4 ms·

>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 re

by 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 ago
And 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.
- ivojp 6y ago
  This is patently false. Anecdotally, I've never heard of CS students having trouble over figuring out what the terms mean, and furthermore, these are not strictly CS/software engineering terms. These terms appear in the dictionary (at least on Merriam Webster). If your students are having issue figuring them out, I'd encourage them to use a dictionary before arbitrarily and unnecessarily relating them to race.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    Anecdotally I have heard of students having trouble figuring out what the terms mean. You're even admitting it yourself -- if you have to rely on looking them up in the dictionary then it's obvious they aren't obvious terms! No one has to look up "allowlist" and "denylist" because they do exactly what they say on the tin. You have yet to give one valid argument as to how "whitelist" and "blacklist" are better, and indeed, have unintentionally given one argument as to how they are worse. And yes, they are strictly engineering terms. Merely appearing in a dictionary doesn't mean they aren't. Most technical words are in the dictionary despite not being used outside their fields, e.g. here's one: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stator https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stator
    - ivojp 6y ago
      I think it's a misrepresentation of my argument to say that because I mentioned that they appear in the dictionary that I am conceding that they are not good terms (although by your exclamation point at the end I am reading that part as well-intended banter). I'll say this to clarify since I do not believe you are making this argument but having to look up a word should not be the barrier to whether or not a word is used. They are better because they are well understood and agreed upon terms. I'll also reiterate that the terms are not engineering specific; wikipedia has sources cited so hopefully this will suffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting
    - erik_seaberg 6y ago
      Are there college students who don't know the history of the Red Scare and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist ?
      - lern_too_spel 6y ago
        Yes. Not all college students are from the US.
  - happytoexplain 6y ago
    You mean the parent is arguably false. Truth-keeping aside, you're saying that people working in contexts where blacklist/whitelist are used, after they have learned the terms, now know those terms, whereas they don't yet know the terms allowlist/blocklist, since they've never heard them. Of course this is obvious, and not what the parent is saying. The parent is saying that, given equal opportunity, one is more semantically explicit than the other. We see this argument often: Naming things, as it goes, is the hardest problem, and when somebody thinks of a better name, there is understandable friction against switching because the previous name is entrenched in practice. This is the argument being had (in this specific thread of a few comments), and you should attempt to have it.
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      Good summary, 100% agree with all of this. And I'd add that the friction of switching to allowlist/denylist, at least for new projects, is very low, because the terms are obvious on their face. Once you've seen them once you know what they mean.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - modzu 6y ago
      but any linguist can tell you that is not how language works. words are NOT their etymology. and words are as much about their sound as any potential explicit connotations
ivojp 6y ago
It is arguably more bad faith to assume the criticism is legitimate. Its at best intellectually dishonest and at worst condescending/arrogant to assume people can't not form racist views because they can't figure out the context when someone uses the name of a color. Am I supposed to mince words with my doctor when I am trying to describe the appearance of my severe frost bite? I don't think any of my black friends would take offense to me saying "my toes are black, this isn't good."
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  >assume people can't not form racist views because they can't figure out the context when someone uses the name of a color. The parent did not do this. It sounds like you've constructed an exaggerated version of a potential assumption somebody other than the parent could make: That a particular person may be feigning "not knowing" what the terms means, which frankly is not surprising, considering how incredibly bitter some people feel about these terms, but of course neither is it surprising to sincerely not know what they mean, since they are new terms, regardless of how explicit they are (you need at least a modicum of context if you've never heard them before). So the person you're attacking surely exists (a person who would make this accusation in every case, with no benefit of the doubt ever given), but that person is not here, nor could we know if they are here given the limited sample size of chances they have in this thread to express such an uncharity. As for your frostbite example, obviously nobody seeks to control the reality of what color frostbite is. I feel like you may have jumped the gun on that analogy.
  - ivojp 6y ago
    If not for the racial context, what other motivation would there be to change the terms? In what other context would someone object to arbitrarily assigning one color as good and one color as bad? Had they historically been called bluelist and purplelist, I do not think anyone would honestly argue that there would be such demand for changing the names. It's also unproductive on your part to say that we can't make safe assumptions. The post that I replied to mentioned that people don't like the terminology because it relates white to good and black to bad. That is obviously a response to the racially charged times. To claim otherwise is to lie. I find it doubtful any major tech companies (or anyone for that matter) were discussing changes these terms because they are more "semantically explicit" before 2020 and were not doing so in response to some ill-assigned racial undertones that do not actually exist. As far as jumping the gun, it is not as absurd an argument as you are characterizing it to be. People do seek control the context in which white and black can be used. The terms whitelist and blacklist are generally accepted and people have little trouble deducing their meaning. Colors do have cultural meaning outside of race - brides generally wear white dresses, people wear black to a funeral, black ties are considered formal, etc.

