GitHub to replace “master” with alternative term to avoid slavery references

> You want to rewrite parts the language because a few people are offended?

No I don't. I want to use the word denylist instead of blacklist. So do other people and companies. Other words have gone in and out of fashion without rewriting parts of the language. Yes, the slippery slope logical fallacy definitely applies here. You are greatly exaggerating what's happening or what could happen as the result of using a word with a clearer meaning, in professional settings.

> the history of the term whitelist/blacklist, they are not rooted racially.

The continued use of the word black to mean "evil" in the workplace and white to mean "good" while those terms both also apply to people's race is the history of the past few decades. In a society where people are being systemically oppressed on the basis of race. And it just so happens "coincidentally" that it is the oppressed minority that gets to hear that the same name for their race means "evil" on a regular basis at work. No thanks.

> Do you realize how often people are offended at the most miniscule and obnoxious things?

> This isn't PoC crying for change.

Choose one?

PoC are asking for change about these specific terms, and it came up as early as the 1970s. This has been an ongoing conversation that you have not been a part of. A simple search will help you educate yourself about the specific PoC who have complained in various formats including scholarly articles, presentations at public meetings, as well as editorials, and blogs. In addition to these specific terms, the larger subject under which this falls is microagressions, and you will find countless sources from PoC talking about that issue and why it is important to fix.

Are you a Slav?

Because I am, and I did not ask for this. Find me one Slav who requested this.

And yet, you thinking about the word association is all it took to imagine you you're helping someone with that. Because, hypothetically, there might be someone who is offended. For some reason.

Who thought about renaming master? As far as I know, a white person. Somehow, all these fuckups are started by white people in the US on behalf of minorities. I can imagine how it went:

"master branch... hmm, where does this naming convention come from anyway? Maybe master/slave? Hm, slavery is bad. That means the term master here might possibly offend someone. Welp, let's change it then! Oh, and it'd also excuse my job role of Dev Relations. I'm definitively useful!"

Or an academic in very-soft sciences instead of Dev Relations. I just saw some Dev Relations people on Twitter being very srs about this crap.

Meanwhile, all the software is broken. Feeling like it's held together by duct tape. Consuming more and more resources as time goes on, while functionality decreases.

All of this is excused by talking about programmer time. "Programmer time is more valuable".

Yeah, so valuable we'll be wasting time on this crap. And some things will break, maybe. Some will be fixed, some not. Some manual/help resources will be left in their original, horribly racist form. Some will be rewritten.

Oh, and there's the little cost of making politics just a tiny bit more toxic.

Anyway: when I learned the term for my ethnicity is basically the same word as slave, I thought "Hmm, that's interesting/cool fact" I'm pretty sure all the people react this way if at all.

I don't believe Blacks in the US are as unreasonable as you all paint them. I think you're all pretty damn racist for implying otherwise.

Cops aren't gunning people down in my country, so no, I think things are fine here.

We should think what will the term after “mother” will be, while we’re at the drawing board.

In a few years time, not everyone will have a mother, as thats gendering a guardian. To imply someone must have a mother is oppressive to all the fathers, especially people who have both parents as fathers.

But, I may be misspeaking. Whose to say either one of their guardians are a mother, or a father. That would be too binary of me.

/s

As you can see, I am here under my real identity. I would not intentionally do what you are accusing me of here; and even having read your guidelines for several times now, and although I have also studied law and am used to reading and understanding regulations, I would not have come to the conclusion that my actions violate them; it's certainly not "obvious". At least now I understand how you interpret your guidelines in the present case.