rowawey 6y ago
That describes most "news" and social media.. crybullies, pseudo-thin-skin, and the biggest shouters of trivialities... because outrage is the most valuable currency of virality. There are legitimate causes and actual harm that the SJWs ignore and denigrate through pettiness and demands of arbitrary, baseless conformity. As the SJWs take over, language itself will be destroyed and arbitrarily reshaped to compel everyone to practice their sanitization and control of every possible expression of thought.
- dang 6y ago
  We've banned this account for using HN for ideological flamewar and ignoring our request to stop. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

azpXXX 6y ago

Nice sideshow. Black and white people are equally screwed by corporations, but this is a cheap way of demonstrating virtue and creating dissent among the plebs. Two minutes later they'll continue to track you or sink your small business by an algorithm mistake.

profunctor 6y ago
Are black and white people equally screwed by corporations? Wage theft seems like something that would happen more to poorer people for example and class has a racial component. Additionally workers in the global south, predominantly non-white are totally abused by these large corporations.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  In absolute terms, white people are screwed up more as they have more money. Not sure if it matters really.

yyyymmddhhmmss 6y ago

Should have used boss/worker instead of leader/follower.

skocznymroczny 6y ago

"It's clear that there are people who are hurt by them and who are made to feel unwelcome by their use due not to technical reasons but to their historical and social context." Any people that aren't white liberals?

mikevm 6y ago
Probably not.

kbumsik 6y ago

There is nothing wrong with the change, but I personally not sure if "slave" offends someone. "slave" does not represent a social group anymore.

mfontani 6y ago
This might surprise/enlighten you, then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#Contemporary_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#Contemporary_slavery
- kbumsik 6y ago
  OMG, there're still many of them. Thanks for the link.
colinjoy 6y ago
“The International Labour Organization[5] estimates that, by their definitions, over 40 million people are in some form of slavery today. 24.9 million people are in forced labor, of whom 16 million people are exploited in the private sector such as domestic work, construction or agriculture; 4.8 million persons in forced sexual exploitation, and 4 million persons in forced labor imposed by state authorities. 15.4 million people are in forced marriage.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
- luckylion 6y ago
  You're suggesting that the actual slaves take issue with the usage of the word "slave" in tech?
  - austinjp 6y ago
    I don't think this is the thrust of the issue, but since you mention it, yes. I'm pretty sure someone who lives in modern slavery would find it sickening to learn that the word "slave" is used casually without consideration for those it describes. But we all know the historical role of slavery in many cultures, and the legacy it has left in current life, which is more the issue. It's a selfish and unjustifiable situation to be in, where one group of people casually uses language that describes a different group in questionable terms without considering how the other group might feel. It's trivial to implement. Questioning it is a hair's breadth from defending it.

Tade0 6y ago

I'm conflicted about this, because on one hand I don't enjoy Americans exporting their notion of racism (which is historically loaded and makes sense only in the context of US history), on the other hand I'm writing this on an American site using software developed mostly by Americans etc. So I guess it's "take it or leave it".

hellofunk 6y ago
> makes sense only in the context of US history Sorry but I must disagree. The U.S. slave era was not uniquely American. Who operated those slave ships to "import" the blacks from Africa? It wasn't the Americans. No, the Dutch had a big role, as did other cultures. And as the protests around the world have demonstrated, racial discrimination is a global issue with similar problems in many countries to what you see happening in the States.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
Yes, I think it's important to remember - both for American as well as outsiders - that racism-related notions are different and sometimes are completely alien in other countries/cultures. For example, some Americans believe that racism doesn't include prejudices towards the dominant "race"/ethnicity, and find it offensive to even suggest that it might be so (some even invented the term "inverse racism" for that). For example, the racist implications of painting one's face black are so alien in other cultures that every few years there is a big storm about someone doing blackface in Europe, having no idea it will offend Americans (recently it was Gigi Hadid in Vogue Italy). For example, as an European, when someone says "slave", I immediately think about ancient Rome. To think that in the USA you had slaves only recently always strikes me as really strange. To say nothing about the segregation period quite recently. In any case, I still wonder: you can remove these words from software and try to banish their current metaphorical usage. But will it really make a difference to your history? These seems like nervous attempts at "making everything right" in a situation where no right can be made - at least there is no easy way to do so.

tkfu 6y ago

Good for them! When it was first pointed out to me that these terms feel harmful for many, I rolled my eyes a little bit. But after thinking about it for a while, a few things became clear: (1) There's no particular reason to start using the terms in a new project (2) Leader/follower is much more accurate and clear than master/slave in basically every way (3) It's a lot less difficult than I originally thought to fix legacy docs and code with nicer language (4) The fact that master/slave has never bothered me personally has absolutely zero bearing on whether I should support their continued use.

