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OpenShift 3 and 4 product and community documentation
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Remove use of obviously offensive language #22854

Closed rmkraus closed 3 years ago

rmkraus commented 4 years ago

Which section(s) is the issue in?

all sections

What needs fixing?

Currently, there are 76,758 lines containing the word master. There are some places where, for the sake of clear documentation, the word master should be used as it is still a Kubernetes term and appears in Kubernetes output. In many occurrences, it could be accurately replaced by the words "control plane" which would be more descriptive and less offensive.

Currently, there are 3108 lines containing the word slave. Slave is not a Kubernetes word, but it does appear in nmcli commands. Other uses of the word slave appear in reference to MySQL server configurations and Jenkins server configurations. In these two instances, a less offensive word could likely be used that would not introduce confusion.

There are 3953 lines containing the word whitelist. Many uses are colloquial and not in reference to a technology protocol or configuration these should be changed to be more descriptive and less offensive. Some uses are in reference to protocols (like LDAP), these may be harder to change and remain clear. Many of the uses are in reference to firewall configurations where the term can be deprecated without causing confusion.

There are 2940 lines containing the word blacklist. See above for comments.

What is the appetite for changing this? I'd be happy to start contributing to this on the side, although, I'd never be able to tackle this all myself. I also think it would be great to implement a CI check that checks for occurrences of these words and flags them.

rmkraus commented 4 years ago

I think most of your concern is regarding blacklist/whitelist. Those are terms that date back to the 17th century and were not rooted in racism. However, it is important to note that language evolves and nobody here was alive in the 17th century. In the 13th century, the word awful used to mean wonderful and full of awe. That is no longer the case because language has evolved. In this century, it is no longer appropriate to continue associating the word black with bad.

At best, the words are non-descriptive and unclear to non-English speakers. At worst, they pile on to the death of a thousand papercuts that reinforces the racial bias of our industry. All of us should be constantly striving to evolve and try to understand the experience of others. Replacing these words with more descriptive words not only makes our software better, but it also is a small step towards making more people comfortable in our industry.

rmkraus commented 4 years ago

For additional resources demonstrating that this change in industry is necessary, relevant, and happening:

rmkraus commented 4 years ago

Thank you for your concerns and polite discord. Racial discussions are certainly complex, nuanced, and difficult.

  1. You are probably correct, although we have to be careful not to fall victim to observation bias. That is what it means to be considerate. It is necessary for all people to inconvenience themselves, to a degree, in order to make other feel more comfortable. Sometimes we may over correct, we will always be behind, but being considerate is a journey, not a destination.

  2. I am an American. As such I cannot speak in an educated way as to how these terms resonate in other cultures. However, replacing these words with more descriptive words would certainly make them easier for non-English speakers to understand. I mean, DenyList is certainly more contextually accurate than BlackList. I know that there are some Black people that are offended by these words. Changing these words to more descriptive words increases the quality of our software and, at the very least, makes our software more inclusive to (at least) some of a group of people that have been systematically distanced.

  3. Could you please provide (non-anecdotal) evidence that in modern linguistics the term Black is associated with the lack of light before race? The two of us do not get to be the gatekeepers of linguistics. If I could file a PR against the English language, I would. Would that make more sense? Maybe. But, alas, here we are. We have to be observant of those around us and be considerate of how they may feel. That's the only way for Open Source to work. I can't change the English language, but I can change open source documentation. Also, could you provide (non-anecdotal) evidence for: "Nobody would think of black people when we're using words that have black in them."?

  4. Absolutely. Don't follow a crowd for the sake of following a crowd. However, sometimes when a crowd of people are doing something, it is not authoritarianism. Sometimes its just a honkin' good idea. In order to be authoritarianism, there must be a central authority enforcing the behavior. There isn't one here.

  5. I would like to point out that simply because a word is not offensive to you, does not mean it is not offensive. Neither of us gets to decide the conscious and non-conscious reactions our friends and colleagues have to certain words. Unfortunately, people are complex beings. This is a small step we can take to be more considerate towards (at least) a portion of a group of people that deserve more than inclusion, they deserve equality.

Finally, what is your goal here? I'm not sure I understand. It seems that you agree with me that change should be made, even if you disagree on the reasoning. The point of an Issue on GitHub is to point to something that should change and provide (at least) on reason why. You have agreed and provided a second reason why this should be changed. Since we are in agreement on the crux of the issue (that there are better words to use), what are you working towards? I'm not sure what you are asking from me. If you just want to have a constructive conversation about the Black experience in America, asking questions of a mustachioed White guy on GitHub hardly seems to be the most productive way of doing that.

rmkraus commented 4 years ago

Well, I didn't use authoritarianism to mean that.

