Should We "Mind Our Language"?

Question

Monica R Ayhens-Madon penned a blog post on the Ubuntu blog this month about Canonical's participation in the Inclusive Naming Initiative and how language in the code and documentation of Ubuntu will be updated to a new set of standards. This is certainly overdue given the tech community's general move towards "less charged" terminology over the last few years, and it's something that I can certainly get behind to a point¹.

With this in mind, does it make sense to edit – or ask an author to edit – posts that use terms that have become frowned upon in recent years? A prime example that has bothered me since the 90s is the term "master" and "slave", when referring to devices or databases.

On other sites, such as the Database Administrators SE, I will edit a post to replace master with "primary", "publisher", or "main" while slave is replaced with "secondary", "subscriber", or "auxiliary". This is wholly dependent on which database engine a person is talking about, of course, as SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB have differing terminology for these systems roles. Is this something we should be doing on AskUbuntu as well?

The people asking and answering questions are generally pretty good about the language that they use already, given that many of the edits made to posts are to set images to appear inline or to wrap Terminal outputs in code blocks but, if Canonical is aiming to define which language is preferable, should the questions and answers on this site follow the same rulebook? Or is AskUbuntu independent enough to choose what language is acceptable and which language should be "updated" based solely on the general principles contained within the Ubuntu Code of Conduct²?

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¹ leaving politics aside, compelled speech in any community is suboptimal. As far as I can tell, Canonical is not doing this, so it's all good.
² the Ubuntu Code of Conduct does have a fuzzy set of paragraphs suggesting we "take responsibility for our words and our actions" (the same thing is mentioned numerous times, but with different words), which I would think any normal human being would do by default, but there is nothing explicitly stating that we should not use specific technical terminology that is considered historically loaded, harmful, or "questionably acceptable" in public discourse.

^{Note: Apologies for the excessive quotation marks. These are used to group terms and/or ideas, not to act as a passive-aggressive "quote-unquote" sort of thing. I make a lot of edits to posts as they come in, so am aiming to ensure the things I change meet community standards and expectations.}

Answer 1

I would, as far as it applies, stick to the names used in the software.

If I have a problem with, for example, not being able to push to the master branch on Github in 2020, I would have googled for the "master" branch.

After the change in 2021, where the "master" branch was renamed to "main", I would be googleing for the "main" branch.

Same with other Ubuntu-related software. I would stick with whatever the stuff is called in Ubuntu, to make sure that people looking for a solution can actually find it using search engines. To me, that is the most important function of names: being able to find/communicate what I mean.

As Ubuntu and other projects are slowly shifting towards less charged terminology, this will also automatically solve that problem here.

Answer 2

Ask Ubuntu is completely independent of Canonical, so it's up to us to decide what we should do.

I'd support any effort to make Ask Ubuntu more inclusive. Editing to fix stuff that's subtly (or of course unsubtly!) ableist or racist or otherwise likely to be hurtful to some group of people seems in keeping not only with the Ubuntu Code of Conduct, but the Stack Exchange Code of Conduct, which we actually do all need to abide by.

I personally don't want to be prescriptive about what should be changed - there's always a subjective element to editing - but I would encourage people to make language more inclusive when editing as they see fit.

From Monica's post

Inclusive language carries plenty of benefits to justify using it. It reduces barriers to participating in tech spaces. Inclusive language also makes the tasks of writing and translating technical writing much easier.

Words with emotional or historical baggage bring the wrong things to mind. They’re loaded with unintended meanings that they weren’t meant to have, and those who are affected by them can’t escape. These words distract from whatever we were trying to say. Likewise, metaphors and idioms can make it hard for non-primary speakers to understand a text or translate it. Using inclusive language can solve all of these issues at once.

More importantly, inclusive language shows respect for others. Not only does it show welcome and safety – it lets everybody, no matter their background or identity, to reach their full potential at work, in the community, and beyond.

Answer 3

This is an interesting and somewhat difficult topic, where I'm sure there are many different opinions.

I believe that the management groups of different open source projects should in fact ensure that the terminology they use going forward is inclusive. However, the degree on which each project decides to do this may vary.

Using the Master/Slave example, here are a couple of different replacements:

• One suggestion is Marshal/Soldier. This avoids the ownership metaphor completely, but on the other hand it introduces a military metaphor instead. This is definitely better, but is it good enough to be truly inclusive and not offensive?
• SaltStack uses Master/Minion. I personally find this completely inoffensive because of the cartoonish associations I get, and as above it is definitely better than the original. But where does the line go for when you can use "Master" in a context that's inclusive and not offensive?

That being said, I don't think questions referring to historical naming conventions should be edited. In my opinion, there is a very fine line when you begin to talk about "editing history" for the sake of political correctness.

Questions should be "correct" for the topic (and time period) being asked about. Imagine you needed to ask a question about a database installation using the old terminology. Here it would only be correct to use the actual terminology at hand.

However, I think it would be a nice gesture to include an explanation/disclaimer that these are "old" terms, that have now been replaced with more inclusive ones. In this way you show that:

• You are aware of the historical connotations of the past terms
• You are aware that history must be recognized and not censored
• You are aware that the terms are changing for something better