Re: Diversity and offensive terminology in RFCs

[Kyle Rose <[e-mail]>]

If I had to state a position, it would be that our interest as engineers is
in using clear language. Often, this means established language whose
domain-specific meanings remain static as definitions in different domains
drift over time. Authors can make what word choices they like to achieve
clarity, leaving room for individuals to use language they find less loaded
or overloaded or baggage-carrying. Folks who want to help them are welcome
but the IETF has no interest in legislating language that will degrade
clarity.

Kyle

On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 5:26 AM Niels ten Oever <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> On the hrpc-list [0] there has been an intense conversation which was
> spurred by the news that the Python community removed Master/Slave
> terminology from its programming language [1].
>
> In the discussion that followed it was remarked that in RFCs terms like
> Master/Slave, blacklist/whitelist, man-in-middle, and other terminology
> that is offensive to some people and groups is quite common.
>
> This is not a discussion that can be resolved in hrpc, but rather should
> be dealt with in the IETF community (because hrpc doesn't make policy
> for terminology in the IETF), which is why I am posting this here.
>
> If people find the discussion worthwhile, we might also be just in time
> to request a BoF on this topic.
>
> Looking forward to discuss.
>
> Best,
>
> Niels
>
>
> [0] https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/hrpc/
> [1]
>
> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8x7akv/masterslave-terminology-was-removed-from-python-programming-language
>
>
> --
> Niels ten Oever
> Researcher and PhD Candidate
> Datactive Research Group
> University of Amsterdam
>
> PGP fingerprint    2458 0B70 5C4A FD8A 9488
>                    643A 0ED8 3F3A 468A C8B3
>
>