abafazi 6y ago
On (2), leader/follower isn't clear to me what it means
hliyan 6y ago
I initially rolled my eyes too, but if there's one thing I learned in the last two weeks is that you can't "imagine" how something is perceived by a member of a persecuted minority. No amount of thought experimentation can reproduce a lifetime of experiences that hurt your self-worth. That said, leader/follower and allowlist/blocklist are both better than the older terms in every way. The represent the actual mechanisms better and they're less metaphorical.
- david38 6y ago
  That’s absolutely false. It’s gatekeeping, pure and simple. I’m a guy, so I can’t imagine the pain of pregnancy? I had a large kidney stone once. The female doctor who had two children of her own told me that I experienced was more painful by a good bit than a pregnancy. I’m also Hispanic, from a super high crime rate country. You think I don’t know what fear is, fear of random government kidnappings, fear of cartel kidnappings? Trust me, I do. Racism? Check. Genocide? Check. Now should I be able to tell my white friends they can’t imagine what I’ve felt? Bullshit. I suppose SpaceX couldn’t imagine a self landing rocket either. They absolutely can imagine it. Maybe some people can’t imagine it. Maybe some people are so closed off they really can’t try to put themselves in that position. But everyone? Nah. It used to be guys were told they couldn’t imagine what it was like being a woman. It was their reserved space, so the gatekeepers claimed. Then trans became more of a thing. Suddenly it was politically incorrect to say these guys couldn’t imagine being a woman when they had been thinking about it for years.

bmurphy1976 6y ago

I started replacing master/slave with primary/secondary in my code 20 years ago. I was never happy with the terminology (been programming for over 30 years now, didn't like it what when I was 14, still don't like it at 44). As for blacklist/whitelist, my first thought was that I'd change it to allowlist/blocklist and sure enough that's exactly what they did. There's nothing wrong with this change. If you have a problem with it you need to look deep inside yourself and reexamine your own biases. That's where the real problem lies.

magicalhippo 6y ago
> I started replacing master/slave with primary/secondary in my code 20 years ago. But primary/secondary doesn't mean the same as master/slave. Consider master/slave from say i2c protocol. Switching to primary/secondary would completely obscure what is going on, you might as well call them apple/orange, while with master and slave it is very clear.
- lowmagnet 6y ago
  The changes in code in this case concerned the terminal package, which was changed from 'master/slave' to 'pty/procTTY', which are more accurate terms.
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    I replied to the part I quoted. The renaming from master/slave to pty/procTTY might be a good change in that specific case.
- dtech 6y ago
  Would leader/follower work in this context? I find it difficult to think of a context where they aren't similar enough to be replacements. Sure you can nitpick about how strict the leader/follower relationship is, but master/slave doesn't necessarily tell you that accurately either.
  - 6y ago

bambam24 6y ago

This is common practice already I can say at least 10 years.

Yajirobe 6y ago

By removing 'master/slave' you are inadvertently implying that 'master=white, slave=black' - that is to say, by removing the words you are perpetuating the problem. If you're going that route, why not get rid of 'kill', 'abort', etc.?

nindalf 6y ago
Sounds like "if you're fixing this one thing, why not fix everything? And if you can't fix everything, why fix anything?" No. We can fix things one at a time. Master/slave doesn't upset me but it does upset some people. Ok, if they're willing to put in the effort to update the code and all the docs then I'm willing to adopt the new terminology. If you can make a bona fide case that 'kill' or something else upsets you and I'm convinced that you're sincere, and you have a superior alternative like 'leader/follower', you'll have my support to make a similar change.
- lsofzz 6y ago
  > No. We can fix things one at a time. Master/slave doesn't upset me but it does upset some people. Ok, if they're willing to put in the effort to update the code and all the docs then I'm willing to adopt the new terminology. I have nothing against change but _context_ matters. When I read about `pty` masters or slaves, I think of pseudo-terminals not humans.
- Yajirobe 6y ago
  So just because some people find it offensive, it's a reason to change the terminology?
temptemptemp111 6y ago
These racists just "blacklisted" "slave" hahahaha You can't cure stupid. Just start firing these liars before they create laws stating one of them will have to be in every company. #Communism #inclusion #diversity
netsharc 6y ago
Geez... how about seeing it as them wanting to remove references to slavery in general?

raverbashing 6y ago

From the file changes it is not very clear in which context these words are used. I mean, if it was a library or a DB sure, but these seem to be more in the language core.

slim 6y ago

This is just stupid. Words are polysemic, they have multiple meanings depending on their context, but more importantly they don't have any meaning outside any context. Words are offensive because their context is offensive. If you don't change the context, you don't solve the problem. I've never thought master/slave offensive in the context of computers. Those words imposed their inoffensive meaning in the culture of computer users for half a century. Now they just ruined it, they actually changed the context to make those words offensive again. Sometimes you just have to fight the cultural battle.

