5 ms·

I worked on a public facing project with many retiree users. We had a code audit to remove the word 'Invalid' so that users would not think they had been identi

I worked on a public facing project with many retiree users. We had a code audit to remove the word 'Invalid' so that users would not think they had been identified as 'a person made weak or disabled by illness or injury'

eyelidlessness 5y ago
I similarly wince every time I use software which inflexibly uses “disabled” or especially the more affirmative “disable”.
- smcin 5y ago
  What one-word replacement would you use? ('Deactivate'?)
  - scns 5y ago
    Activate would make sense for opt-in, no?
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    Thank you for engaging this with curiosity and good faith! Yes, I think de/activate is a great alternative.
- adwn 5y ago
  Tree [1], master [2], submission [3], abort [4], driver [5] – words can have different meanings in different contexts. Do you feel the need to "wince every time" you submit a link on HN? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_(data_structure) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_(data_structure) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastering_(audio) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastering_(audio) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_submission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_submission [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_driver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_driver
  - justatdotin 5y ago
    some of us are interested in taking small simple steps to make our users more comfortable.
    - Hendrikto 5y ago
      You mean virtue signaling. Replacing an established and perfectly fine word has never helped a single user in the history of the universe.
      - justatdotin 5y ago
        hmm yeah I dunno, I don't think my boss was 'virtue signalling' by asking me to replace instances of 'invalid'. I suspect by 'virtue signalling' you mean he was angling to impress me with how virtuous he was. (because the users never saw my code before the audit) Why would he try to impress me? or think it would? I never noticed the quixotic reaction against perceived 'virtue signalling' until sometime this century, and that code audit was back in the 90s. I'm not certain but I do think it was actually prompted by a previous experience with a confused user who had the word printed on a receipt and mistakenly thought the term referred to them!
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
        I think it's more that if users actually have mistakenly read a word and taken offense, it's easier to just use a different word than have to deal with the occasional upset person. I do think the people going round proactively trying to change all the words with alternative negative meanings are a bit ridiculous though; if nobody's offended, you don't need to pretend to be offended on others' behalf.
        Hendrikto 5y ago
        Polysemy is a fundamental concept in most (all?) languages. I am not aware of a language without polysemes. Should we replace “driver”, because people might confuse them with people driving cars? How about “tree”? Are you confused by river “banks”? “What, commit trees don’t grow on soil?” “What do you mean? I can’t sit on the same bank that manages my money?” You cannot and should not design for the lowest common denominator, which is a person not familiar with basic language concepts. If you think that “master” branch is offensive, YOU are the problem, not the language.
- faeriechangling 5y ago
  I'm not aware of any community of disabled people or disabled person who finds the usage of the term "Disable" offensive in any context. I've never actually heard any controversy over the word "Disabled" EXCEPT in the specific context of it being used to refer to disabled people (person-first vs identity-first language debate, but that's a digression) There's quite a long history people arbitrarily deciding they speak on behalf of all disabled people and know that language must change to protect their dignity and feelings. Inclusive language is actually plain language, since that's the easiest for people with certain disabilities to understand, so the inclusive thing to do is to avoid arbitrarily stigmatising words.
