Mailing List Archive

On 10/07/2020 16:42, jdow wrote:

> Be sure to purge every instance of "fork" in the code because it sounds too close to the other F..K word. Get the fork out of there.
>
> {O,o}
> i.e are you guys being just a little stupid here?

I agree, this is just insanity... where will it end.

--
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Noel Butler

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* Kevin A. McGrail:

> This is about doing the right thing and getting rid of racially charged
> language. I'd appreciate support in this change or at least if you can't
> say something nice or helpful, just keep it to yourselves.

Is it the official Apache.org position to tell those with differing
opinions to "keep it to yourselves", while trying to take the moral high
ground at the same time? What arrogance.

As I explained in https://marc.info/?l=postfix-users&m=159147052306770&w=2
and other messages of that particular thread, this is very much an
American issue. What may be considered "racially charged" in the US does
not have nearly the same implications across the globe. Language, as
always, depends on context. Americans who want to tell me what terms I
can or cannot use can take a hike.

Racists are assholes, but "Newspeak" is not the solution.

-Ralph

> On Jul 9, 2020, at 9:00 PM, Kevin A. McGrail <kmcgrail@apache.org> wrote:
>
> IMPORTANT NOTICE
>
> If you are running trunk, we are working on changing terms like whitelist to welcomelist and blacklist to blocklist.
>
> https://bz.apache.org/SpamAssassin/show_bug.cgi?id=7826 <https://bz.apache.org/SpamAssassin/show_bug.cgi?id=7826>
>
> The first test of this work is done with allowlist_to replacing whitelist_to
> Committed revision 1879456.
>
> If you are using trunk, there may be disruption since routines, plugins and rule changes will all interweave.
>

(Bottom posting because I can)

One thing I’m now noticing is that there is no longer consistency. Previous it was blacklist/whitelist and now we have…

Welcomelist/blocklist
Yeslist/nolist
Allowlist/denylist
Permitlist/rejectlist

And looking through the list of URLs that Paul Stead shared, it goes even further.

There’s no consistency, and I can’t imagine that will go without its own set of issues in the future.

I also (playfully) note the irony of this while I am sitting on land in the great Choctaw Nation - the very icon of this project can be considered by some to be appropriation of Native American culture. ;-)

Cheers!
—
jn

Amen!

This is not about racism this is about a Marxist (Socialist) takeover.
They don't care if you use the terms whitelist or blacklist, this is a
revolution.

Soon, it will be as in Dr. Zhivago. You'll come home being dispossessed
of your house and belongings under the supervision of the state, already
going on as BLM freely loots and pillages.

The "Useful Idiots" (not trying to be offensive, Kevin, but get a grip)
don't know that after the reorganization is done, their heads will be on
the chopping block as well...all planned in advance.

These are sad days, woe is me if I don't speak out.


On 7/10/2020 8:14 AM, Ralph Seichter wrote:
> ..., but "Newspeak" is not the solution.

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not... but just in case:
Whoever may be the Marxist/Socialists, the're definitely not in the
US... Assuming you never lived under such a government you're just
talking thru your hat.

and now lets put this offtopic blah to rest.



On 7/10/20 7:07 PM, Eric Broch wrote:
> Amen!
>
> This is not about racism this is about a Marxist (Socialist) takeover.
> They don't care if you use the terms whitelist or blacklist, this is a
> revolution.
>
> Soon, it will be as in Dr. Zhivago. You'll come home being dispossessed
> of your house and belongings under the supervision of the state, already
> going on as BLM freely loots and pillages.
>
> The "Useful Idiots" (not trying to be offensive, Kevin, but get a grip)
> don't know that after the reorganization is done, their heads will be on
> the chopping block as well...all planned in advance.
>
> These are sad days, woe is me if I don't speak out.
>
>
> On 7/10/2020 8:14 AM, Ralph Seichter wrote:
>> ..., but "Newspeak" is not the solution.

My comments were not sarcasm.

You're acting the part of a Marxist by dismissing my (and others)
speech. You are playing the "Useful Idiot."

You say there are no Marxists in the U.S. but that's exactly what BLM
claims to be. Also, you will know them by their fruits whether they say
it or not. You make the judgment, but you may be beyond that ability.

