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Your calendar should be an allowlist, not a blocklist
- mcrittenden 6y agoSubmitted here yesterday, but it was removed very quickly, presumably because it originally said "blacklist" and "whitelist": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24043175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24043175 EDIT: Looks like this post is marked as [flagged] now.
- coolspot 6y agoThat post doesn’t seem to be removed though? Just lacks upvotes to be on the front page.
- readarticle 6y agoThis site gives me such major deja vu that I’m genuinely beginning to question my memory seeing shit like this. I swear I read this exact same thread yesterday about the repost, I swear I read this exact same fucking comment yesterday but it says coolspot posted it 10 minutes ago. Am I going insane?
- mcrittenden 6y agoUm, yeah, author here, and I'm not sure what is going on. I posted this yesterday (over 24h ago) but now it says it was posted 3 hours ago. Maybe a moderator renewed it or something? Is that possible?
- detaro 6y ago> Maybe a moderator renewed it or something? Is that possible? Yes, but I would have expected that they sent you an email about that. (the post ID in the url is also clearly out of order compared to other submissions from today - which is exactly what happens if mods bump it)
- dang 6y agoWe don't always send an email, just sometimes. Usually when I happen to think of it.
- dang 6y agoSorry - you're running into the glitch in the Matrix which is HN timestamp relativization on re-upped threads. More explanation at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19774614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19774614. It leads to occasional confusion, but we haven't figured out a better way, and not doing it leads to worse confusion. You can always see the original timestamp via URLs other than the front page and the /item page. For example https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=mcrittenden https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=mcrittenden shows the comment you were talking about as "1 day ago", and https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=critter.blog https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=critter.blog (which you can get at by clicking on the domain in the title) shows the same for the submission.
- dkdk8283 6y agoSomething that shouldn’t have happened here IMO.
- bbotond 6y agoHacker News is the last place I would expect that to happen. Maybe it was removed for some other readon.
- mcrittenden 6y agoTo be clear, I mean that my guess is that it was auto-removed because it got flagged by users for that reason.
- happytoexplain 6y agoThat's quite a "presumably".
- CydeWeys 6y agoNow this one has disappeared off the front page too. I think it's being removed by automod because most of the comments are turning into downvote-heavy low-quality bickering over use of the terms allowlist/denylist vs whitelist/blacklist. Automod tends to disfavor posts with comment sections that turn into bickering (which is roughly approximated by ratio of downvotes to upvotes). EDIT: Aaaaand now it's flagged. I don't know it automod does that too, or if that's explicitly a user thing, or even a mod thing. I wonder if users who don't like the terms are flagging it?
- happytoexplain 6y ago>users who don't like the terms are flagging it? Charitably, it's been flagged by users who don't like the terms and/or don't like the quality of the discussion of the terms. I think it's a shame that so many simple disagreements have to be so bitterly socio-political.
- CydeWeys 6y agoYeah, that too. I just wish we could get past the transitional reactionary phase already, wherein the mere use of these new phrases triggers endless arguments, and people (who clearly know what the terms mean) can just get over it and let them pass without content. Maybe the mods should step in with some guidance. They already don't like extended discussions of politics because it devolves into flame wars too easily; maybe they should enforce the same on discussions of whitelist/blacklist/master/slave/etc terminology? Like, just let people use the new terms, no arguing about it?
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoI think that rule would be pretty widely considered unacceptable, since it would also prohibit comments like "hey, you should use 'allowlist' rather than 'whitelist'". It's not an issue that many people are willing to accept neutrality on these days.
- ok123456 6y agoWhat's an allowlist?
- Rebelgecko 6y agoAn alternative term for a wh*telist
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- frodo_77 6y agoWhy is the asterisk (*) symbol often used in the middle of words these days? I didn't get the memo when this trend started.
- whatshisface 6y agoThe asterisk is often used to mince profane words, and I guess wh* te and bl* ck are profane now... Or at least that's what the parent comment is implying. (Personally I disagree.)
- anewone 6y agoIt's just a censor.
- klyrs 6y agoPeople have been spelling brainfuck as brainf*ck, or similar, since at least 2001 (the earliest date my lazy-a$s search yielded)
- ThA0x2 6y agoWhitelist. You can spell it out here. Not everyone here is a deranged, neurotic leftist that can't handle the words "whitelist" and "blacklist".
- 6y ago
- trefil 6y agoDo you mean whitelist?
- macinjosh 6y agoYes, this is the correct term.
