7 ms·

The company I work for did something similar at the end of last year. We had consultants who went over everything, and made a massive document of all sorts of t

The company I work for did something similar at the end of last year. We had consultants who went over everything, and made a massive document of all sorts of things they deemed "problematic". Along with a week long of seminars/training/workshops on sensitivity/inclusion/etc. - Everyone had to list what pronouns they wanted people to use. In slack / our email footers everything. This was not optional. We were also told that referring to people by their names instead of pronouns can be offensive. - Words such as "master", "owner", among some other ones were deemed problematic and needed to be changed. Ironically they also said use of "CRUD" was inappropriate because it was slang for poop. - We have a bunch of things where we have an owner of users/reports/etc, and we have a bunch of code with stuff like "listUsersOwnedByUser", which apparently could be construed as offensive by certain groups of people. - A bunch of verbs such as "see", or "visible" could be ablest, etc. - Our company had a completely optional get out/get exercising type of thing since everyone is WFH, and apparently exercise could be considered offensive to people. - Our company of 300 people does not have some sort of LGBTQIA+ outreach program. Some of it made sense, but a lot of it was frankly so nitpicky and difficult to even understand. Pretty much everything we were told/taught went out the window almost immediately.

ttt0 6y ago
> Words such as "master", "owner", among some other ones were deemed problematic and needed to be changed. This is slippery slope happening right before your eyes. For those who claimed that slippery slope is just a fallacy and never ever can be true. When did Github change the default branch name from "master" to "main"? Few months ago? Now it's "owner" too, and using this word probably could get you in some real trouble. I'm not even going to comment on "see" and "visible".
- interestica 6y ago
  chmod 755
- Azeralthefallen 6y ago
  It is already difficult enough to come up with naming things that makes sense. I kind of get "master" when used in the context, however things like "owner" i struggle extremely hard with. Especially since major companies like Microsoft use it. I remember asking what did they suggest instead of owner, and they basically gave a list of synonyms that frankly did not really work the same way, or are insanely long e.g. "Primary Account Holder".
  - Solvitieg 6y ago
    I'm surprised I haven't seen "trunk" be suggested more as it works well with the branching analogy. It's used by SVN but I don't think that should matter.
  - morpheuskafka 6y ago
    "Primary Account Holder" -- have they never heard of the word "slaveholder"? And of all things, I would think a financial context, which is completely based on the ownership of property, would be OK with the word owner.
- ncann 6y ago
  Every time I see a project on GitHub being pressured to change a term because of PC a little of me die inside. I still remember the PR where someone changed the term master to primary in Swift and Chris Lattner wrote a comment to object, only to delete it shortly after likely due to pressure. It's a shame we can't stand up against bullshits like that because there's too much to lose.
- awb 6y ago
  DBs used to be master/slave. Should we keep that naming so as not to participate in a slippery slope? It’s a fine line between a slippery slope and progress. I remember in the 80s and 90s when older generations would complain that they couldn’t gay bash anymore. They thought it was a slippery slope that if they were forced to respect homosexuals, they’d be forced to respect other types of behavior they deemed immoral. Turns out it was just progress. Recently, I noticed that I would refer to adult females as “girls” and adult males as “men”. I want to be careful with that in the future and try to change because I’ve been called out a few times and I can see how it’s disrespectful. And I don’t want to be those adults from the 80s I saw so resistant to change. I guess I try to view it as each year brings new ways of communicating and interacting. It’s OK that I wrote master/slave years ago and it’s OK that I’d never allow that in my code base now. We’re all trying to be better and that means change. I’m glad folks are sounding the alarm because we don’t want to be complacent, but not every new social norm is suppressive either.