My words are intended to help you recover yourself, hopefully these
words don't fall on deaf ears. If so, so be it.

Eric Broch


On 7/10/2020 11:11 AM, Axb wrote:
> Not sure if this is sarcasm or not... but just in case:
> Whoever may be the Marxist/Socialists, the're definitely not in the
> US... Assuming you never lived under such a government you're just
> talking thru your hat.
>
> and now lets put this offtopic blah to rest.
>
>
>
> On 7/10/20 7:07 PM, Eric Broch wrote:
>> Amen!
>>
>> This is not about racism this is about a Marxist (Socialist)
>> takeover. They don't care if you use the terms whitelist or
>> blacklist, this is a revolution.
>>
>> Soon, it will be as in Dr. Zhivago. You'll come home being
>> dispossessed of your house and belongings under the supervision of
>> the state, already going on as BLM freely loots and pillages.
>>
>> The "Useful Idiots" (not trying to be offensive, Kevin, but get a
>> grip) don't know that after the reorganization is done, their heads
>> will be on the chopping block as well...all planned in advance.
>>
>> These are sad days, woe is me if I don't speak out.
>>
>>
>> On 7/10/2020 8:14 AM, Ralph Seichter wrote:
>>> ..., but "Newspeak" is not the solution.
>

* Eric Broch:

> This is not about racism this is about a Marxist (Socialist)
> takeover.

Huh? Please don't quote me when talking nonsense such as this. It is of
course about racism. I just don't consider "improving language" (an ugly
euphemism, by the way) a productive way to deal with this issue.

-Ralph

There is NO issue!

And, this is the point. Using the term "blacklist" in reference to an
email server IS NOT RACIST. It was never used to infer anything of the
sort, so when people say that they must be rid of it because it is
racist, there's another agenda going on. Futhermore, "nonsense" is doing
something for no reason, like replacing the word "blacklist" with
something else.

You may have noticed that after every piece of ground is yielded up to
the whiners there is only louder and more violent calls for more ground.
The whiners are never satisfied until you're subjugated. Please recover
yourself!

As stated earlier by another very aware poster, this is nothing less
than, "Newspeak." As most know Newspeak is intend to dumb down the
population.

The unwitting don't know they're unwitting. If you can't see after this
post, there's nothing more to be said.


On 7/10/2020 11:26 AM, Ralph Seichter wrote:
> * Eric Broch:
>
>> This is not about racism this is about a Marxist (Socialist)
>> takeover.
> Huh? Please don't quote me when talking nonsense such as this. It is of
> course about racism. I just don't consider "improving language" (an ugly
> euphemism, by the way) a productive way to deal with this issue.
>
> -Ralph

So!

What's next, changing the "Apache" name?

Wake up!

On 7/10/2020 12:00 PM, Eric Broch wrote:
> There is NO issue!
>
> And, this is the point. Using the term "blacklist" in reference to an
> email server IS NOT RACIST. It was never used to infer anything of the
> sort, so when people say that they must be rid of it because it is
> racist, there's another agenda going on. Futhermore, "nonsense" is
> doing something for no reason, like replacing the word "blacklist"
> with something else.
>
> You may have noticed that after every piece of ground is yielded up to
> the whiners there is only louder and more violent calls for more
> ground. The whiners are never satisfied until you're subjugated.
> Please recover yourself!
>
> As stated earlier by another very aware poster, this is nothing less
> than, "Newspeak." As most know Newspeak is intend to dumb down the
> population.
>
> The unwitting don't know they're unwitting. If you can't see after
> this post, there's nothing more to be said.
>
>
> On 7/10/2020 11:26 AM, Ralph Seichter wrote:
>> * Eric Broch:
>>
>>> This is not about racism this is about a Marxist (Socialist)
>>> takeover.
>> Huh? Please don't quote me when talking nonsense such as this. It is of
>> course about racism. I just don't consider "improving language" (an ugly
>> euphemism, by the way) a productive way to deal with this issue.
>>
>> -Ralph

Yes, as of now we don't write apache but ehcapa. If we write every word
in reverse nobody has anything to complain any more. So everyone
continuing this thread. Please pay you respect to past generations, and
write ehcapa, tsiletihw, tsilkcalb etc!!!



