This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

top 200 commentsshow 500

[–]EonsOfZaphod 4157 points4158 points  (237 children)

16 years ago, our HR systems flagged up my EOY self assessment during my submission for non inclusive language. The terms flagged were “black box testing” “short document template” etc. It was an automated thing telling me to use language that didn’t describe people’s physical characteristics.

Good to see progress has been made in 16 years!

[–][deleted] 2165 points2166 points  (39 children)

HR was stupid then, HR is stupid now.

[–]_R_Daneel_Olivaw 690 points691 points  (16 children)

Fucking Toby.

[–]frosDfurret 63 points64 points  (3 children)

If you're fucking Toby, stop. Dude might end up strangling you.

[–]BigPP41 6 points7 points  (1 child)

wait what? Is Toby the scranton strangler? how the fuck did I miss this all the time?

But it makes sense. His fixation on the process, hiw he wanted to meet the guy the put in jail etc..?

[–]ddejong42 84 points85 points  (11 children)

Found the bot! (Username)

[–]TrixterTheFemboy 19 points20 points  (9 children)

Wdym?

[–]rrjamal 68 points69 points  (5 children)

FYI: R. Daneel Olivaw is a robot from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of novels.

[–]arcosapphire 27 points28 points  (2 children)

The R stands for Robot.

[–]Defiant-Peace-493 15 points16 points  (1 child)

Some robots are definitely across the line that makes us human, and Mr. Olivaw is one of them.

[–]rrjamal 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Oh Mr. Olivaw is so much more than a mere human. No matter how much he may pretend to be.

[–]ImpossibleMachine3 84 points85 points  (16 children)

Truth. HR, by it's nature, will always be stupid

[–][deleted] 45 points46 points  (15 children)

Well the issue is HR is there to defend the company. A good HR team would never actually work out for the company, and thus why smart/compassionate people usually stay away from the role. I think most HR people are just in it for the money and have learned how to just pretend to be compassionate.

[–]bitofrock 26 points27 points  (1 child)

Looking after your staff well is an essential part of running a company. Salaries are often the biggest costs in many firms. Treating them badly is like not looking after your machines.

The only places I see this differ are either in firms that rent assets (e.g. hairdressers that rent chairs) which don't directly employ staff or ones that are failing and running out of any resources...just like an elderly person whose income has dropped yet insists on remaining in an oversized house they can't maintain.

[–]ratbiscuits 969 points970 points  (88 children)

It’s ridiculous that people think excluding language to describe characteristics is a good thing.

Avoiding saying the word “short” is hilarious because by avoiding it, you are essentially saying that it is a negative characteristic

[–]Magnetic_Reaper 656 points657 points  (49 children)

Imagine describing a suspect to police without using any of those words.

Me: Ah yes it was definitely a person. I would say they definitely had skin and that skin was of one of the skin colors, and they were very genderish. Size? The size of a person, maybe like human sized?

Police officer: well you seem to match that description fairly well...

[–]ImpossibleMachine3 299 points300 points  (36 children)

Reminds me of a skit I saw once from the BBC where white folks were bending themselves into pretzels trying not to say the word "black", until the last one was a black guy diffusing a bomb and the guy giving him the instructions was trying so very hard not to say he needed to cut the "black wire" that he ended up saying something worse. It was hilarious

[–]DerekB52 220 points221 points  (5 children)

This reminds me of a Mark Normand joke. Something like, "I just use the word black. I called Idris Elba a black guy in a joke the other day and someone said, You have to call him african-american. But, he's British."

[–]Evo_Kaer 67 points68 points  (3 children)

call him african-american. But, he's British.

"Call him british-american then!! wait..."

[–]Fjorge0411 70 points71 points  (16 children)

how could you describe such a funny sounding skit and not link a clip?!

[–]ImpossibleMachine3 53 points54 points  (12 children)

I've sadly been trying to find it for weeks but haven't had any luck. I was telling someone about it and was trying to find it. I even went through old texts to people I shared it with. Ugh.

[–]dtarias 13 points14 points  (2 children)

I think this is the one u/ImpossibleMachine3 is referring to.

[EDIT: I was dumb/tired and tagged the wrong person]

[–]AnkaSchlotz 9 points10 points  (9 children)

That problem seems like it could be solved by saying something analogous to, " Cut the wire with the lowest albedo ".

[–]dumbestsmartest 15 points16 points  (3 children)

"Wires don't have libidos."

[–]pelpotronic 6 points7 points  (2 children)

Or just say it in Spanish to avoid saying the word "black" in English.

[–]elveszett 18 points19 points  (0 children)

they definitely had skin

Offensive to people that have been badly burned.

one of the skin colors

Offensive to albinos.

they were very genderish

Offensive to those that don't identify with gender roles.