  - etchalon 6y ago
    I often think about how every generation I can think of had a fight over what was OK. The younger generation would set down some new standards, and everyone who grew up with the old "normal" thought it was ridiculous that the standard was changing. So, whenever I think some "new standard" is ridiculous, I try to think on that for a moment and err towards not wasting too much time worrying about it. Does using the new term hurt me in anyway? Does it help someone else? Alright, then. I might not get it, and it might feel ridiculous to me in the moment, but I don't want to be the guy yelling about how calling something "gay" isn't homophobic.
    - DangitBobby 6y ago
      Maybe it doesn't "hurt" you in a direct way, but forcing people to change their behavior for a power trip is not something you should willingly bend over for. If change is for good, you should be willing to change. If it's for nothing, it's okay to resist.
      - etchalon 6y ago
- Cerium 6y ago
  What drives me crazy about the "master" vs "main" branch name is that before this started the branch name "master" was in my mind a completely un-racist definition. Now the debate has changed my the link in my mind to the point where I feel like a branch name has racist history and I feel dirty typing it.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    That is where this movement is being counterproductive -- it's injecting racial division into places where there was none (neither systemic, nor overt, nor covert) before.
    - yerwhat01010 6y ago
      You give them too much credit. Injecting racial division is the entire point. Critical race theorists want to divide everyone up by their immutable characteristics, discriminate on the basis of race, and make everyone as hyper-conscious about skin colour as possible. They explicitly say that they want to undermine the American liberal order and do away with such concepts as legal neutrality and equality under the law; here's a quote from page 3 of Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, one of the leading textbooks: > Unlike traditional civil rights discourse, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law. You saw this with Trump's anti-CRT executive order, widely misreported as "banning diversity training" or "banning federal employees and contractors from being taught about racism". People who claim that this is what the EO said either haven't read it or they're deliberately lying; section 10 of the order explicitly says that diversity training is still allowed. What the EO actually banned was "diversity" or other training which teaches any of nine specific things, all of which are perfectly reasonable ideas to not want in government, for example that "one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex" or "an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex." Look it up yourself; read the full list of nine points and tell me which ones you would want to see taught to government employees (or anyone else). Wokeists went nuts at this EO, and Biden reversed it on his first day. Why? Because they want to discriminate, scapegoat and spread stereotypes based on race and sex. What other possible explanation could there be? Wake up.
- tim333 6y ago
  I believe the words 'is' and 'the' have been used in the past by slave owners. Probably the next to go.
barbacoa 6y ago
I often like to imagine that if I were in that situation I announce that I sexually identify as military attack helicopters and insist my pronouns are apache/apachim, but I know the irony would be lost on them and really would just result in me getting fired for thought crimes.
- Azeralthefallen 6y ago
  Honestly the person running the seminars was very very strict. Several people said "I don't really care what people call me by", or can I just leave it blank to be what people want. The person explained how that attitude is disrespectful to people who do care about these things, and how it can foster an environment of hostility towards people who put them. Which in turn marginalizes those people etc. However in January the entire sales team removed them after apparently a customer reacted negatively to the inclusion. Which lead to other external facing teams removing it to prevent the same issue. Most people have removed it from emails, and honestly many people just don't seem to care, and HR doesn't seem to be enforcing it.