-----Original Message-----
Subject: Re: IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR PEOPLE RUNNING TRUNK re: [Bug 7826]
Improve language around whitelist/blacklist and master/slave

So!

What's next, changing the "Apache" name?

Wake up!

LOL!

On 7/10/2020 12:12 PM, Marc Roos wrote:
>
>
> Yes, as of now we don't write apache but ehcapa. If we write every word
> in reverse nobody has anything to complain any more. So everyone
> continuing this thread. Please pay you respect to past generations, and
> write ehcapa, tsiletihw, tsilkcalb etc!!!
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Subject: Re: IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR PEOPLE RUNNING TRUNK re: [Bug 7826]
> Improve language around whitelist/blacklist and master/slave
>
> So!
>
> What's next, changing the "Apache" name?
>
> Wake up!
>

On 10 Jul 2020, at 3:06, Rupert Gallagher wrote:

> Whatever you do under the hood, make sure it does not affect external
> behaviour.
>
> On your motivation, bear in mind that *lists here contain computer
> addresses, not people,

Which is an argument FOR changing our terminology.

> so the reference you are trying to fix is mistaken, and changes will
> be painstaking for no reason at all.

That misses the actual rationale for the change.

There's a semantic collision in English where "Black" and "White" are
used both to classify people and to denote moral and/or desirability
dichotomies. That semantic collision can be removed from our code, while
improving the clarity of our naming.

The SpamAssassin Project has a particular self-interest in attracting
contributors from a diversity of cultures, because we are always at risk
of mislabelling a pattern of letters or words as 'spammy' when in fact
it is entirely normal in a cultural context other than those of the
existing contributors to the project. Continuing to use 'black' and
'white' as indicators of value in code and configuration directives
leaves in place a minor nuisance for some potential contributors and
users who are understandably tired of being on the bad side of this
semantic collision, where the most common word for their ethnic identity
is constantly being used as a label for things which are bad,
undesirable, malfeasant, etc. The naming collision is a problem and
because the inanimate entities for which we use black and white do not
in fact have any color we can both eliminate the collision AND improve
the quality of the names we use.


> And the terms master and slave have nothing to do with white and
> black, and again they refer to machine processes, not people.

This is actually almost irrelevant for SA. The main use of the
master/slave metaphor is in the automation backend for rule QA (e.g.
build/jenkins/run_build) where it merits changing simply because it is
no longer consistent with the terminology used by Jenkins. In spamd,
parent/child is already the terminology and fits the actual code better.



--
Bill Cole
bill@scconsult.com or billcole@apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not For Hire (currently)

* Eric Broch:

> As stated earlier by another very aware poster, this is nothing less
> than, "Newspeak."

That was actually me, in message <87lfjr78zu.fsf@wedjat.horus-it.com>.
However, you did not quote the first part of the sentence, which I
consider just as important:

>> Racists are assholes, but "Newspeak" is not the solution.

Looking at the content of your website, I don't want to be associated
with your world views in general. We just seem to share a dislike for
Newspeak.

-Ralph

jdow skrev den 2020-07-10 08:42:
> Be sure to purge every instance of "fork" in the code because it
> sounds too close to the other F..K word. Get the fork out of there.
>
> {O,o}
> i.e are you guys being just a little stupid here?

+10000000 :-)

hope its not a question anymore

On 7/10/20 8:31 PM, Bill Cole wrote:
> The SpamAssassin Project has a particular self-interest in attracting
> contributors from a diversity of cultures, because we are always at risk
> of mislabelling a pattern of letters or words as 'spammy' when in fact
> it is entirely normal in a cultural context other than those of the
> existing contributors to the project. C

From what I see, until now, only two ppl of the SpamAssasin project
have supported this motion and intend to impose this quatsch to the rest
of the world.
Voices against these changes have been politely ignored.

but then.. it's the generic way the USA treats most of its problems:
whitewash the front while the rest falls apart.
(infrastructure, education system, health system, etc, etc..)

whatever, you get your way and everybody is happy.