Understood. Please be careful choosing words. Authoritarianism is another word that has a strong emotional reaction by many, like black. I'm glad you understand that words can elicit emotional responses that were not always intended by the speaker.

Every word is offensive to someone. It's an endless adventure.

Again, that is a great definition of practicing consideration and kindness. It is an endless adventure. But it is an adventure that is absolutely worth perusing.

My goal here is to stop people from spreading the wrong meaning of the terms.

Like I said, we do not get to decide on the linguistic ramifications of words. I wish we could. That would be far simpler. If you want to engage in a dialog of linguistics, might I suggest a different venue?

My request for you would be to remove the mentioning of "offensive" or "potential racist connotations" in blacklist/whitelist. Because that's simply wrong and language matters to me. I would really appreciate it if we could agree on this. Thanks.

We agree again! Language absolutely matters. Offensive is the correct term. See the definition here. These words DO cause resentful displeasure to some. Not me. Not you. But to a great many.

As for the latter, my issue does not mention racism. That was really you're thing. Race was not discussed until you got here. So again, I'm not sure what you are asking me.

rmkraus commented 4 years ago

If you want to contribute to making these words offensive words, then what you're doing is a great contribution to your goal.

I certainly do not want to do that. But to ignore that it is a troubling use of terminology to many is just blinding yourself to the world you live in. I am not making the word offensive, it is already offensive to many.

Would you mind providing any proof for this?

There are so many. Here are a few. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6148600/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueDbCmG3iu4 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-bad-is-black-effect/ Written by a black man: http://www.stlamerican.com/news/editorials/why-is-black-always-a-bad-word/article_9fdf3fd1-a263-536a-8b11-a80d4dcfe0b1.html

Is it a coincidence that you brought up blacklist/whitelist in this BlackLivesMatter time?

The Black Lives Matter movement started in 2013. So that's not new. Are you specifically refering the murder of George Floyd? Is your ask that I not strive for a less offensive world around the time a Black man is murdered by the police? If so, there would never be an appropriate time to raise this issue.

Might I suggest that, if you cannot articulate a request that I have not either fully complied with or reasonably responded to, then maybe your frustration isn't with me or this GitHub Issue.

rmkraus commented 4 years ago

My point is that some people find those words (in particular) offensive and that is grounds enough for their removal. You didn't dispute that. You agreed that whitelist/blacklist are not the best terms, albeit on a different premise.

Might I suggest that, if you cannot articulate a request that I have not either fully complied with or reasonably responded to, then maybe your frustration isn't with me or this GitHub Issue.

rmkraus commented 4 years ago

The standard alternatives, which are dependent on context, are AllowList and DenyList. Again, just because the word doesn't offend you, don't mean that it doesn't offend others.

I think we may have reached the end of what we can achieve in this forum and we are both getting quite repetitive. I appreciate you sharing your opinions. I have also shared mine. I feel as if I was heard. I hope you feel the same. I hope that I have not offended you. I apologize if I have. I have not been offended.

At this point, it will be up to the maintainers of the project (Red Hat) to make a decision on this matter.

gaurav-nelson commented 4 years ago

This one should get some :eyes:

openshift-bot commented 4 years ago

Issues go stale after 90d of inactivity.

Mark the issue as fresh by commenting /remove-lifecycle stale. Stale issues rot after an additional 30d of inactivity and eventually close. Exclude this issue from closing by commenting /lifecycle frozen.

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/lifecycle stale

openshift-bot commented 3 years ago

Stale issues rot after 30d of inactivity.

Mark the issue as fresh by commenting /remove-lifecycle rotten. Rotten issues close after an additional 30d of inactivity. Exclude this issue from closing by commenting /lifecycle frozen.

If this issue is safe to close now please do so with /close.

/lifecycle rotten /remove-lifecycle stale

openshift-bot commented 3 years ago

Rotten issues close after 30d of inactivity.

Reopen the issue by commenting /reopen. Mark the issue as fresh by commenting /remove-lifecycle rotten. Exclude this issue from closing again by commenting /lifecycle frozen.

/close

openshift-ci-robot commented 3 years ago

@openshift-bot: Closing this issue.

In response to [this](https://github.com/openshift/openshift-docs/issues/22854#issuecomment-760678788): >Rotten issues close after 30d of inactivity. > >Reopen the issue by commenting `/reopen`. >Mark the issue as fresh by commenting `/remove-lifecycle rotten`. >Exclude this issue from closing again by commenting `/lifecycle frozen`. > >/close Instructions for interacting with me using PR comments are available [here](https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/guide/pull-requests.md). If you have questions or suggestions related to my behavior, please file an issue against the [kubernetes/test-infra](https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/issues/new?title=Prow%20issue:) repository.