  - ThrustVectoring 6y ago
    The funniest thing of the whole "thou shalt list your pronouns" thing is that the actual trans folks I've talked to tend to be opposed to those policies. It paints them into a corner - either state that you want to be misgendered, or out yourself as trans. Mandatory pronouns are a pure shibboleth in the culture war. Trans activists don't want it. Anti-trans activists don't want it. The only people who want mandatory pronouns are the folks wanting a cheap signal for how much of an ally they are and an easy way to identify and ostracize people who aren't in-line with their politics.
    - bogdanoff_2 6y ago
      "It paints them into a corner - either state that you want to be misgendered, or out yourself as trans." Huh? What do you mean? How would not listing pronouns help?
omniscient_oce 6y ago
These 'consultants' probably get paid more than me for doing busywork of no use whatsoever.
- yerwhat01010 6y ago
  That's the whole point. It's a billion-dollar industry created by useless people with no real economic value. They need to inject racism and sexism and division into every situation so they can claim credit for opposing it. How else are they going to justify their bloated paycheques?
katbyte 6y ago
sounds like someone let the consultants run amok - never bodes well for whatever they touch
morpheuskafka 6y ago
In my opinion, its definitely worth getting rid of "master/slave" since after all it does directly refer to a violent and wrongful historical relationship. It may be only a metaphor, but it does clearly refer to that and I can understand how that makes some people feel unwelcome. But ownership is a little different. One object owning another doesn't make any reference to the "ownership" of people in slavery, it just as well references the ownership of literally anything else which is perfectly legal. I also don't buy the "see is ableist" thing. Entire languages would be unacceptable if that were true. For example Japanese appends -て見る (see) to verbs for the meaning "try to <verb> and see (how it goes). That notion of "seeing" is a fundamental part of the linguistic concept of "see" in most languages and it is in no way a reference to blind people. When you say someone is "blinded by the sunlight" or describe a "deafening roar" you are obviously not saying anything about blind or deaf/Deaf people, those words clearly have included a wide variety of definitions including temporary ones which were then the basis for metaphorical ones. That's different than "master/slave" which is a metaphor for a word/concept that was inherently racist and violent from the beginning. On the other hand, I don't think pronouns in email signature is a bad rule. Even if the pronouns you use are the same ones you have used your entire life, you do have a preference nonetheless, so I don't think there's anything inherently unfair about making people specify them. It's not like you don't want people to use any pronouns or you don't feel that they should exist at all, so it's not really harming your rights. It does help trans people feel more accepted in sharing their pronouns, and it doesn't really cost other people anything to do it. The stuff about CRUD is just absurd. As is creating ultra-expensive outreach (that make money for the people writing these reports) for companies to small to support it. If HR was concerned about inclusion, they could add a tasteful note on their website about how their workplace was affirming/welcoming space and that they welcomed those applicants. Of course, employees should certainly be free to create such a group if there is actually interest in it.
tasogare 6y ago
> Everyone had to list what pronouns they wanted people to use I’ll be glad to demonstrate my knowledge of Unicode, Sumerian and Chữ Nôm in my signature and be OFFENDED by any "woke" idiot who get it wrong. Bonus point if the fault lies in fact in software the company uses.
Terretta 6y ago
Serious question: did your workplace also eradicate Mr. and Mrs., which are short for master and mistress? Folks are renaming git branches, but not these honorifics, and I’m curious about the logic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_honorifics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_honorifics