  - justatdotin 5y ago
    personally I have very little exposure to the realm of disability. So if someone suggested to me that 'disabled' might not be a good term to be customer facing, although its not obvious to me, I know I do not have basis to disagree. I might just accept the suggestion and keep moving. I don't think it would occur to me to suspect someone of inventing nonsense. actually I'm not even sure that 'disabled' is a clear term. In some contexts, 'unavailable' or 'not ready' might be more clear / less complicated. Kinda like how I don't personally recognise 'master' as a problematic term (انا لست امريكيا) but in many situations I find 'main' is a better fit anyway
    - faeriechangling 5y ago
      With disabilities things get very complicated very fast because disabled people are a very diverse group. You'll have different groups of disabled people having different views on things, given they're often in pretty distinct and unique situations. This has resulted in a number of linguistic disputes over the years. "Not ready" has a space in it which is frequently annoying in software. I think it also implies that thing may become ready after some time elapses or a condition is met, which disabled does not imply. "Unavailable" and "Disabled" are already used adjacent to eachother in software, the former implies something becoming unusable for reason outside of the software's control, and "disabled" tends to imply something being made unusable intentionally. Here's F5 using the two words in this way https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K12213214 https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K12213214 I agree with you regarding master vs main. Main is a syllable less, two letters shorter, and more clear. I feel people mostly resist the change to STICK IT to the politically correct.
- noduerme 5y ago
  I don't get it. If it says something's disabled, why would you think the software is talking about you? Or personally insulting you? I mean, I also don't understand the guy who thought the software was calling him a "Dolt"
  - justatdotin 5y ago
    we don't need to understand it or agree: either we are interested in and sensitive to how users react, or not.
    - dncornholio 5y ago
      Depends.. there's always this one user who seems to take things differently. can't please everyone I think society is losing the concept of context, which is pretty worrying. Can't even make jokes I used to, because people seem to take things a lot more literal these days. If I do any self-mockery, people look at me like I'm crazy for example. Most sarcasm is lost too.. In this light, I think we should KEEP the words master, slave, disabled, etc. So we can educate the meaning of context back to society.
      - justatdotin 5y ago
        edit: said something rong?
        adwn 5y ago
        You're arguing in bad faith [1][2]. Please don't do that here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Assume_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_faith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_faith
  - syntheticnature 5y ago
    You have an understanding of how the computer means things and what everything on the screen represents. This is by no means universal. To you it is like breathing, beneath thought. Those who lack context as to what they're seeing, especially if frustrated and unable to parse what is visual noise to them, are likely to take it as the computer judging them negatively.
noduerme 5y ago
Dude. I wrote a piece of software for a company that takes online signups, and then matches them to customers who purchase things in the store. Many years ago they asked me to write a report that output local customers who had signed up online, but never bought anything. The database table for transactions is called `trans`. So the report I coded was labeled "No_trans_customers". Last year I get a call from the company CEO -- can we rename this report? Apparently someone saw the name of it and freaked the fuck out.
- seanw444 5y ago
  That's golden