tyleo 6y ago
I agree that the context determines the intent to offend but I think some words may be offensive or at least distracting to some despite the context. If you have seen a word used in a certain context enough it can become difficult to ignore that context in other uses. Similarly, after watching an actor play a role well it may be hard to separate them from that role while watching other movies. It may also be useful to imagine master/slave replaced with words that are offensive to you to imagine what it’s like for someone else. For example, if they were called pimp/bitch servers I’m sure others would find that offensive. Different sets of words will be offensive to different individuals. I’m sure we could find 2 words which are less offensive to all.
Frost1x 6y ago
Definitely. And "blacklist"/"whitelist" is used for a lot of contexts outside computing that have, to my understanding, not even a historic relation to racism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting#Origins_of_the_term https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting#Origins_of_the_... What's next, blackboards and whiteboards? What about red-black trees? Do we really need to shuffle around well established non-offensive terms just because they have a color in their names? If there was some truly offensive embedding in our nomenclature im all for removing it but this seems like a silly PR stunt. We're turning completely benign ideas into something offensive.
effie 6y ago
Very well said! I might add, some people seem to look for things to get offended by just to bamboozle others into thinking they deserve special treatment and as a result, gain some political power.

bavdc 6y ago

Let's organize a nationwide demonstration with public burning of MasterCards [tm].

npiit 6y ago

This is insanity. In our search for justice we've become tyrants and irrational ourselves. This is like the French revolution or the Russian revolution but without blood. But the tyranny of the virtue signaling and political correctness has gone to an insane level. How the hell is whitelist/blacklist master/slave offensive? I have a dark skin and I never even thought of that before those SJWs infiltrated tech with their lousiness. Should we then stop using USB? Maybe USB is racist and offensive even though it was designed by an Indian engineer? As far as I know it uses slave/master terminology in its specs, as well as many other communication protocols. What about other terms? I develop Kubernetes controllers and I use extensively the terms `oldObject` and `newObject` after a resource is updated to compare the `Spec` field. I don't like the word `old` and I find it offensive to old people. How about that? Also why should arrays keep the order of objects? Why should the objects pushed first remain first? isn't that offensive and unfair to objects that were pushed later?

zeeZ 6y ago
If you really wanted to you could probably label male and female connectors as sexist and the act of using them rape. I think that's both insanity and distracting/undermining the real problems actual humans have.
- npiit 6y ago
  The term master/slave of all terms is widely used and established in many fields of EE and CS especially in networking. I was exposed to it since I was a college student endless times and never ever thought of it having any kind of racist meaning, and again, I have a dark skin myself. The term is used in thousands of seminal textbooks and published papers by many great scientists who worked for decades and retired without even thinking that this term could map to the history of racism in the US or anywhere else. What's next? should we organize book burning parties and burn the textbooks of Leslie Lamport and Donald Knuth because they contained the master/slave term? These lousy radical groups are only brave at the things that don't fight back and are very dedicated to solving non problems and the rest of us is obliged to either bow to their irrational nonsense or labeled as racist by their primitive mob mentality.

tomp 6y ago

Slavery is only bad if the slaves are people (or, generally, any self-aware entity with its own agency). I, as a human, love being a master to my computer slaves.

wahern 6y ago
There are animal rights advocates offended by usage of the terms master and owner when referring to an animal's guardian--their preferred term.
- tomp 6y ago
  Why would I (or anyone else) care? The important question is, are the animals offended? Besides, I think owner is the correct legal term - if you own an animal, you're responsible for it (and for any harm it might do to others).

onikolas7 6y ago

My least favorite tech term is "infant mortality"[1] from reliability engineering. Just very bad naming taste. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

austinjp 6y ago

ITT: reductio ad absurdam.

taylodl 6y ago

I’ve been using the term controller/worker since the 80s as have many others. It also better connotes what’s going on. I do like allowlist/blocklist. Though blocklist sounds really close to blacklist. Maybe we should use denylist instead?

wahern 6y ago
deny has 4 letters, while allow and block have 5. Having the same number of letters for the variable component(s) of a set of interface names is quite convenient.

flippinburgers 6y ago

This shows a strange inability to differentiate between computers and humans.

lol139189 6y ago

Enjoy another four years of Trump - that's what all these public purity tests and struggle sessions are bringing you towards. Unless you finally manage to get rid of private elections, that is. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me.

bassman9000 6y ago

I mean, if we're nitpicking Anyway, allowlist and blocklist are more self-explanatory than whitelist and blacklist, so this change has negative cost. No, it does not. All changes have cost. They just can't see it now, or chose not to see it now. Aside from the obvious cost in the very same patchset.

zeroimpl 6y ago

It seems to me that if they had used those replacements names in the first place, nobody would have ever submitted a PR to change them to master/slave or blacklist/whitelist. Thus most people complaining are just making a fuss over nothing.