[CydeWeys]

Anecdotally I have heard of students having trouble figuring out what the terms mean. You're even admitting it yourself -- if you have to rely on looking them up in the dictionary then it's obvious they aren't obvious terms! No one has to look up "allowlist" and "denylist" because they do exactly what they say on the tin.

You have yet to give one valid argument as to how "whitelist" and "blacklist" are better, and indeed, have unintentionally given one argument as to how they are worse.

And yes, they are strictly engineering terms. Merely appearing in a dictionary doesn't mean they aren't. Most technical words are in the dictionary despite not being used outside their fields, e.g. here's one: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stator

[ivojp]

I think it's a misrepresentation of my argument to say that because I mentioned that they appear in the dictionary that I am conceding that they are not good terms (although by your exclamation point at the end I am reading that part as well-intended banter).

I'll say this to clarify since I do not believe you are making this argument but having to look up a word should not be the barrier to whether or not a word is used.

They are better because they are well understood and agreed upon terms. I'll also reiterate that the terms are not engineering specific; wikipedia has sources cited so hopefully this will suffice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting

[erik_seaberg]

Are there college students who don't know the history of the Red Scare and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist ?

[lern_too_spel]

Yes. Not all college students are from the US.