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This entire comment is a lie. Terms like "motherboard" are readily findable on Google's internal search. I could not find anything referencing a banned non-incl

This entire comment is a lie. Terms like "motherboard" are readily findable on Google's internal search. I could not find anything referencing a banned non-inclusive words policy in the employee policy guide. I have never heard of anything remotely resembling someone catching heat for saying "motherboard" or whatever. Source: I also work at Google.

mgraczyk 4y ago
You're welcome to ping me internally. It's in the banned words list (happy to share a link internally) and I double checked policy before posting this comment to make sure I was accurately representing the rules that are applied to me as an employee.
- dekhn 4y ago
  based on dannybee's comments elsewhere, the list you're referring to is actually for external product comms, not internal googler comms.... could you elaborate on your position further?
  - mgraczyk 4y ago
    That's not true, there are a few internal-only lists that have different contents (lots of overlap but not 100%). Different PAs have adopted different lists. This is the public one: https://developers.google.com/style/word-list https://developers.google.com/style/word-list I don't want to share the name of the internal one publicly, but anyone at Google can ping me if they want help finding it, or they can search "respectful words"
- kevinventullo 4y ago
  Okay but that’s just a list that someone created. People are allowed to create lists; I’ve never heard of anyone enforcing this list.
itsyaboi 4y ago
Since you work at Google, maybe you can answer this: does internal tooling exist to flag occurrences of "bad" words in say, code reviews or shared documents?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- anothernerd2 4y ago
  There is at Amazon, it gets brought up as a code violation while we’re doing security and other kinds of reviews I’ve mostly cleansed myself of these words while I’m at work but I generally let the shit fly once Im out of the setting I just look at it like any other corporate politics, you have to play along to get anywhere Outside of work I’m my own person and use any word I want. Retard, cripple, bum, idiot, motherboard, man, master, slave, fuck, shit, piss! See! Fire me Amazon I fucking dare you! :)
  - Tao331 4y ago
    But isn't the name Amazon inherently exclusionary, and one of the oldest distorted stereotypes? The mote in the employee's eye vs. the log in the company's eye
- dvirsky 4y ago
  Former Googler (until a couple of months ago). I've never seen anything like it, but maybe I just didn't use "bad" words in code? There were presubmit checks for typos and such. Also, IIRC I asked people in code/design reviews to rename white/black lists to allow/deny lists, but it might have just been in docs. I did get an angry code review response from a fellow engineer once, after writing in a commit description (not the actual code) something like "this is a stupid fix but it stops the linter from bitching about so and so" - for using both the words "stupid" and "bitch". I guess the second one was on point but referring to my own work as "stupid" is pretty okay in my book. I would never ever describe anyone else's work as such.
  - dane-pgp 4y ago
throw10920 4y ago
> Terms like "motherboard" are readily findable on Google's internal search. This is meaningless. I work at a large organization that has banned terms like "master/slave" and "whitelist/blacklist", and I can also readily find these terms through internal search, simply because it's taking a while for the requirements to be implemented and enforced. > I could not find anything referencing a banned non-inclusive words policy in the employee policy guide. This also doesn't mean a lot, unless you've comprehensively searched through every possible location for the relevant policy, as almost every organization in existence has terrible knowledge management. Go talk directly to someone in HR and tell me if they tell you that those words aren't restricted.

mgraczyk 4y ago

You're welcome to ping me internally. It's in the banned words list (happy to share a link internally) and I double checked policy before posting this comment to make sure I was accurately representing the rules that are applied to me as an employee.

dekhn 4y ago
based on dannybee's comments elsewhere, the list you're referring to is actually for external product comms, not internal googler comms.... could you elaborate on your position further?
- mgraczyk 4y ago
  That's not true, there are a few internal-only lists that have different contents (lots of overlap but not 100%). Different PAs have adopted different lists. This is the public one: https://developers.google.com/style/word-list https://developers.google.com/style/word-list I don't want to share the name of the internal one publicly, but anyone at Google can ping me if they want help finding it, or they can search "respectful words"
kevinventullo 4y ago
Okay but that’s just a list that someone created. People are allowed to create lists; I’ve never heard of anyone enforcing this list.

itsyaboi 4y ago

Since you work at Google, maybe you can answer this: does internal tooling exist to flag occurrences of "bad" words in say, code reviews or shared documents?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
anothernerd2 4y ago
There is at Amazon, it gets brought up as a code violation while we’re doing security and other kinds of reviews I’ve mostly cleansed myself of these words while I’m at work but I generally let the shit fly once Im out of the setting I just look at it like any other corporate politics, you have to play along to get anywhere Outside of work I’m my own person and use any word I want. Retard, cripple, bum, idiot, motherboard, man, master, slave, fuck, shit, piss! See! Fire me Amazon I fucking dare you! :)
- Tao331 4y ago
  But isn't the name Amazon inherently exclusionary, and one of the oldest distorted stereotypes? The mote in the employee's eye vs. the log in the company's eye
dvirsky 4y ago
Former Googler (until a couple of months ago). I've never seen anything like it, but maybe I just didn't use "bad" words in code? There were presubmit checks for typos and such. Also, IIRC I asked people in code/design reviews to rename white/black lists to allow/deny lists, but it might have just been in docs. I did get an angry code review response from a fellow engineer once, after writing in a commit description (not the actual code) something like "this is a stupid fix but it stops the linter from bitching about so and so" - for using both the words "stupid" and "bitch". I guess the second one was on point but referring to my own work as "stupid" is pretty okay in my book. I would never ever describe anyone else's work as such.
- dane-pgp 4y ago

throw10920 4y ago

> Terms like "motherboard" are readily findable on Google's internal search. This is meaningless. I work at a large organization that has banned terms like "master/slave" and "whitelist/blacklist", and I can also readily find these terms through internal search, simply because it's taking a while for the requirements to be implemented and enforced. > I could not find anything referencing a banned non-inclusive words policy in the employee policy guide. This also doesn't mean a lot, unless you've comprehensively searched through every possible location for the relevant policy, as almost every organization in existence has terrible knowledge management. Go talk directly to someone in HR and tell me if they tell you that those words aren't restricted.