- happytoexplain 6y agoNote well that the style of snarky attack in this post and the parent is how you drive people away from your "side" who normally didn't have strong feelings either way.
- macinjosh 6y agoI am not on a ‘side’. In fact there are no sides here. There is reality where these are common words that mean specific things. And then there is a mass hallucination that the compound words consisting of “black” and “white” preceding the word “list” is somehow an underhanded racial slight.
- radegast 6y agoMind sharing which authority decided this, comrade? Was it the Central Committee or the General Secretary themselves? Спасибо. Hasta la victoria siempre!
- Markoffee 6y agoWhy did they change the whitelist blacklist thing. Isn't that a bit silly to be pedantic about?
- dustinroepsch 6y agoIf it's silly to be pedantic about it, isn't it also silly to leave a comment discussing a change to it?
- chobanga 6y ago>> If it's silly to be pedantic about it, isn't it also silly to leave a comment discussing a change to it? Seriously commenting on the futility of a silly a comment raises the silly by an order of magnitude. Atomic bits of maoism in a vacumn seem silly, but the long term effects on culture and discourse are toxic even if they were wrought by well meaning but ultimately silly people in an act of semantically and historically incorrect overreach. Fortunately we have both dry erase boards and a chalkboards to keep track of such things.
- Inityx 6y ago>Fortunately we have both dry erase boards and a chalkboards to keep track of such things. What an incredibly bad-faith argument. Whiteboard and blackboard refer to the physical color of the board. The reason people don't like white/black list terminology is that it means white = good and black = bad. Please do not straw-man legitimate criticism if you can avoid it.
- CydeWeys 6y agoAnd to be clear, allowlist and denylist are better terms because they are more descriptive. It's not obvious why a whitelist would be the list of what's accepted and a blacklist the list of what's denied; you just have to memorize them (and this causes confusion in CS 101 classes every year). So the new terms are flat-out better, and should be accepted on that merit alone regardless of any of the other connotations involved.
- bauc 6y agoI agree with the premise, but it depends on your workplace. I struggle with colleagues who don't even both checking if the spot is available.
- jdechko 6y agoThat’s one of the problems I have with some of the “productivity culture” blogs (and podcasts). They’re great for independents, very small businesses and executives who have that level of control. If I told my boss that I was only available during certain “office hours” to accept meetings, I’d quickly be out of a job. No, the best that I can do that fits in the work culture is to block out a few “GTD” (actually I call them “GSD/Get Shit Done”)hours at strategic times during the week. I want to point out that I do attempt Inbox Zero because it’s a method for dealing with a problem that’s within my control but also within “normal” working parameters.
- tobib 6y ago> I struggle with colleagues who don't even both checking if the spot is available. I had the same issue in my last job at a large enterprise. What I found out was that many people actually didn't know how to use that feature.
- BrandoElFollito 6y agoI guess you mean "bother". If so, I do not bother to decline such a meeting, I just do not show up.
- seism 6y agoTools like Calendly do a reasonably good job of making an allowlist out of your calendar. Put them in your email sig and generally teach people to use it.
- muttled 6y agoI wonder how to make that work in a larger organization where people would just see your Outlook calendar in the scheduling assistant. Does Calendly or any product block that off for you?
- fragmede 6y agoCalendly has Calendar integration so it checks your {Outlook,Google} calendar for free times (within the office hours specified in Calendly), and also adds an event to the configured {Outlook,Google} calendar to avoid double-booking.
- barbacoa 6y agoAllowlist isnt even a word.
- ronenlh 6y agoIt's now the PC version of whitelist
- yelloworangefog 6y agoDon’t contribute to this newspeak fad please.
- majewsky 6y ago> The solution should be office hours. You should be able to say say “I’m free for meetings from 2-5pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and if you want to talk to me then that’s when you can.” In most companies, doing that would make you an annoyance. Those companies don’t respect Deep Work. No, the main reason would be that it becomes impossible to schedule meetings when everyone only has that few arbitrarily selected office hours. It might work when everyone in the team agrees to the same office hours, but even then, how do you schedule meetings to align between teams with different office hours?
- CydeWeys 6y agoI guess the "office hours" have to be for 1-on-1s only, and then large meetings with many participants can be scheduled whenever.
