[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.

[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.