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Comment by jedimastert | Hacker News Reader

Silly question: ignoring any kind of history, why fight for terms like "whitelist" and "blacklist" when terms like "allowlist" and "blocklist" are objectively clearer, especially for folks who's first language is not English?

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Your question takes for granted that people are fighting for whitelist in blacklist, but it's the opposite. Whitelist and blacklist are long-established and familiar terms.

No, they are not.

Teach someone with no previous cultural knowledge what "allow" and "deny" means, then ask them what white list and black list means, then ask them what allow list and deny list means.

Black and white list requires previous knowledge of what those terms mean, allow and deny do not. Someone can intuit from just basic language knowledge what the feature does.

My pet peeve is that the new, inclusive terms are often more cumbersome. For example, allowlist is longer by a syllable. I know that it's hard, but I wish that people came up with terms that are just as handy as the old ones. Changing blacklist to blocklist is quite cool for one.

And "main" is shorter (better I think) than "master".

Although I don't think anyone ever seriously thought that "master" branch meant the "lord" branch.

While the first that comes in mind is the "master copy" terminology of the recording industry, git's "master" terminology in fact comes from BitKeeper. In BitKeeper, there are apparently master and slave branches, where master refers to the source of truth where all the slaves pull their info from.

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/474419/does-the-...

I personally like "main" as the replacement. Clear, concise and as you say, feels natural too.

Interesting, couldn't have guessed

Hmm there's also something about he who picked the name (which wasn't Linus apparently) meant "master" as in e.g. "master recording", see the Twitter tweets in the comments to that answer. And that he doesn't remember if maybe he was influenced by BitKeeper, was 15 years ago

Since there's no "slave" in git (the master is not special, simply the default branch when creating a repo), and there's the already established terminology of "master copy" or "master recording", it makes sense to not associate git's terminology usage with slavery. I originally posted the BitKeeper story because I had no idea either.

Ok then I understand better what you were saying :-)

I am fine with "blocklist" instead of "blacklist", because it sounds similar. But "allowlist" is just more difficult to pronounce.

Regarding your concern about people for whom English isn't the first language, I dont know how valid it is. Because those terms exist under the same names and fall under the same usage in many other languages. I can confirm that it is the case with Russian, as "черный список" is a commonly used phrase, and it literally translates to "black list", and has the exact same meaning as in English.

> I am fine with "blocklist" instead of "blacklist"

Better hope you're not dealing with a block device or other data structure that involves units of data called blocks.

"Is it in the Blocklist?"

"Which one, the deny list or the list of blocks?".

You may very well may be right that terms "allowlist" and "blocklist" are objectively clearer. I'm in favor of the idea of changing language to make things clearer and more effective. But the contention I have is that these changes aren't motivated for the pursuit of clarity. They are motivated by a need for cleansing. "whitelist" and "blacklist" are innocuous terms. They have been around for ages. Used and understood with no controversy by our most prestigious institutions from around the world. Then suddenly, within a matter of two years, the term is high-jacked by upper echelon members of our society. The words are re-defined to take on a new meaning and a new interpretation. Virtually every one of us who used this term are now deemed bad. Oppressors. On the wrong side of history. Racists. Now deemed a fireable offense. No room for debate and discussion. It is for these reasons that I push back. The motivation behind this change is wrong and has the potential to be all consuming of our language and culture, deeming innocuous terms as oppressive when they are not.

As I posted to a child: Language also adapts over decades so that words are computer/IT terms & have no other connotations. Like most of the stuff in this thread. Have a think about that.

Unless there is proof that whitelist & blacklist (as terms) were ratified around 'white people good, black people bad' then it is just personal offence at that point.

>why fight

because you give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

look up "menstruators" and "birthing people" to see what else that kind of people fight for.

>objectively clearer

then it wouldn't be necessary to force the change. nobody had a problem with these words until very recently, and only in very narrow circles of very loud people with disproportionate amount of power

>especially for folks who's first language is not English?

that's a very slippery slope

I'd imagine it's because it gets extremely tedious. Switching out only whitelist and blacklist isn't a big deal, but with the ever increasing list of words being deemed as 'bad' (e.g. the 'mother' example) it becomes increasingly annoying to communicate. After all, it's distracting from the point just to virtue signal to certain types of vapid personalities.