eyelidlessness 5y ago

I similarly wince every time I use software which inflexibly uses “disabled” or especially the more affirmative “disable”.

smcin 5y ago
What one-word replacement would you use? ('Deactivate'?)
- scns 5y ago
  Activate would make sense for opt-in, no?
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  Thank you for engaging this with curiosity and good faith! Yes, I think de/activate is a great alternative.
adwn 5y ago
Tree [1], master [2], submission [3], abort [4], driver [5] – words can have different meanings in different contexts. Do you feel the need to "wince every time" you submit a link on HN? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_(data_structure) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_(data_structure) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastering_(audio) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastering_(audio) [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_submission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_submission [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_driver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_driver
- justatdotin 5y ago
  some of us are interested in taking small simple steps to make our users more comfortable.
  - Hendrikto 5y ago
    You mean virtue signaling. Replacing an established and perfectly fine word has never helped a single user in the history of the universe.
    - justatdotin 5y ago
      hmm yeah I dunno, I don't think my boss was 'virtue signalling' by asking me to replace instances of 'invalid'. I suspect by 'virtue signalling' you mean he was angling to impress me with how virtuous he was. (because the users never saw my code before the audit) Why would he try to impress me? or think it would? I never noticed the quixotic reaction against perceived 'virtue signalling' until sometime this century, and that code audit was back in the 90s. I'm not certain but I do think it was actually prompted by a previous experience with a confused user who had the word printed on a receipt and mistakenly thought the term referred to them!
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      I think it's more that if users actually have mistakenly read a word and taken offense, it's easier to just use a different word than have to deal with the occasional upset person. I do think the people going round proactively trying to change all the words with alternative negative meanings are a bit ridiculous though; if nobody's offended, you don't need to pretend to be offended on others' behalf.
      - Hendrikto 5y ago
        Polysemy is a fundamental concept in most (all?) languages. I am not aware of a language without polysemes. Should we replace “driver”, because people might confuse them with people driving cars? How about “tree”? Are you confused by river “banks”? “What, commit trees don’t grow on soil?” “What do you mean? I can’t sit on the same bank that manages my money?” You cannot and should not design for the lowest common denominator, which is a person not familiar with basic language concepts. If you think that “master” branch is offensive, YOU are the problem, not the language.
faeriechangling 5y ago
I'm not aware of any community of disabled people or disabled person who finds the usage of the term "Disable" offensive in any context. I've never actually heard any controversy over the word "Disabled" EXCEPT in the specific context of it being used to refer to disabled people (person-first vs identity-first language debate, but that's a digression) There's quite a long history people arbitrarily deciding they speak on behalf of all disabled people and know that language must change to protect their dignity and feelings. Inclusive language is actually plain language, since that's the easiest for people with certain disabilities to understand, so the inclusive thing to do is to avoid arbitrarily stigmatising words.
- justatdotin 5y ago
  personally I have very little exposure to the realm of disability. So if someone suggested to me that 'disabled' might not be a good term to be customer facing, although its not obvious to me, I know I do not have basis to disagree. I might just accept the suggestion and keep moving. I don't think it would occur to me to suspect someone of inventing nonsense. actually I'm not even sure that 'disabled' is a clear term. In some contexts, 'unavailable' or 'not ready' might be more clear / less complicated. Kinda like how I don't personally recognise 'master' as a problematic term (انا لست امريكيا) but in many situations I find 'main' is a better fit anyway
  - faeriechangling 5y ago
    With disabilities things get very complicated very fast because disabled people are a very diverse group. You'll have different groups of disabled people having different views on things, given they're often in pretty distinct and unique situations. This has resulted in a number of linguistic disputes over the years. "Not ready" has a space in it which is frequently annoying in software. I think it also implies that thing may become ready after some time elapses or a condition is met, which disabled does not imply. "Unavailable" and "Disabled" are already used adjacent to eachother in software, the former implies something becoming unusable for reason outside of the software's control, and "disabled" tends to imply something being made unusable intentionally. Here's F5 using the two words in this way https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K12213214 https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K12213214 I agree with you regarding master vs main. Main is a syllable less, two letters shorter, and more clear. I feel people mostly resist the change to STICK IT to the politically correct.
noduerme 5y ago
I don't get it. If it says something's disabled, why would you think the software is talking about you? Or personally insulting you? I mean, I also don't understand the guy who thought the software was calling him a "Dolt"
- justatdotin 5y ago
  we don't need to understand it or agree: either we are interested in and sensitive to how users react, or not.
  - dncornholio 5y ago
    Depends.. there's always this one user who seems to take things differently. can't please everyone I think society is losing the concept of context, which is pretty worrying. Can't even make jokes I used to, because people seem to take things a lot more literal these days. If I do any self-mockery, people look at me like I'm crazy for example. Most sarcasm is lost too.. In this light, I think we should KEEP the words master, slave, disabled, etc. So we can educate the meaning of context back to society.
    - justatdotin 5y ago
      edit: said something rong?
      - adwn 5y ago
        You're arguing in bad faith [1][2]. Please don't do that here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Assume_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_faith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_faith
- syntheticnature 5y ago
  You have an understanding of how the computer means things and what everything on the screen represents. This is by no means universal. To you it is like breathing, beneath thought. Those who lack context as to what they're seeing, especially if frustrated and unable to parse what is visual noise to them, are likely to take it as the computer judging them negatively.

noduerme 5y ago

Dude. I wrote a piece of software for a company that takes online signups, and then matches them to customers who purchase things in the store. Many years ago they asked me to write a report that output local customers who had signed up online, but never bought anything. The database table for transactions is called `trans`. So the report I coded was labeled "No_trans_customers". Last year I get a call from the company CEO -- can we rename this report? Apparently someone saw the name of it and freaked the fuck out.

seanw444 5y ago
That's golden