[mswtk]

> I for one think it's great that people are willing to make things a little more accessible for more people. If people want to be part of our community of developers I think it's great that these organizations listen to people who might have a problem with certain terminology. Even though I don't have a problem with those terms, I think it's still worth evaluating if they're worth keeping if it makes it harder for someone to be part of our community.

Is it more accessible? As in, is this change driven by complaints from actual people who feel excluded by the terminology? As far as I'm aware, none of the projects making these changes even claims that, it's all speculation on behalf of hypothetical offended parties.

Not that it really makes it less annoying to have terminology used by people from all over the world be dictated by American cultural sensibilities, but it's easier to stomach if there's some material justification behind the change.

[cobraetor]

> Is it more accessible? As in, is this change driven by complaints from actual people who feel excluded by the terminology? As far as I'm aware, none of the projects making these changes even claims that, it's all speculation on behalf of hypothetical offended parties.

I'm an African American, and no I'm not offended by Git's branch name. White progressives spend so much time on virtue signalling but hardly pay any attention to pressing Black problems like Black poverty and education.

[buzzert]

Genuine question: do you feel like the changes are also condescending?

[oap_bram]

I don't know, I can't speak for the people who's access is limited. However, I am Dutch and can say that these cultural sensibilities are far outside of just the "American" one.

There are plenty of people that struggle with this terminology in a realistic way. Even if you can't find anecdotal evidence of someone being offended by this, you can rationally come to the conclusion that it might be worth changing it. And for it to be accessible, it doesn't need to come 100% from the people that face problems with the terminology. If it were to be 100% those people, than it would be a great from of cultural emancipation however!

[mswtk]

I mean, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for at least a couple actual examples of this change helping people feel better about participating in technology. In the absence of such, it all feels very performative and, dare I say, a cheap way to score good PR for participating organizations. I don't think it really hurts anyone to an extent that it should be opposed, but neither does it really help, until proven otherwise.

> However, I am Dutch and can say that these cultural sensibilities are far outside of just the "American" one.

Are they? Does the master/slave terminology also have very negative connotations in your culture? I thought it was almost exclusively an American thing due to their historical circumstances.

[oap_bram]

I would suggest looking up what the Dutch did in relation to race equality in history and how we were involved in a lot of slave trade, sometimes even to the US.

I would say you have a point with saying it's performative, and I don't have anything to counter that. However, perhaps your energy could be spent looking for someone that is actually offended by this to counter your own perspective?

Kinda Karl Popper style of disprove your own theory?

[mswtk]

> I would suggest looking up what the Dutch did in relation to race equality in history and how we were involved in a lot of slave trade, sometimes even to the US.

I am aware of the history, but that's not enough to give the words themselves emotional charge and significance. The reason this is so for Americans is that the consequences of slavery and racial segregation are keenly felt right now - it's not just an abstract wrong committed on people long ago and far away. As a point of comparison, I'm from Eastern Europe, and the word "slave" is derived from "Slav" - but this is effectively ancient history with little bearing on the present, and so the word doesn't carry any emotional charge or special meaning.

To put things differently, is there a segment of the Dutch populace for whom the words "master" and "slave" signify that kind of viscerally felt injustice, as they do for black people in the US? This isn't a gotcha question, I genuinely don't know, and these kinds can be arbitrary and irrational. For Poles, "slavery" is abstract, but "forced labor" brings up some major traumas from around World War 2, for example.

> Kinda Karl Popper style of disprove your own theory?

I was hoping someone would do it for me in this thread. :) Might still happen, if not, I might have to do some digging.

[akoncius]

> I am aware of the history, but that's not enough to give the words themselves emotional charge and significance.

I disagree. Nazis, soviets did a lot of crimes against humanity and in certain countries symbols of those regimes are banned, also speaking positively about it also is banned by claiming it dismisses all those crimes.

It’s not required for that word to be relevant NOW in order to be somewhat negative/avoided.

I think it applies also to master/slave stuff: it attempts to normalize those terms by dismissing history of those words. Also - if we forget shortly that we are used to master branch in git: why word “master” is right choice for it? for me “main” makes sense.

as for DB - original/replica also makes sense.

[throw0101a]

> dictated by American cultural sensibilities

The English-language Internet (and tech) field has a large centre of gravity in the US, so those of us outside of the US do tend view a lot of the rending of garments on some topics to be quite strange.