Tagging - 2020-08-10

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user185131

2:33 PM

Based on the recent guidance regarding terms like "blacklist", "whitelist" etc. would it be a good idea to relabel the Meta tags tag-blacklist and blacklist to (say) [tag-blocklist] and [blocklist]?

quid

3:12 PM

@Brahadeesh the answer says "We are planning to update the relevant tags on metas network-wide [...]". If SE plans a global update it is not clear to me if we should front-run that.

They may or may not decide to edit the posts in the process (which for reasons of consistency would seem desirable to me).

Xander Henderson

@Brahadeesh Ugh... I don't really care if these things get changed or not, but this is, in my opinion, one of the silliest bits of virtue signaling in ages. :\

user185131

3:29 PM

@quid I read through the whole post but missed that part. :) Yes, there's no need to jump the gun on this if SE says they will update the tags everywhere.

user185131

I doubt they will edit any posts though, since they say that they "will leave it in the hands of the moderators and the Community to decide on the appropriate usages of these terms on the different sites throughout the network, both for new content, and for legacy content."

Xander Henderson

@XanderHenderson That being said, I'm all for removing master/slave from tech jargon. The history of chattel slavery in the US has forever polluted the meaning of those words.

quid

3:52 PM

@Brahadeesh possible, though frankly it seems inconsistent. If they change the name of the concept and the tag name, they should change the usage directly related to that.

user185131

4:49 PM

@quid If they do only half the job then it will be more work for the mod team, isn't it?

quid

@Brahadeesh it's not really the work of changing, but I don't think it'd be a great idea to manually edit the mentions. Indeed they did say they are willing to help, which could be taken as being willing to auto change. Well let's see what happens.

user185131

@XanderHenderson I agree, changing the master/slave terminology would definitely be an improvement in my eyes. Not sure about the history behind the blacklist/whitelist terminology but I don't mind that SE is trying to move away from that colour coding. It's not that these are suddenly "naughty" words on SE or anything, though, I imagine?

Xander Henderson

@Brahadeesh Blacklist goes back to the 17th century, in England.

In English, purity is typically associated with the color white---keeping a garment clean and white is a symbol of purity and status. Dirt shows up on an uncleaned white garment, and is easily seen as impure. The more impure the garment becomes, the darker or blacker it becomes.

Thus white represents purity, and black sinfulness.

This has never had racial undertones (except, perhaps, among the LDS, and maybe some other fringe Christian groups?), and the black/white contrast is a common one in the English language. Think black hats and white hats in Westerns.

user185131

That's interesting. Somehow the connotation that "black = bad" and "white = good" in the terms blacklist/whitelist has become problematic due to other influences.

Xander Henderson

@Brahadeesh Personally, I think that it comes down to certain people looking for a reason to be offended.

user185131

5:05 PM

It may be as you say. It certainly feels like that over the internet. I don't have the "real-world" experience with this issue to judge how it is.

Xander Henderson

At the end of the day, I don't feel very strongly about it---I prefer blacklist/whitelist, and I think that "to blacklist" reads better as a verb than "to blocklist", but if the culture changes, so be it.

I just don't think that there is a compelling reason to get one's knickers in a twist over blacklist / whitelist.

Master / slave is another issue entirely. While the language does not directly come from US notions of chattel slavery, the etymology is sufficiently similar to cause real problems. I'm more than happy to abandon that language.

On the bright side, I don't see this issue coming up much in my writing on SE, as I don't every have to worry about such lists in a mathematical context. :)

quid

@XanderHenderson personally I find block-list for tags etc more expressive.

user185131

5:22 PM

This issue actually reminded me of an interesting question on Math Educators SE:

user185131

Q: What's a replacement for "married couples" in combinatorics problems?

Many counting problems start with the assumption that we have a certain number of men and women or a certain number of couples, with the assumption (often unstated) being that that gender is binary (only men or women) and couples are only heterosexual. (See for example this or this problem or th...

user185131

Not specifically the "blacklist/whitelist" part, but searching for alternatives to commonly used terms as the culture around the subject changes or grows.

Xander Henderson

@Brahadeesh You didn't want to link to the best answer to that question?

@quid blacklist / whitelist is certainly idiomatic English; perhaps to non-native speakers, denylist (or blocklist, or whatever) and allowlist might be more expressive.

If the change were justified or discussed in this manner, I likely would have no objection.

quid

@XanderHenderson yes, denlist seems confusing. blocklist seems perfect (at least for the present use cases)

user185131

@XanderHenderson Hahahaha. Naturally, no one should miss your answer to the question, since it's very good :)

Xander Henderson

5:31 PM

@quid I don't know what a "denlist" is, so I obviously have no idea what you are talking about. :P

@Brahadeesh :P

quid

@XanderHenderson I see.

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