ttt0 6y ago

> Words such as "master", "owner", among some other ones were deemed problematic and needed to be changed. This is slippery slope happening right before your eyes. For those who claimed that slippery slope is just a fallacy and never ever can be true. When did Github change the default branch name from "master" to "main"? Few months ago? Now it's "owner" too, and using this word probably could get you in some real trouble. I'm not even going to comment on "see" and "visible".

interestica 6y ago
chmod 755
Azeralthefallen 6y ago
It is already difficult enough to come up with naming things that makes sense. I kind of get "master" when used in the context, however things like "owner" i struggle extremely hard with. Especially since major companies like Microsoft use it. I remember asking what did they suggest instead of owner, and they basically gave a list of synonyms that frankly did not really work the same way, or are insanely long e.g. "Primary Account Holder".
- Solvitieg 6y ago
  I'm surprised I haven't seen "trunk" be suggested more as it works well with the branching analogy. It's used by SVN but I don't think that should matter.
- morpheuskafka 6y ago
  "Primary Account Holder" -- have they never heard of the word "slaveholder"? And of all things, I would think a financial context, which is completely based on the ownership of property, would be OK with the word owner.
ncann 6y ago
Every time I see a project on GitHub being pressured to change a term because of PC a little of me die inside. I still remember the PR where someone changed the term master to primary in Swift and Chris Lattner wrote a comment to object, only to delete it shortly after likely due to pressure. It's a shame we can't stand up against bullshits like that because there's too much to lose.
awb 6y ago
DBs used to be master/slave. Should we keep that naming so as not to participate in a slippery slope? It’s a fine line between a slippery slope and progress. I remember in the 80s and 90s when older generations would complain that they couldn’t gay bash anymore. They thought it was a slippery slope that if they were forced to respect homosexuals, they’d be forced to respect other types of behavior they deemed immoral. Turns out it was just progress. Recently, I noticed that I would refer to adult females as “girls” and adult males as “men”. I want to be careful with that in the future and try to change because I’ve been called out a few times and I can see how it’s disrespectful. And I don’t want to be those adults from the 80s I saw so resistant to change. I guess I try to view it as each year brings new ways of communicating and interacting. It’s OK that I wrote master/slave years ago and it’s OK that I’d never allow that in my code base now. We’re all trying to be better and that means change. I’m glad folks are sounding the alarm because we don’t want to be complacent, but not every new social norm is suppressive either.
- etchalon 6y ago
  I often think about how every generation I can think of had a fight over what was OK. The younger generation would set down some new standards, and everyone who grew up with the old "normal" thought it was ridiculous that the standard was changing. So, whenever I think some "new standard" is ridiculous, I try to think on that for a moment and err towards not wasting too much time worrying about it. Does using the new term hurt me in anyway? Does it help someone else? Alright, then. I might not get it, and it might feel ridiculous to me in the moment, but I don't want to be the guy yelling about how calling something "gay" isn't homophobic.
  - DangitBobby 6y ago
    Maybe it doesn't "hurt" you in a direct way, but forcing people to change their behavior for a power trip is not something you should willingly bend over for. If change is for good, you should be willing to change. If it's for nothing, it's okay to resist.
    - etchalon 6y ago
Cerium 6y ago
What drives me crazy about the "master" vs "main" branch name is that before this started the branch name "master" was in my mind a completely un-racist definition. Now the debate has changed my the link in my mind to the point where I feel like a branch name has racist history and I feel dirty typing it.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  That is where this movement is being counterproductive -- it's injecting racial division into places where there was none (neither systemic, nor overt, nor covert) before.
  - yerwhat01010 6y ago
    You give them too much credit. Injecting racial division is the entire point. Critical race theorists want to divide everyone up by their immutable characteristics, discriminate on the basis of race, and make everyone as hyper-conscious about skin colour as possible. They explicitly say that they want to undermine the American liberal order and do away with such concepts as legal neutrality and equality under the law; here's a quote from page 3 of Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, one of the leading textbooks: > Unlike traditional civil rights discourse, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law. You saw this with Trump's anti-CRT executive order, widely misreported as "banning diversity training" or "banning federal employees and contractors from being taught about racism". People who claim that this is what the EO said either haven't read it or they're deliberately lying; section 10 of the order explicitly says that diversity training is still allowed. What the EO actually banned was "diversity" or other training which teaches any of nine specific things, all of which are perfectly reasonable ideas to not want in government, for example that "one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex" or "an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex." Look it up yourself; read the full list of nine points and tell me which ones you would want to see taught to government employees (or anyone else). Wokeists went nuts at this EO, and Biden reversed it on his first day. Why? Because they want to discriminate, scapegoat and spread stereotypes based on race and sex. What other possible explanation could there be? Wake up.
tim333 6y ago
I believe the words 'is' and 'the' have been used in the past by slave owners. Probably the next to go.

barbacoa 6y ago

I often like to imagine that if I were in that situation I announce that I sexually identify as military attack helicopters and insist my pronouns are apache/apachim, but I know the irony would be lost on them and really would just result in me getting fired for thought crimes.

