Several comments on yesterday's fail2ban article[1], as well as some
internal Red Hat mailing list traffic, raised concern with the use of
the word "blacklist". While the etymology of the term is not racist,
there are reasonable arguments to be made that it can contribute to
unconscious bias. Its meaning is also less obvious than alternatives
like "block list".
So there are two questions here:
1. Should we discourage the use of whitelist and blacklist in Fedora
Magazine in favor of alternatives like "allow list" and "block
list"/"deny list"?
2. Should we start developing a style guide that addresses this and
other issues (e.g. the style of projects like "NetworkManager" (not
"Network Manager") and other things both malign and benign (like using
the words "simple" or "just") that a style guide normally covers)?
I am in favor of both of the above.
For anyone who is interested, I learned today that the latest update
to the codespell package (currently in testing[2]) can flag some of
these issues:
codespell --builtin clear,rare,usage <filename>
[1] https://fedoramagazine.org/protect-your-system-with-fail2ban-and-firewalld-blacklists/
[2] https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2020-12bd755a7c
--
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Senior Program Manager, Fedora & CentOS Stream
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis
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