this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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[–] wheeldawg@sh.itjust.works 93 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I don't think I've ever seen the word "allowlisted". Did someone forget "whitelisted" is a thing, or is that term finally cancelled?

[–] tleb@lemmy.ca 91 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Whitelist and blacklist were indeed cancelled despite having no racial origin.

[–] tonarinokanasan@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

There are cultural traditions of using colors as symbols, many of which are harmless -- red for anger, blue for sadness, green for envy. Whitelist and blacklist come from the very long-standing theme of using white to represent good and black to represent evil.

Regardless of how you feel about the origin of those themes, it makes sense to start moving away from them now. Whether intentional or not, they can be harmful and aren't really necessary.

[–] Reliant1087@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Let's also start removing phrases with white, yellow and brown as those are used to refer to people's skin colour as well.

The only reason I would even contemplate not using blacklist or white washing is if an actual person of that skin colour says that it is not okay for them, or there's an actual consensus among people of that community that it isn't acceptable.

I can tell you as a person with brown skin, with brownie or whatever used as a derogatory name, almost everyone I know isn't even concerned with terms like brown out or brown note.

Online outrages or articles aren't an accurate depiction of reality.

Even more dangerously, shit like this drives outrage and diverts attention from actual, real issues faced by people of different races. Like not having stuff to eat or indoor plumbing or mental health infrastructure or access to health care.

[–] kameecoding@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

not only that but whitelist-blacklist are just bad names.

even greenlist-redlist would be better (at least while we have light signals at intersections) as green means go red means stop are more universally understood.

but allowlist and blocklist are just plain better, they are self explanatory words. you don't need to learn what they mean since it's right there in the name.

whitelist-blacklist are names where you need to learn the meaning of them, sticking to them just because they were used in the past is not the best argument.

[–] Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 year ago

I'm fairly certain the term "blacklist" came before traffic lights

[–] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Words often work like unique signifiers "symbols", often by using them you learn them and dont question it. Thats a neutral phenomenon. It has advantages and disadvantages. Mainly, redlist is as disconnected from meaning as much as blacklist is. Requiring the understanding of what a "car" is, and why they cant "wheel their way" thru a cross shaped road becuse of a colored light being there. (Mabe even "across" may make no sense anymore in the future) It sounds really stupid when put like that, but accessability is important.

[–] kameecoding@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

it isn't though. you don't need cars to learn red means stop, we literally had miniature roads, crossing and signs at my pre-school (or whatever it's called in English, the one you go at age 3 till 6, you start school at 6).

Stop sign is red, pedestrian crossing are just red - stop, green - go. you learn that from a very young age so the association is natural.

Also, just to be clear, I didn't say redlist is good, just that it's less stupid than blacklist.

[–] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Fair, the idea of "going" will be there and hopefully, likely its symbols will stay relivant.

How is blacklist stupid? Green and red aren't natural, in fact black/white makes more sense because it represents a binary choice (true/false, off/on).

They came from voting in ancient Athens were people had a white ball and a black ball. You put one or the other into a jar, a black was a no vote, white was yes. It has never had anything to do with race. If it bothers you change the words for skin color instead then.

"whitelist-blacklist are names where you need to learn the meaning of them"

You could say this about every word. All language is based on past usage.

[–] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Never liked these debates ~~as "making the words comfortable (to myself, others or both)" (from both sides) matters most.~~

I find that usimg that soundbyte results in people (including me) to not knowing the cultures your refering to and most without being informed assume that their irrelivant (Hence the original reactionary response). Since the debate has in bad faith on nobody's intent became about "comfort", ill give that perspective.

Personally, Allowlist and blocklist "just work" (no discomfort). Blacklist and Whitelist are natural feeling and I fully understood the soundbyte reason. For that I can respect depricating the word but banning it (if thats even the goal) is uncomfortable. Ill happly abandon my position if a good argument is given. For now I subconciosly use what word was already there.

Edit: boilerplate is way too harsh, dont like conforntational tone.

[–] tonarinokanasan@lemmy.sdf.org -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly I haven't heard much rhetoric around anyone banning these terms. But if moving away from them IS good, and the entire catalyst for this conversation is "YouTube chose to use newer, more preferable terms", then isn't that a good thing?

[–] HelloHotel@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thats what I wanted to communicate, deprication is a fairly normal part of software. Computer interfaces in all their forms are just contracts of expectation, social contracts are simmlar. Deprication is marking an expectation as a mistake or somhow unhelpful.

They are sort of necessary because people understand what they mean. How about we change the words for skin color instead.

[–] bright_side_@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's common since quite a few years. And blocklist as counterpart

[–] SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 41 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Blocklist and allowlist are much more intuitive, so if we ignore all the cultural baggage, these changes are rather sensical.

[–] finestnothing@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Cultural baggage? Neither term has any roots in racism, blacklist came from a play and whitelist came about as the opposite of blacklist

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It comes from the act of voting using a black or white ball. Black was a no vote, white was yes. It goes back to ancient Greece.

[–] finestnothing@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where did you find that that is the origin of blacklist and whitelist? The first use of the term blacklist came from a 1630's play called "The Unnatural Combat" where the people who executed the king were put on a so called "black list" to say that they were suspicious and would be punished, it later came to mean (through use in other plays and texts) people who were to be excluded or had wronged the person, which is why computing blacklisting uses it (i.e. this ip is suspicious or not to be trusted, so add it to the blacklist and don't let it access anything). Whitelist came around in the 1840's as an explicit opposite of the term blacklist

What do you think the terms were based on? You think they pulled "blacklist" out of thin air?

[–] SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As of the perception of words has no relevance

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've never heard it perceived as that

Your experience is the only one -- fair

[–] src@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Not everything is related to skin color Jesus. The world isn't so black and white.

[–] towerful@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago

It's not been cancelled.
I'm sure someone raised concerns over racist origins, or that they were uncomfortable with the terms. Or perhaps programmers did it themselves as a part of introspection that came around with GitHub changing from "master branch" to "main branch".

Which likely lead people to realise that blacklist and whitelist aren't really descriptive.
Blacklist came from the 1600s, regarding regicide. And the opposite of that is obviously whitelist.
But it doesn't actually describe what it's doing, and ultimately it is an idiom.
Removing idioms in coding is generally good practice.
And you can have other things like "FilterList" or "AdminList" or whatever.