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Sorry but did you just say one of the reasons you left google was the memegen moderation team? I can't imagine that being a legitimate worry that would impact m

Sorry but did you just say one of the reasons you left google was the memegen moderation team? I can't imagine that being a legitimate worry that would impact my employment decisions. It seems there's a group of people who are too far in the other direction too. When I heard that it's preferred to say "allowlist" instead of "whitelist", do you know what my reaction was? "Sure, whatever." And I moved on with my life. It has zero impact on my day to day. The pushback reminds me of people who deadname others on purpose. Like, who cares? Bob wants to be called Sally now? Sure, whatever.

karmakurtisaani 4y ago
I find this a very reasonable approach. I also find it natural that language evolves and sometimes it can even be marginally beneficial to artificially guide the evolution. All in all, in practice it just doesn't matter in my life.
djitz 4y ago
nicbou 4y ago
You're right. I use the new terms and move on. It's really not that bad. However it tends to become a password game. There's a new password every few months. If you know the new password, you get to feel above those who don't. It's as we invent new crimes to charge people with. If no one calls it out (because sure, whatever), it keeps ratcheting up. Then banal conversations turn into minefields. What you say gets invalidated because you used the wrong password.
- yupper32 4y ago
  > What you say gets invalidated because you used the wrong password. Is this a common occurrence for you? It has never happened to me. I'm skeptical about whether it's actually and issue or mostly a hypothetical issue.
- AJ007 4y ago
  It's also terrible for real long term projects to be continually renaming things and modifying naming conventions. Engineering isn't fashion.
  - JaimeThompson 4y ago
    Given we are talking about Google them randomly renaming things isn't exactly new :)
- uoaei 4y ago
  > What you say gets invalidated because you used the wrong password. This entire discourse is so full of straw men it's hard to believe you have actually had real conversations with these people. There is so much effort during these conversations toward "calling in" vs "calling out" that I am very confused how a conversation could ever get to the point you describe. You'd have to be really callous, and completely unwilling to meet your conversation partner on an even field, to elicit such reactions. And no, Twitter pile-ons don't count as evidence for your argument -- Twitter is very, very far from an accurate cross-section of "real life".
- mattzito 4y ago
  Yeah, I’m the same way - also a googler, I used the term “grandfathered” in a meeting with a bunch of people and someone on Meet chat corrected me to “legacy” or something, and I said, “oh, okay, no problem” and corrected myself and moved on. So - I used a word that someone didn’t like, they corrected me, I adjusted without deep apology and moved on, and everything was fine. Who cares? Why is this such a huge issue, language evolves all the time. My suspicion is - of people who run into problems with language at tech companies, half of the problem is due to their reaction to being corrected.
  - native_samples 4y ago
    That isn't language evolving, that's you being arbitrarily 'punished' for no better reason than to reinforce the false idea that the other person is better than you. The right response is to refuse because that treadmill is endless and its potential speed is unlimited.
    - mattzito 4y ago
      How was I punished? What tribunal did I face? And how does the other person think they’re better than me? You’re inventing all of this context about a simple conversation that just doesn’t exist.
      - native_samples 4y ago
        You were being "corrected" by someone else, weren't you? They knew the "right" language and you didn't. What do you think would have happened if you'd disagreed with this particular correction?
        mattzito 4y ago
        Like if I had said, “thanks for the feedback but I’m going to continue using this other word”? I think we probably would have just moved on and the individual would have been offended, but - why would I do that? To whose benefit? Mine? Because, look, I’m a successful, senior, valued individual who is respected and liked by my team. In the grand scheme of my life, if someone wants me to use one word vs another, why do I care? I have thousands of things that are more important to worry about than that. It’s the same way that I work with someone who likes to be addressed in emails by their full name - okay, no problem, remind me once and I’ll just move on. Or a coworker I had who was from Africa and did not want to be referred to as “African American” - sure, fine. Doing so diminishes me not at all, because I don’t define my worth based on whether I use the correct (or incorrect) word or not. It seems like a lot of the objections that I see in this thread have to do with people having issues being “corrected” or “policed” or “silenced”, all of which have to do with how they interpret how those moments have wronged THEM. Another option would be to let it go. Yet another would be to see themselves as making the faintest possible effort to make sure people feel welcome.
photochemsyn 4y ago
The terms 'guestlist' and 'shitlist' would perhaps be more accurate in terms of what those two forms of security access control are really about. Using a guestlist to control access is more secure (as you can background check everyone on the guestlist), but limits traffic; conversely allowing anyone in except those known troublemakers on the shitlist gets more traffic but means undesirables might slip in and become nuisances. On the other hand, all that nonsense about 'master' was ridiculous. Master's degrees, the master boot record, come on let that one go.

