Rename Controller Slave

[neclimdul]

Problem

A lot of the technology industry has moved away from the "Master/Slave" terminology for various reasons but most notably the negative meaning tied to the practices of slave trade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master/slave_(technology)#Terminology_concerns

Suggestion

As noted in the linked wikipedia entry, a lot of databases use replica, though "Controller Replica" sounds a little weird to me. Another common choice is "Secondary" though I'm struggled to use it in a way that made sense.

I think "Controller Interface" is a pretty good option since it describes the auxiliary nature of the block and also describes what you use the block to do (interface with the drawer controller) which might actually be better.

At the end of the day naming is ripe for bike shedding so my suggestion is just another color in the mix, I think any option that moves away from the current name is an improvement.

[jaquadro]

Political reasoning aside, this block probably should have been renamed a long time ago because there has always been confusion as to its purpose. Most people want to assume that it's a network extender but it is strictly an I/O interface.

A network extender has been on my list of wants for a long time so if it happens, the block would definitely need to be renamed at that time.

[TheRealWormbo]

Since this apparently did not happen yet, how about naming it something like "Auxiliary Drawer Interface" or "Controller Interface"?

[relsqui]

I did this using CraftTweaker in a 1.12 modpack, and went with "Secondary Drawer Controller," which the players both understood and appreciated. Another option might be "Drawer Interface," which would also emphasize its actual purpose and hopefully avoid the extender confusion.

I'm using a resource pack to do this in a 1.16 modpack, and would be happy to make a pull request with those changes to the en_us localization if that would help move this along.

[CodeGordon]

The political motivation for changing a long-established naming convention that has never had anything to do with actual slavery is just jumping at shadows and ridiculous in the extreme. That having been said, "Drawer Interface" sounds like a good name for it, considering its purpose and how other storage-related mods use controller and interface blocks.

[neclimdul]

As long as we agree on the outcome I've avoided quibling the context of the change here. Drawer Interface is definitely a better name and that seems to be kinda consensus in the thread.

I also think jaguadro was pretty reasonable in saying that aside from the meaning he'd intended to change the name. Like "please don't bomb my issue queue, I was planing on doing this anyways" which I respect.

@CodeGordon Because of that I'll limit my response to just say I whole heatedly disagree with your entire characterization of my reasoning. Feel free to find me on socials if you need to, I'm happy to continue the discussion there but I think we can be respectful of his queue and just agree to support the change here.

[CodeGordon]

@neclimdul The "problem" as described really isn't one, but has been made into a problem for political reasons. That isn't a judgment of your reasoning, but a statement about the source of the "terminology concerns" as referenced on the linked Wikipedia article. You didn't really give any reasoning of your own except to mention the broad strokes and add the link, so the only thing anyone has to go on is the fact that you brought it up, which suggests that you agree with it.

I don't want to nitpick over things here either, and we certainly don't have to agree, but even if motivated by the same reasons as the linked article, you could left that out and simply made the suggestion for the block to be renamed. Bringing it up in the request invites discussion on the "master/slave" naming convention topic by default.

Obviously this doesn't preclude a respectful conversation about either subject, which I'm glad to see has been maintained. I do also agree that the technology industry discussion is beyond the scope of a suggestion thread for this mod. However, the why does matter when discussing changes like this, even if we agree on the end result.

My overall point being that it may be best in the future to not bring it up at all unless you do want that discussion to happen.

[neclimdul]

I guess we're not going to take it out of the issue queue.

I didn't want this to be "political" and initially was annoyed by the response till I realized what the point was. I see people making these sorts of discsussions as political trying to tie it to specific political parties or what ever but there just is no government policy or political party allegiance to this. Many of the people in software communities making this change don't even live in the US where a lot of the "political" context might come and the discussions date well back into different political climates.. What it is about acknowledging how it can make some one else feel and that changing a name is a simple thing you can do to make people feel more comfortable as part of the communities you enjoy.

I did try to make the discussion as inoffensive as possible with my original summary because this may not be clear a year plus later but there was a significant backlash at the time to this sort of thing. I did mention the ties to slavery but I tried to stay far away from being inflammatory because people where being chased off the internet with death threats. Also at the time I don't think the references to BLM weren't even part of the Wikipedia article.

I was trying to keep it mostly technical, acknowledging that companies like Adobe, Microsoft, and Amazon where moving away from it and software projects from Python to Drupal where too and that's at least one of the reasons to change it. In the past year that list has just filled out with now basically all the major databases, Github and the Linux Kernel.

I do want to say I get it though. Its only by the fact that I paused to listen to some friends that I didn't make similar comments in the referenced Drupal issue queue. When I saw the issue pop up I was like "that's just a convention, why would someone find it offensive? This drama is vastly overblown because what sort of difference is that actually going to make?" The problem is that I bring a couple things to that opinion I didn't realize at the time and people I knew where actually uncomfortable with it.

1. As you'll see from my avatar, I'm not a person that has had to deal with slavery in a personal way and I was more blind to that then I realized.
2. I work in IT where this it is commonly used to refer to some "IT thing" controlled by another "IT thing" in a way dissociated from history connected with that the meaning. (refer to the blind spot from 1)
3. I'm a native English speaker which actually amplifies the impact of 1 & 2 because colloquial uses.

I'm not making any assumptions that you fall into any of those categories because your reasons are your own. But Minecraft is a global phenomenon. Kids and adults across the world play it and this mod is commonly included in the biggest mod packs. As such the audience is broad and diverse. That means for a lot of people using it, it might not be so easy to brush of. And even to the people that its doesn't have personal meaning, it can just seem really weird and gross especially to non-English speakers because why would we be calling things slaves?

