Re: Contradictiory directions

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > "Blacklist" and "whitelist" appear in the Emacs source tree a total of
  > 432 times, while "allowlist" and "blocklist" appear a total of 259 times
  > exclusively in the context of mh-e.

In the GNU Project we do not blindly follow "industry standards".  We
think about them and consider following them when that is good for
users.  See node Non-GNU Standards in the GNU Coding Standards.

There is no reason to consider "blacklist" and "whitelist" offensive.
They never had anything to do with race; they don't refer to people.
They use an old metaphor of "black" and "white" standing for "evil"
and "good".

We should not feel obliged to bend over backwards for people who take
offense when none has been given.  We should, however, choose the best
terms.

I think that the best terms are "allowlist" and "blocklist."  They are
best because they make their meanings visible directly -- not via a
metaphor.  Using these names is preferable in new features.

Changing the names used in existing features has more of a cost.  The
incompability may cause trouble, or inconvenence, for users.  I have
no opinion about changing the names in old features.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)