by Inityx 6y ago

CydeWeys 6y ago

And 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.

ivojp 6y ago
This is patently false. Anecdotally, I've never heard of CS students having trouble over figuring out what the terms mean, and furthermore, these are not strictly CS/software engineering terms. These terms appear in the dictionary (at least on Merriam Webster). If your students are having issue figuring them out, I'd encourage them to use a dictionary before arbitrarily and unnecessarily relating them to race.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Anecdotally I have heard of students having trouble figuring out what the terms mean. You're even admitting it yourself -- if you have to rely on looking them up in the dictionary then it's obvious they aren't obvious terms! No one has to look up "allowlist" and "denylist" because they do exactly what they say on the tin. You have yet to give one valid argument as to how "whitelist" and "blacklist" are better, and indeed, have unintentionally given one argument as to how they are worse. And yes, they are strictly engineering terms. Merely appearing in a dictionary doesn't mean they aren't. Most technical words are in the dictionary despite not being used outside their fields, e.g. here's one: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stator https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stator
  - ivojp 6y ago
    I think it's a misrepresentation of my argument to say that because I mentioned that they appear in the dictionary that I am conceding that they are not good terms (although by your exclamation point at the end I am reading that part as well-intended banter). I'll say this to clarify since I do not believe you are making this argument but having to look up a word should not be the barrier to whether or not a word is used. They are better because they are well understood and agreed upon terms. I'll also reiterate that the terms are not engineering specific; wikipedia has sources cited so hopefully this will suffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting
  - erik_seaberg 6y ago
    Are there college students who don't know the history of the Red Scare and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist ?
    - lern_too_spel 6y ago
      Yes. Not all college students are from the US.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  You mean the parent is arguably false. Truth-keeping aside, you're saying that people working in contexts where blacklist/whitelist are used, after they have learned the terms, now know those terms, whereas they don't yet know the terms allowlist/blocklist, since they've never heard them. Of course this is obvious, and not what the parent is saying. The parent is saying that, given equal opportunity, one is more semantically explicit than the other. We see this argument often: Naming things, as it goes, is the hardest problem, and when somebody thinks of a better name, there is understandable friction against switching because the previous name is entrenched in practice. This is the argument being had (in this specific thread of a few comments), and you should attempt to have it.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    Good summary, 100% agree with all of this. And I'd add that the friction of switching to allowlist/denylist, at least for new projects, is very low, because the terms are obvious on their face. Once you've seen them once you know what they mean.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - modzu 6y ago
    but any linguist can tell you that is not how language works. words are NOT their etymology. and words are as much about their sound as any potential explicit connotations

ivojp 6y ago

It is arguably more bad faith to assume the criticism is legitimate. Its at best intellectually dishonest and at worst condescending/arrogant to assume people can't not form racist views because they can't figure out the context when someone uses the name of a color. Am I supposed to mince words with my doctor when I am trying to describe the appearance of my severe frost bite? I don't think any of my black friends would take offense to me saying "my toes are black, this isn't good."

happytoexplain 6y ago
>assume people can't not form racist views because they can't figure out the context when someone uses the name of a color. The parent did not do this. It sounds like you've constructed an exaggerated version of a potential assumption somebody other than the parent could make: That a particular person may be feigning "not knowing" what the terms means, which frankly is not surprising, considering how incredibly bitter some people feel about these terms, but of course neither is it surprising to sincerely not know what they mean, since they are new terms, regardless of how explicit they are (you need at least a modicum of context if you've never heard them before). So the person you're attacking surely exists (a person who would make this accusation in every case, with no benefit of the doubt ever given), but that person is not here, nor could we know if they are here given the limited sample size of chances they have in this thread to express such an uncharity. As for your frostbite example, obviously nobody seeks to control the reality of what color frostbite is. I feel like you may have jumped the gun on that analogy.
- ivojp 6y ago
  If not for the racial context, what other motivation would there be to change the terms? In what other context would someone object to arbitrarily assigning one color as good and one color as bad? Had they historically been called bluelist and purplelist, I do not think anyone would honestly argue that there would be such demand for changing the names. It's also unproductive on your part to say that we can't make safe assumptions. The post that I replied to mentioned that people don't like the terminology because it relates white to good and black to bad. That is obviously a response to the racially charged times. To claim otherwise is to lie. I find it doubtful any major tech companies (or anyone for that matter) were discussing changes these terms because they are more "semantically explicit" before 2020 and were not doing so in response to some ill-assigned racial undertones that do not actually exist. As far as jumping the gun, it is not as absurd an argument as you are characterizing it to be. People do seek control the context in which white and black can be used. The terms whitelist and blacklist are generally accepted and people have little trouble deducing their meaning. Colors do have cultural meaning outside of race - brides generally wear white dresses, people wear black to a funeral, black ties are considered formal, etc.