On Fri, 10 Jul 2020, Axb wrote:

> On 7/10/20 8:31 PM, Bill Cole wrote:
>> The SpamAssassin Project has a particular self-interest in attracting
>> contributors from a diversity of cultures, because we are always at risk
>> of mislabelling a pattern of letters or words as 'spammy' when in fact it
>> is entirely normal in a cultural context other than those of the existing
>> contributors to the project. C
>
> From what I see, until now, only two ppl of the SpamAssasin project have
> supported this motion and intend to impose this quatsch to the rest of the
> world.
> Voices against these changes have been politely ignored.

The danger of judging the world only by what is within your sight is
that your field of vision is limited, and there are any number of
explanations for why what you see is not representative of the whole.

Maybe those who agree feel no need to comment. Maybe a lot of people
on either side of the issue want to avoid adding more noise to a list
that's about SpamAssassin. Maybe a lot of people recognized this
wasn't a "motion" or a request for comment at all, but rather notice
of a change to code. Or, as you yourself mention, maybe a lot of
people are just politely ignoring the negative voices.

On 10 Jul 2020, at 01:38, Olivier <Olivier.Nicole@cs.ait.ac.th> wrote:
> Axb <axb.lists@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> the US problems won't be fixed with renaming B&W lists.
>> Seriously.. you have more important issues...
>
> While thet change in names will not fix any societal issue, for a
> product like SpamAssassin that relies heavily on plugins (including some
> plugins that may have been developped locally, long time ago, by someone
> who is not working there anymore) and that is
> also embeded (like in amavis) these sort of changes may break a lot of
> implementations, to the point that people will be reluctant to upgrade.

If people are so fragile that they have to hold on to terms that are extremely offensive to some of their peers, they will get more spam. Oh noes.

> And if SA is not upgraded, the user base will shrink and it may lead to
> the death of SA.

If it cannot function without being offensive to many people, then so be it.

Allow/deny I think are better than welcome/block, but I don't care.

Allow/block might be better too.



--
"He is of Asgard, and he is my brother"
> He killed 80 people in 2 days.
"He's adopted."

On 10 Jul 2020, at 02:02, jdow <jdow@earthlink.net> wrote:
> The problem is that at least one woman (me) reading this list doesn't give a tinker's damn. The intent is communicated and that's sufficient to satisfy my sensibilities. Seems I grew up and became an adult when I wasn't looking. Things like this just wash by me as I dive in for the meat of the communications.

Do you realize that your stametemnt is saying that people who are offended by terms they find hurtful are immature insensible and lesser than you? In addition you are saying that since YOU do not care, no one else's feeling are valid.



--
This zone of tranquility is compromised

On 10 Jul 2020, at 02:06, Matus UHLAR - fantomas <uhlar@fantomas.sk> wrote:
> thought guys can also mean women, at least I've seen it being used that
> way…

Yes, guy/s is gender neutral, but many women do not agree.




--
Train Station: where the train stops. Work Station: …

On 10 Jul 2020, at 5:12, hospice admin wrote:

> $0.02 from a woman of colour ...
>
> I personally find stuff like this just a little bit patronising ...
> more of a matter of kicking the real problem into the weeds than
> actually doing anything practical to 'fix' it.

Well, in the context of the Apache SpamAssassin Project, "The Real
Problem" that we have any capacity to work on is the low diversity of
our developer community. Eliminating terminology that may be off-putting
for even a minority of a minority of possible contributors is
worthwhile, particularly when the block/welcome terminology we are
replacing black/white with is explicitly descriptive rather than
metaphorical and connotative.

We have no way of knowing how many people have thought less of SA
because of terminology or whether any of those people might have
otherwise become involved enough in the project to be contributors. If
changing the terminology makes the Project look less like a bunch of
white guys trying to make rules for the world's email, that's a positive
step.

> Right up there with Mercedes decision to paint their $100 Million F1
> cars black.

This is a bit less symbolic. We're actually making the terminology
better.

> I'm sure the intent was positive though ...

