> Over the past few days or so, there has been significant discussion > [1] and patches [2] about changing the name of the default branch away > from 'master' and towards something else. > A related question is whether or not we plan to change the default > value of 'core.defaultBranchName' at all (once Johannes' patches land, > of course). That seems to be the intent in [4], but forming consensus > around this would be good, too. > > So, I would like to form some consensus here as to what the new name > should be, Some interesting consensus this is trying to form... Let's look at it. git-for-windows [1]: 76 upvotes, 490 downvotes, overwhelming consensus in the comments rejecting the proposed change as unwarranted. Result: comments massively moderated, even though they weren't even in majority abusive; many dissenters blocked; thread locked, preventing further input. GitLab [2]: 23 upvotes, 145 downvotes, rejection in the comments. Result: thread locked, preventing further input, and an online poll, that doesn't even offer the option to voice support for keeping the "master" name. And in this mailing list: very few people from the community on behalf of which this is done participating to give their actual opinion on the issue, and even fewer of them actually supporting the claim that "master" offends them and should be changed; unspecified people who apparently believe that "master" offends people, apparently voicing their opinions in private, which are then apparently not even relayed but merely vaguely mentioned to us; and on the other side, people who feel compelled to hide behind others or post anonymously to disagree, even as their opinion is respectful and attempts to be constructive. So not just some consensus here, quite some inclusiveness too, this is achieving: this is put forward in the name of making things more inclusive, but fails to bring to the table first-hand, people actually offended by the issue, and makes disagreeing people feel unwelcome - or enforces them and their input as unwelcome. Several people are working on the assumption that this change would surely make a positive impact, even if little, and would be some step in the right direction. Several people have put forward the argument explaining to skeptics that it can be difficult to relate to the struggle of people from a different community without walking in their shoes, and difficult to understand how they can feel about a certain issue. Do people putting forward this argument, or the claim that this community is offended by "master", are themselves part of this community? If not, how can they be so sure to understand properly whether and how much this truly offends that community, that they feel in a position to best speak on their behalf? Taylor, how do you propose to build this consensus you're talking about on the name change? Guesswork? What sounds like it has a good ring to it? Going with the most popular name - i.e., letting the decision process degenerate into a popularity contest? Whoever yells the loudest, whatever group or project has most clout? Can you propose a consensus process that reconciles with the loud majority of commenters who downvoted this proposal, or justifies why their arguments are not the right decision criteria? I know you mean well, and my question is sincere. The stated purpose is to avoid offending people, based on the premise that some terms offend people, so I would propose that this would be an important aspect to correctly assess; in order to base the renaming decision on a real assessment of what actually offends people, rather than on what some group says could be offensive, or on some possible drawback with such or such name that someone did or didn't think to foresee. So, and this would follow good software development and release management practices, but even just for the sake of appeasement with people who think this is not a real issue, and for the sake of going forward with a constructive process on solid grounds, I would love to see some data that backs up, details, clarifies and quantifies the claim that the current "master" name offends people. I haven't seen any such data so far. All I've seen is a popular trend, and mentions of groups or projects who have got on board with that trend - which as I said, is hardly relevant to the merits of its premise. I haven't seen first-hand accounts of people being offended, anecdotal or not. I haven't seen serious studies being linked. I haven't seen representative surveys; opinion polls, especially online, can be completely skewed and nearly worthless, but I haven't even seen one of those getting brought forward in support of the name change. I haven't seen expert or authoritative opinions being brought to the debate as such. So I haven't seen any assessment of people being offended by "master", which could be solved by moving from it; and I haven't seen either any assessment of whether the change itself would in turn offend and alienate people who think it is unwarranted, ridiculous, outrageous and whatnot. I haven't seen any assessment of whether people who find this proposal offensive are a loud reactionary minority, or a silent majority. And given the stated purpose of avoiding offending people, that would seem important to assess too. So again, I would love to see data that backs up the claim that this change is necessary to solve a fathomable problem, and will have the intended impact. I would preferably love measurable and verifiable data, but any if possible. I have to assume that people driving this forward would care to make sure to effect change that actually helps. If not, then you may want to do some soul-searching; if you don't care to determine whether your effort actually helps, then you may want to double-check that this isn't more about virtue signalling, or slacktivism only making yourself feel good. And either way, as this is all happening on the public place, putting forward that data and even just addressing these concerns and processing this proposal properly would help to reconcile the software community dividing over this, and strengthen the trust and credibility that important tools and platforms hold among it. So please show me the data. [1]: https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/2674 [2]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/221164