karmakurtisaani 4y ago

I find this a very reasonable approach. I also find it natural that language evolves and sometimes it can even be marginally beneficial to artificially guide the evolution. All in all, in practice it just doesn't matter in my life.

djitz 4y ago

nicbou 4y ago

You're right. I use the new terms and move on. It's really not that bad. However it tends to become a password game. There's a new password every few months. If you know the new password, you get to feel above those who don't. It's as we invent new crimes to charge people with. If no one calls it out (because sure, whatever), it keeps ratcheting up. Then banal conversations turn into minefields. What you say gets invalidated because you used the wrong password.

yupper32 4y ago
> What you say gets invalidated because you used the wrong password. Is this a common occurrence for you? It has never happened to me. I'm skeptical about whether it's actually and issue or mostly a hypothetical issue.
AJ007 4y ago
It's also terrible for real long term projects to be continually renaming things and modifying naming conventions. Engineering isn't fashion.
- JaimeThompson 4y ago
  Given we are talking about Google them randomly renaming things isn't exactly new :)
uoaei 4y ago
> What you say gets invalidated because you used the wrong password. This entire discourse is so full of straw men it's hard to believe you have actually had real conversations with these people. There is so much effort during these conversations toward "calling in" vs "calling out" that I am very confused how a conversation could ever get to the point you describe. You'd have to be really callous, and completely unwilling to meet your conversation partner on an even field, to elicit such reactions. And no, Twitter pile-ons don't count as evidence for your argument -- Twitter is very, very far from an accurate cross-section of "real life".
mattzito 4y ago
Yeah, I’m the same way - also a googler, I used the term “grandfathered” in a meeting with a bunch of people and someone on Meet chat corrected me to “legacy” or something, and I said, “oh, okay, no problem” and corrected myself and moved on. So - I used a word that someone didn’t like, they corrected me, I adjusted without deep apology and moved on, and everything was fine. Who cares? Why is this such a huge issue, language evolves all the time. My suspicion is - of people who run into problems with language at tech companies, half of the problem is due to their reaction to being corrected.
- native_samples 4y ago
  That isn't language evolving, that's you being arbitrarily 'punished' for no better reason than to reinforce the false idea that the other person is better than you. The right response is to refuse because that treadmill is endless and its potential speed is unlimited.
  - mattzito 4y ago
    How was I punished? What tribunal did I face? And how does the other person think they’re better than me? You’re inventing all of this context about a simple conversation that just doesn’t exist.
    - native_samples 4y ago
      You were being "corrected" by someone else, weren't you? They knew the "right" language and you didn't. What do you think would have happened if you'd disagreed with this particular correction?
      - mattzito 4y ago
        Like if I had said, “thanks for the feedback but I’m going to continue using this other word”? I think we probably would have just moved on and the individual would have been offended, but - why would I do that? To whose benefit? Mine? Because, look, I’m a successful, senior, valued individual who is respected and liked by my team. In the grand scheme of my life, if someone wants me to use one word vs another, why do I care? I have thousands of things that are more important to worry about than that. It’s the same way that I work with someone who likes to be addressed in emails by their full name - okay, no problem, remind me once and I’ll just move on. Or a coworker I had who was from Africa and did not want to be referred to as “African American” - sure, fine. Doing so diminishes me not at all, because I don’t define my worth based on whether I use the correct (or incorrect) word or not. It seems like a lot of the objections that I see in this thread have to do with people having issues being “corrected” or “policed” or “silenced”, all of which have to do with how they interpret how those moments have wronged THEM. Another option would be to let it go. Yet another would be to see themselves as making the faintest possible effort to make sure people feel welcome.

photochemsyn 4y ago

The terms 'guestlist' and 'shitlist' would perhaps be more accurate in terms of what those two forms of security access control are really about. Using a guestlist to control access is more secure (as you can background check everyone on the guestlist), but limits traffic; conversely allowing anyone in except those known troublemakers on the shitlist gets more traffic but means undesirables might slip in and become nuisances. On the other hand, all that nonsense about 'master' was ridiculous. Master's degrees, the master boot record, come on let that one go.