Most people don't see 'blacklist' with racist connotations or think 'motherboard' is in any way at odds with transgenderism.

I don't mind those words, and I don't really fight for them. I use the words I use out of habit. I just think that the mismatch in effort/spun cycles on those terms by the routine vocal minority is a testament to how detached to reality these people are

The things that worry me are the witch hunts started by the same group of people. See my other comment on "fren"

I'll fight for these terms because trying to "blocklist" them is such a ridiculous thing that I have zero interest in entertaining it. Nobody's actually offended by any of it, it's all made up by people with nothing better to do and then piled on by more people with nothing better to do.

I just don't like people telling me what to say or write. I think it's unhealthy to look for grievances in language and that if you get good enough at doing so you might not be able to stop. I also think terms like these are just a small part of an ongoing effort.

Independent of all other political goings on, in a vacuum, I could agree that we should get rid of white and blacklist and replace them with something else.

That's not what the word "objectively" means

Whitelist and blacklist are the words we've been using for decades to describe a concept. Everybody knows what they mean.

> words we've been using for decades to describe a concept.

Yeah, and so was calling black men "boy" or using the n-word like 50 years ago.

Language changes because people realize there are better words that more people are okay with.

Language also adapts over decades so that words are computer/IT terms & have no other connotations. Like most of the stuff in this thread. Have a think about that.

Words do have connotations, that's the reason why people use them - because they refer to similar concepts, even in different contexts.

'Whitelist' and 'blacklist' have nothing to do with race, they never had anything to do with race, and anyone who thinks they do is, quite simply, wrong. Knowing these facts, this is nothing like calling a black man 'boy' or using the n-word — so bringing them up is irrelevant.

Are you genuinely suggesting that using the n-word and asking the network team to add an IP to a blacklist come from the same moral place?

You just used the term "bl..k". This word is forbidden. Use the allowed word "coloured" next time.

—- The langage police

I wouldn't be so worried about non-native English speakers. 'Whitelist' and 'blacklist' are common enough terms that they've become loanwords in other languages. In Chinese, at least, the equivalent terms are 白名单 'white name list' and 黑名单 'black name list' and 拉黑 'pull (into) black(list)' is common vernacular for blocking someone on social media.

I think there's a good argument to keep terms to maintain the historical connection. There's a boatload of math and CS terms that are very, very poorly named, but if you renamed them, you lose the link to prior sources.

I've always pictured a 'blacklist' as a document with blacked-out redacted text; a whitelist is just the opposite. It wasn't until this substitutional whitewashing[0] of the English language that I realized whitelist/blacklist held negative connotations for some people.

[0]: like painting over a fence, geez.

The problem isn't that "allowlist" is preferred to "whitelist". The problem is that "whitelist" and "motherboard" are literally banned. Google is a private company so they can set whatever policies they want, but it's extremely condescending.

I'm generally on board with using culturally neutral terms, particularly since they're often more descriptive of the actual thing being described. I think there would be far less resistance if people didn't feel coerced.

there's hills I'd rather die on but it feels silly. What's appropriate is the transfer of the concept, not by how we judge the style of the analogy.

Ultimately if you're trying to edge proof language then you're just changing which bunch of people you're pissing off but I feel like people who do this act like its impossible they could piss anyone off over this.

Because they're established terms, and the witchhunt goes so far as to break builds and cause needless work just for the sake of political correctness: https://github.com/ostreedev/ostree/issues/2360

Political correctness linters require you to explicitly acknowledge or disable warnings when you're doing things like pasting existing URLs.

And it never stops with one term. It started with master/slave (which are now replaced with dozens of synonyms that are often hard to figure out), then whitelist/blacklist, and the activists are already queueing up the next words for sure.

Few people want to ban others from using alternative terms that they consider better, but where they draw the line is when others prevent them from using the terms they deem appropriate, or demand/force additional work.

Because the people/forces pushing them can’t be trusted.

Pushing such terms is (while presumably this is not the conscious intent) a means of cementing power by showing who (as in, “what vague coalition”, not “which specific people”) is in control.

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