The intent is to do what we can to make involvement in the SpamAssassin
community less hostile to newcomers, even if elements of hostility that
we can address are not universally recognized as such. We cannot do much
for the bigger Real Problems that intersect with ours tangentially,
because unlike Daimler-Benz, we don't have $100 Million or even $1 to
spend. None of us has the time and skills to make a focused recruiting
effort to get a more diverse set of contributors or even just more
contributors. Changing a few labels in the code is something we CAN do.

--
Bill Cole
bill@scconsult.com or billcole@apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not For Hire (currently)

Hello all,

A common question we are receiving is what about using this terminology
instead, for example allow/deny.

The use of welcomelist and blocklist has evolved from discussions since
April and work done creating patches.  We found that using these names
of welcomelist and blocklist are non offensive, reasonably descriptive
and since they still start with W and B, we avoid renaming things like
RBLs, WLBL, DNSBL, etc. This should help minimize the disruption when
4.0 is released with the new configuration options.

Regards,

KAM

On 10 Jul 2020, at 8:37, Mauricio Tavares wrote:

> I do agree that accept works better than welcome here.

There's a practical issue in that: we have the WLBLEval plugin that has
cemented the initial.

FWIW, the use of "blocklist" in spamfighting goes back to the '90s, when
the primary resistance to "blacklist" was by people who were
uncomfortable with its McCarthyist connotation.

--
Bill Cole
bill@scconsult.com or billcole@apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not For Hire (currently)

Why not concentrate on making Spamassassin a better filter instead of
worrying about offending anyone.

Have a look at DSPAM. It's much better than Spamassassin's probabilistic
Bayes filter, but DSPAM's weakness is in its inability to whitelist.

On 7/10/2020 2:27 PM, Kevin A. McGrail wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> A common question we are receiving is what about using this terminology
> instead, for example allow/deny.
>
> The use of welcomelist and blocklist has evolved from discussions since
> April and work done creating patches.  We found that using these names
> of welcomelist and blocklist are non offensive, reasonably descriptive
> and since they still start with W and B, we avoid renaming things like
> RBLs, WLBL, DNSBL, etc. This should help minimize the disruption when
> 4.0 is released with the new configuration options.
>
> Regards,
>
> KAM
>

On 10 Jul 2020, at 3:38, Olivier wrote:

> Axb <axb.lists@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> the US problems won't be fixed with renaming B&W lists.
>> Seriously.. you have more important issues...
>
> While thet change in names will not fix any societal issue,

No one has suggested that it will or can.

> for a
> product like SpamAssassin that relies heavily on plugins (including
> some
> plugins that may have been developped locally, long time ago, by
> someone
> who is not working there anymore) and that is
> also embeded (like in amavis) these sort of changes may break a lot of
> implementations, to the point that people will be reluctant to
> upgrade.

As Kevin has explained here and as is explained in the ticket he
referenced, compatibility with existing terminology will be retained
through the 4.0.x release versions.

> And if SA is not upgraded, the user base will shrink and it may lead
> to
> the death of SA.

I invite you to look at the handling of SA over the past decade by major
Linux distributions. I do not think that we have anything to worry about
in this domain of possible problems.


--
Bill Cole
bill@scconsult.com or billcole@apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not For Hire (currently)

On 20200710 05:16:15, Martin Gregorie wrote:
> On Fri, 2020-07-10 at 10:36 +0200, Matus UHLAR - fantomas wrote:
>> On 10.07.20 08:50, Axb wrote:
>>> the US problems won't be fixed with renaming B&W lists.
>>> Seriously.. you have more important issues...
>>
>> while I am not a fan of renaming, I think that
>> "welcome list" and "block list" are more informational.
>> While people working with these terms know them, others may not so
>> well.
>>
> Still a bit woolly methinks. I think, acceptlist and rejectlist are a
> more meaningful pair of terms.
>
> Similarly I, and the places I've worked, have always used client and
> server rather than slave and master. While I see no need to use 'slave'
> term outside its historic and ongoing human designation, I do see a
> continuing use for 'master', where it describes a unique object that is
> frequently replicated of a person with extensive understanding of a body
> of knowledge, e.g. master (of a sailing ship), master craftsman, or a
> qualification: MSc, MA, etc.
>
> Martin

How do you design a servo system without a master/slave concept?
{o.o}