So yeah, no reason to call the ties to slavery political, its just inherit in the word. And this small change isn't going to solve racism or shift the balance of voting power or make a difference in some political movement. Its just something small we can do to the mod a bit less confusing and modded Minecraft a bit more fun for everyone and all we have to do is change a string in some source code. Simple as that.

[CodeGordon]

I get what you're saying, but the people leading those companies and projects certainly have political agendas, and those companies' and projects' decisions reflect that. Not because of technical reasons, but for political ones held personally by the individuals making high-level decisions. Statements made by those people over the years bear that out.

People who take offense at old drive selectors listing "master/slave/CS (cable select)", the primary branch of git being called "master" (particularly with no matching "slave" or "servant" reference), or any other terminology that has nothing to do with sociopolitical anything are being overly sensitive. Practically to the point that it draws into question whether they're actually offended or just making a huge issue out of something because they know they can gain personally from doing so. There's enough examples of that to make one quite skeptical.

I work in IT as well, so I likewise see a lot of cases for your second point. I'm not exactly opposed to name changes, but like I said the "why" matters. Such as the switch from "master" to "main" for git still carrying the same essential meaning, or the suggested adoption of "Controller"/"Interface" pairing for storage mods. They are both relatively minor changes, but the former seems like pandering to gain political kudos, while the latter is closer to just adopting or helping to create a standard. Those are very different things from the "why" perspective.

I certainly understand the global audience for games like Minecraft, though only a few countries speak English in any capacity. The localization into those languages could certainly have other naming conventions, whether for historical/cultural sensitivity reasons or could even arise completely organically. There's nothing wrong with that. There's not really anything wrong with changing terminology in English projects, but it ought to be for sound reasons in my estimation, not just because of people's personal agendas or pressure (let alone threats) from agenda-driven individuals or groups. Give those sorts of people an inch and they'll never stop taking inches until there's nothing left.

At the end of the day, we're not going to solve the world's problems in an issue queue for a Minecraft mod on GitHub, and at least we can agree that moving to a "Controller"/"Interface" standard is probably a good idea, for whatever the reason. The rest we don't have to agree on, and we could still have fun on a server together. :)

[CodeGordon]

Also, quite off-topic, but I just realized that your user name is a M:TG reference. Makes me feel quite dumb that it took me this long to notice. XD

[relsqui]

What a strange coincidence that people you don't agree with have an agenda, are politically motivated, are doing it for personal gain, etc. whereas the people you do agree with ... are simply pure of heart and intention, I guess? And are also the keepers of the objectively correct amount of sensitivity, for all people, in all contexts, even the ones they have no personal experience with? Certainly their vehement defense of the status quo couldn't possibly be a political position.

I was subscribed to this thread because I wanted to hear about project updates, and I'm furious that I've had this argument arriving in my inbox all day instead. If I wanted to read people shouting their lack of understanding or empathy from the rooftops, I would have stayed on social media. I hope you get a crumb stuck in your keyboard.

[wizardofdocs]

I'd like to suggest renaming it to "controller relay" to give nontechnical users a better idea of what it does.

[CodeGordon]

I'd like to suggest renaming it to "controller relay" to give nontechnical users a better idea of what it does.

Relay makes it sound like it extends the range of the controller, which I'm pretty sure it doesn't do.

[wizardofdocs]

I'm pretty sure that's one of the things it does. The other being giving you more places to attach pipes, which I would argue is also within the meaning of "relay."

Assuming it isn't, however, what would you call it that doesn't give it all the baggage of centuries of institutionalized violence?

On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 6:17 AM Zachary Sheets @.***> wrote:

I'd like to suggest renaming it to "controller relay" to give nontechnical users a better idea of what it does.

Relay makes it sound like it extends the range of the controller, which I'm pretty sure it doesn't do.

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[CodeGordon]

[W]hat would you call it that doesn't give it all the baggage of centuries of institutionalized violence?

No such baggage exists without artificially adding it. See also the psychological terms from Nietzsche's writings. Not every usage of the words "master" and "slave" is talking about the practice of slavery that has been ceased for so long in the US that it's well beyond living memory. Unlike the many, many other places in the world where it still exists.

Anyway, as for the term I would use, I would call it an "interface" to match the convention of other storage mods. You could have also scrolled up and read my previous posts on this very thread.

[TheRealWormbo]

Can you folks please stop spamming this thread with ideologically loaded discussions? We've already established that the historical baggage of the term "slave" (1) exists regardless what your opinion on the term is, and (2) is not necessarily relevant here to recommend better names in the first place, as the term does a poor job of describing the block's functionality.

[CodeGordon]

@TheRealWormbo: First, one response hardly amounts to "spamming". Second, the entire premise of the thread's topic is ideologically loaded, because the IT industry's sudden issue with the terms is ideologically loaded. Third, your disagreement with my opinion doesn't invalidate my opinion. Fourth, as stated previously, I agree with the suggestion of naming it an "interface" for reasons I've already covered.

The "Drawer Interface" or "Controller Interface" names seem to be the consensus, regardless of our respective thoughts on the "slave" terminology. A "relay" block, as @wizardofdocs suggested could be useful for the extension function that was mentioned. Further discussion most likely serves only to invite the "ideologically loaded" conversations that you're not wanting to have.

I suggest that @jaquadro lock this thread, as the goal of coming up with names for the blocks in question has been achieved.