RE: Use of "white list" and "black list" in WG documents/dialogue

Thanks for bringing this up, Manu. The Inclusiveness and Diversity CG has been exploring approaches to this and other language issues that frequently occur (e.g. master/slave files).

See https://github.com/w3c/idcg/issues/17 and https://github.com/w3c/idcg/issues/15.  

Tzviya Siegman
Information Standards Principal
Wiley
201-748-6884
tsiegman@wiley.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> 
Sent: Monday, November 2, 2020 3:58 PM
To: W3C DID Working Group <public-did-wg@w3.org>
Subject: Use of "white list" and "black list" in WG documents/dialogue

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Hey folks,

Heard several mentions of the word "whitelist" and "blacklist" on the call today. I know the folks using it had no ill will, and there is never a good time to bring this up, but putting this out there so that folks can learn about why such language is being increasingly viewed as not having a place in the tech industry (and society in general).

Here's a peer reviewed journal article that outlines the origins of those words and their negative effect on society:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328014459_Blacklists_and_whitelists_a_salutary_warning_concerning_the_prevalence_of_racist_language_in_discussions_of_predatory_publishing


Please consider these more accurate alternatives in the future:

whitelist => allow list
blacklist => deny list

Not only are these replacements more technically accurate, but they are easier to understand (less colloquial) for non-native English speakers of which we had a fair number of on the call today.

-- manu

--
Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/

Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Veres One Decentralized Identifier Blockchain Launches https://tinyurl.com/veres-one-launches

Received on Monday, 2 November 2020 21:04:01 UTC