allowlist/denylist
As of now, it is called whitelist/blacklist in PiHole [0]. Maybe it will change, maybe it will not, but there is already a place to fight that battle [1] and it is not HN.
[0] https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/misc/whitelist-blacklist/
If the terms whitelist/blacklist are hurtful to some people because of all the racial baggage we've applied to the words white and black, why not switch to allow/deny instead?
Using allow/deny is more explicit and doesn't rely on the benign cultural associations with the colors black and white. The choice of colors used here is arbitrary. For example, one could just as easily use green/red in reference to traffic signal colors. Ask yourself, would it bother you if we used blue and pink for allow and deny? What if we used blue or white as synonymous with deny?
Two good reasons exist to change our habits, basic manners and clarity.
I'm sure I'll use the terms blacklist and whitelist from time to time out of accumulated habit. But there's no reason for me to cling to those terms. Being gently reminded to use objectively clearer terminology shouldn't engender hostility on my part. I try not to be an unpleasant person, part of that is when someone tells me my behavior has a negative impact on them, I try to listen to what they say and modify my behavior--while actually effecting change can be hard, the underlying concept is pretty simple.
Of course, my coworkers don't represent all black people, and especially wouldn't claim to represent African Americans, but if even black people can hold this opinion, are you surprised others don't see this as worth the effort to change?
This is an OSS project. If someone cares enough about it, they should submit a (non-breaking) patch along with a patch for the documentation. There are no costs to people who don't find it a valuable change.
> My experience talking to black (one African, one European) coworkers is their reaction is "That's the problem you're going to fix?".
Obviously this isn't fixing any of the fundamental issues, but it does bother some people. My preference is to respect the people who have problems with it. An easy policy is to simply avoid creating new software which uses that terminology and to accept any patches which fix it. That way the people who feel the change is important bear the burden of the cost (which is likely small some thing like this).
And throwing aside 600 years of clarity for "basic manners" also seems rather weird. Sort of like banning the word "engender" because a small minority might find that to be offensive. It isn't clearer to use a different word than has been used for over half a millennium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_n...
Should all terms for the colour-that-is-somewhat-the-absence-of-colour now be banned? Is Vanta Black now racist?
Manufactured controversy leads you down a path of absurdism. It isn't helpful to the people it purports to help, whilst granting the vocal group the ability to say they're being helpful whilst actively ignoring any actual problems.
But my point is that, if people took the time to learn the background, perhaps (in both of these examples, and others), we could avoid the kerfuffles.
Nor can I find any example where blacklist is not a list of denied subjects. A blacklisted person, website or process is immediately clear within their context.
Where the clarity is lacking is not clear to me. However the mismatch between "allow list" and "whitelist", is. The latter seems to have a different meaning altogether.
Sorry but I find this claim (which I've heard from others too) ridiculous. "Blacklist" is an actual common English word in the dictionary. "Denylist" is an incredibly awkward-sounding neologism without any context or history behind it. There is no way that "denylist" is the "objectively clearer" one here.
EDIT: apparently setting allowlist/denylist won't work so it's not just being pedantic, it's wrong.
So, I kind of see the point.
To fix the problem, we either have to stop referring to any metaphor/symbol involving color with negative connotations; or we have to stop using color to identify and refer to people. I think the former is good for precision (allowlist/denylist are great identifiers in that regard), but won't really solve our other problems; while the latter is probably better for human dignity, mutual respect, and combating our propensity for tribalism/racism. (Or, why not, we could do both.)