[dev] Black/Whitelist naming

[Michael M Slusarz]

Quoting John Morrissey <jwm at horde.net>:

| I have a large IMP installation at an ISP and a user recently mentioned
| that the terms 'blacklist' and 'whitelist' might be interpreted as
racially
| insensitive.
|
| What do people think about changing them? I was thinking 'Safe List' and
| 'Block List.'

This has come up several times before, and we have always decided to keep
the current naming system.  It continues to boil down to two points:

1. Blacklist/Whitelist has aboslutely *nothing* to do with racial prejudice.
 See the list archives for further discussion (BTW, if anyone has seen the
letter from a supposed "respected" scholar stating that was sent to college
administrators asking them to "join together" and stop the usage of the
term, it is complete bullshit.  Unfortunately people at my university were
persuaded by this letter without even looking at the facts, but I
digress...)

2. By definition, blacklist and whitelist _exactly_ describe the
functionality that these terms perform.  If you don't believe me, look at
the definitions: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=white%20list,
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=blacklist.

This being said, there is no need to rehash arguments that have occurred
elsewhere -- http://mla.libertine.org/tmda-users/2002-05/msg00228.html

michael

______________________________________________
Michael Slusarz [slusarz at bigworm.colorado.edu]
The University of Colorado at Boulder