- rsj_hn 6y agoI permanently block off time for focused work, at least half a day each day, alternating mornings and afternoons, and one full day a week, meaning I have 4*4 = 16 hours available for meetings each week, and 24 hours available for work. In those situations -- which happen maybe twice a year -- when a team meeting happens in the time blocked off, I flip it. So, if I have the morning blocked off for work and a meeting that I have to attend is in the morning, I block off the afternoon for work and cancel existing appointments, of course with apologies. That's pretty rare. For anyone else outside my team or group that I work with normally, I tell them my calendar is open and they can book a time whenever I'm free. I also urge people to use email when they think it's possible, since a lot things can be handled more efficiently async via email than via a meeting. A meeting is sometimes required, but it shouldn't be the automatic first choice. I went over this plan with my manager and he thought it a great idea. Personally, I've found it significantly increases my productivity. All of this is a function of the corporate culture where you work, and I am not suggesting that you adopt practices that go against your company's culture, but the fact of the matter is that long periods of focused work are required to make big contributions, and if your corporate culture doesn't allow it, you may want to look elsewhere to make a big impact.
- notacoward 6y agoI'm not necessarily against the idea, but I suspect that it would exacerbate existing issues with team members in different time zones. For example, I work on the US east coast and everyone else in my team is on the west coast - a difference of three hours. My coworkers already tend to be unreachable or uncommunicative in their mornings. If they were to follow the advice in this article, they would almost certainly formalize that by limiting their "allow" time to their afternoon. Since I already end my own "allow" time at dinner, that only leaves about two hours a day when the two overlap. Even if they didn't consistently fill those two hours with meetings among themselves within their own time zone, that wouldn't be enough. It's why I have a 6:30pm meeting this evening, which is super unwelcome but it's what I have to do. At least it's not on a Friday this time. This situation would be even worse with a five- or eight-hour time difference. I don't think this system can work if everyone can just arbitrarily choose which hours to leave open, on a team distributed across time zones. There would have to be some kind of rules to ensure sufficient overlap. That means some people might not get the absolutely perfect schedule they wanted, but too bad. Be adults. Better for everyone to make some accommodation than to force everyone in the minority time zone to work majority-time-zone hours - which is basically what I see happening to everyone in my situation. We don't need to make that worse.
- s9w 6y agoSo he caved to the violent mob and literally had them change the words from his mouth. Is this really a good thing? whitelist blacklist master slave sane healthy father
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bengale 6y agoBut what of the middle managers who depend on filling their calendars back to back with meetings so they can pretend their job isn’t meaningless.
- impendia 6y agoNaive question, coming from an academic. How common is the phenomenon that the blog is posting about? Where everyone in a company can unilaterally block off a meeting with anyone else? I'm astonished that anyone would put up with this. Maybe I should count myself lucky.
- mandelbrotwurst 6y agoIn my experience at least, it's never been that anyone can truly unilaterally schedule a meeting. Instead, it's that anyone can propose a meeting with anyone else at any time, which people end up feeling obligated to accept for a variety of social and political reasons. I agree that there is a common tendency for folks to schedule more meetings than would be most efficient, and that there are a variety of reasons why this is the case. I’m not so sure that having every employee in to set office hours outside of which no one else may invite them to a meeting is the correct solution. I could imagine it being fairly likely that you might end up in a scenario in which this system makes it impossible to schedule meetings with many groups of people. Meeting time is expensive for both individuals and the company, but some amount of meetings can be worthwhile! Ideally both inviters and invitees attempt to consider as many of the trade-offs involved as possible, and are able to do all of send, receive, accept, and reject, and propose alternatives to invitations as needed.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Does your company have a culture of letting everyone see each other’s calendars? Do people often schedule meetings whenever there are openings, without asking? > If so, your calendar is a blocklist. Sure, but what is this “schedule meetings, without asking”? Sending out meeting requests is asking. Having open calendars gives people a better first-glance idea of times that are likely to be acceptable and times that aren't.
- iamthemonster 6y agoI was also a bit puzzled that blocking out time for yourself to work at your desk as considered a "crappy workaround". But then apparently the solution is to have 2pm-5pm as "office hours", which is precisely equivalent to blocking 9am-2pm as "desk work". Booking time for jobs in your own calendar is a simple solution. If someone tries to book over the top of it, you just click "propose new time" to your next available slot. I do get frustrated when my slightly more senior managers just have a month ahead booked out in their calendar, and I just need a 15-minute chat to get approval for something to keep me moving along.
- yellowapple 6y agoIt probably depends on company culture, but I can definitely envision situations where the meeting "request" is less of an actual request and more of a "this meeting is scheduled whether you like it or not".