Azeralthefallen 6y ago
Honestly the person running the seminars was very very strict. Several people said "I don't really care what people call me by", or can I just leave it blank to be what people want. The person explained how that attitude is disrespectful to people who do care about these things, and how it can foster an environment of hostility towards people who put them. Which in turn marginalizes those people etc. However in January the entire sales team removed them after apparently a customer reacted negatively to the inclusion. Which lead to other external facing teams removing it to prevent the same issue. Most people have removed it from emails, and honestly many people just don't seem to care, and HR doesn't seem to be enforcing it.
- ThrustVectoring 6y ago
  The funniest thing of the whole "thou shalt list your pronouns" thing is that the actual trans folks I've talked to tend to be opposed to those policies. It paints them into a corner - either state that you want to be misgendered, or out yourself as trans. Mandatory pronouns are a pure shibboleth in the culture war. Trans activists don't want it. Anti-trans activists don't want it. The only people who want mandatory pronouns are the folks wanting a cheap signal for how much of an ally they are and an easy way to identify and ostracize people who aren't in-line with their politics.
  - bogdanoff_2 6y ago
    "It paints them into a corner - either state that you want to be misgendered, or out yourself as trans." Huh? What do you mean? How would not listing pronouns help?

omniscient_oce 6y ago

These 'consultants' probably get paid more than me for doing busywork of no use whatsoever.

yerwhat01010 6y ago
That's the whole point. It's a billion-dollar industry created by useless people with no real economic value. They need to inject racism and sexism and division into every situation so they can claim credit for opposing it. How else are they going to justify their bloated paycheques?

katbyte 6y ago

sounds like someone let the consultants run amok - never bodes well for whatever they touch

morpheuskafka 6y ago

In my opinion, its definitely worth getting rid of "master/slave" since after all it does directly refer to a violent and wrongful historical relationship. It may be only a metaphor, but it does clearly refer to that and I can understand how that makes some people feel unwelcome. But ownership is a little different. One object owning another doesn't make any reference to the "ownership" of people in slavery, it just as well references the ownership of literally anything else which is perfectly legal. I also don't buy the "see is ableist" thing. Entire languages would be unacceptable if that were true. For example Japanese appends -て見る (see) to verbs for the meaning "try to <verb> and see (how it goes). That notion of "seeing" is a fundamental part of the linguistic concept of "see" in most languages and it is in no way a reference to blind people. When you say someone is "blinded by the sunlight" or describe a "deafening roar" you are obviously not saying anything about blind or deaf/Deaf people, those words clearly have included a wide variety of definitions including temporary ones which were then the basis for metaphorical ones. That's different than "master/slave" which is a metaphor for a word/concept that was inherently racist and violent from the beginning. On the other hand, I don't think pronouns in email signature is a bad rule. Even if the pronouns you use are the same ones you have used your entire life, you do have a preference nonetheless, so I don't think there's anything inherently unfair about making people specify them. It's not like you don't want people to use any pronouns or you don't feel that they should exist at all, so it's not really harming your rights. It does help trans people feel more accepted in sharing their pronouns, and it doesn't really cost other people anything to do it. The stuff about CRUD is just absurd. As is creating ultra-expensive outreach (that make money for the people writing these reports) for companies to small to support it. If HR was concerned about inclusion, they could add a tasteful note on their website about how their workplace was affirming/welcoming space and that they welcomed those applicants. Of course, employees should certainly be free to create such a group if there is actually interest in it.

tasogare 6y ago

> Everyone had to list what pronouns they wanted people to use I’ll be glad to demonstrate my knowledge of Unicode, Sumerian and Chữ Nôm in my signature and be OFFENDED by any "woke" idiot who get it wrong. Bonus point if the fault lies in fact in software the company uses.

Terretta 6y ago

Serious question: did your workplace also eradicate Mr. and Mrs., which are short for master and mistress? Folks are renaming git branches, but not these honorifics, and I’m curious about the logic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_honorifics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_honorifics