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Ask HN: Replacing Racially Insensitive Computer Terms With. . .?
So, my office tries to be sensitive in the language we use. However, many computer science terms aren't so sensitive. When we replicate databases, we have a master and a slave. When we deny email from someone, we blacklist it. Now, I'm sure we all agree that we don't use those terms to slight anyone (who would judge someone based on things other than language or framework choice?), but my workplace (and I as well) would like to be more sensitive about these issues.
I've tried thinking of things, but haven't come up with great options. "Mirror" might be a decent replacement for "slave", but I have no idea what to replace "blacklist" with. Is this an issue with your work? What do you use/suggest?
- brk 18y agoI can't tell if this is an attempt at humor/sarcasm or not. I don't think any of the terms you describe could even be remotely regarded as "racially sensitive" unless you were going out of your way to do so.
- stonemetal 18y ago>a master and a slave There have been white slaves and black masters historically so you will have to enlighten me as to why you believe there is anything "racially sensitive" in terms master and slave. As far as blacklist goes you could easily use drop list, ignore list, or filter list since that is what it is doing.
- jacquesm 18y agoI think that political correctness should only go so far, and to me any one of these is a waste of breath. I've never met anybody that figured master/slave is racially insensitive, since slavery has nothing whatsoever to do with race. Slave as used in this context comes according to the dictionary (merriam webster in this case) from this meaning "3 : a device (as the printer of a computer) that is directly responsive to another" , not from the one-human-dominates-another meaning. As for 'blacklisting', that's just too funny to even take serious. Obviously according to people that have a problem with the word 'black' in any context we should probably eradicate the word from all uses, it says more about those that are so sensitive than about the words. Either this is a very clever troll or an extreme case of oversensitivity to 'hidden meaning' in ordinary words. George Carlin said it best, there are no bad words, just bad intentions.