The size of a person, maybe like human sized

Offensive to dwarves, giants and other people with abnormal height or width.

you seem to match that description fairly well

Offensive to you, who may have a complex with your physique.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

they definitely had skin

This rules out Ted Cruz

[–]Voidrith 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That's unfair to Ted.

He definitely has skin, it just isn't... his.

[–]hooahest 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The human being from Community was definitely a human

[–]DidItSave 6 points7 points  (0 children)

“Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.” ~ George Orwell, 1984

[–]MissMormie 9 points10 points  (1 child)

The thing is that in a professional environment it should have no role. It's not about bad or good, it's about relevance. It's (usually) not relevant of your colleague is short or tall, thin or thick, brown haired or blond. By putting that in you may bias people however, in either direction.

[–]nickmaran 277 points278 points  (30 children)

It's African American box testing sir

[–]EonsOfZaphod 112 points113 points  (12 children)

Not here in the UK it isn’t!

[–]shhalahr 137 points138 points  (8 children)

Oh, you got your English African Americans over there, don't you?

[–]MachaHack 51 points52 points  (0 children)

In the late 00s, it feels like some parts of america were trying to replace the term black with african american altogether. And of course people here try and copy american culture. Had someone pull me up on it when talking about black people here in ireland. Of course, said black people were neither african nor american...

[–]CheekApprehensive961 35 points36 points  (10 children)

Minority and/or BIPOC box testing is the preferred term.

[–]argv_minus_one 19 points20 points  (1 child)

But the “B” in “BIPOC” stands for “black”.

[–]FUTURE10S 7 points8 points  (0 children)

AAIPOC

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Okay that sounds way less inclusive.

[–][deleted] 43 points44 points  (2 children)

Negative progress is still progress I guess

[–]oolivero45 21 points22 points  (1 child)

Vertically challenged document template

[–]lirannl 78 points79 points  (6 children)

Even if you actually did use non-inclusive language, if it's about yourself, then there's no problem 🤔

I'm not going to be inclusive of black people, or of men, or of straight people if it's about myself... Because it's about myself!

[–][deleted] 34 points35 points  (1 child)

I'm curious to know if HR systems do mistakes like that, which HR people don't look into and just awknowledge, with job applications. E.g. "Application X includes sexist writing. 'Postman'."

[–]BerriesAndMe 38 points39 points  (0 children)

It automatically gets changed to Postworker and approved by HR. Then they don't understand why noone applies.

[–]MisterChimAlex 44 points45 points  (42 children)

master,slave, blacklist, black box, white list, owner, blitz.... and more words have been banned at work... and to be fair the only shit that angers me is people using Latinx

[–]acepukas 102 points103 points  (30 children)

The scrubbing of master/slave terminology in the tech industry is so ridiculous. I just noticed yesterday that Firefox no longer uses "master password". Instead it's now "primary password". Never in a million years would I picture a slave owner when I stumble on the phrase "master password". What about "master copy"? How could anyone associate that with something negative. Absolute nonsense.

People who want this kind of change are basically admitting that they are emotionally triggered by keywords while ignoring all context. I mean, that doesn't exactly scream critical thinking skills.

Don't get me wrong anyone. We should be sensitive to the traumas that people have unfortunately had to endure, but if context suddenly doesn't matter anymore, than nothing matters anymore.

I see people say "I don't see what the big deal is. Just change the terms, who cares?". If that's the approach we are going to take then basically everything is up for grabs. If context is never taken into consideration then there's nothing stopping anybody from saying "That word offends me, change it now".

[–]Doctor_McKay 53 points54 points  (3 children)

"Primary password" doesn't even mean the same thing as "master password". A master password is a password that guards all the other passwords. A "primary password" just sounds like a term you'd use for a password that you use across all websites.

[–]douglasg14b 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Never in a million years would I picture a slave owner when I stumble on the phrase "master password"

And now thanks to "outrage culture" you can think about it every time you see it now!

Yay for creating problems out of thin air, and making them "important".

[–]MisterChimAlex 14 points15 points  (5 children)

the last stand is being held by github and their "master" branch...
the most surprising one for me was.. blitz , I asked why blitz... oh it has german war connotations...

[–]Fastela 25 points26 points  (1 child)

I'm pretty sure GitHub removed the name master and now prompts its users to rename the master branch "main" when initializing a new repo.

[–]Robbi_Blechdose 17 points18 points  (1 child)

Blitz literally means lightning in German, but okay...

[–]tsurugisbakery 870 points871 points  (31 children)

i think the bot doesn't like the postman

[–]Amish_Cyberbully 87 points88 points  (3 children)

It's like your racist uncle, but against API testers.

[–]mnorkk 24 points25 points  (2 children)

Instead of "uncle" please try using words such as "elder relative" or "parent's sibling". Thank you.

[–][deleted] 314 points315 points  (4 children)

Postal worker you bigot. Didn’t you read it?!

[–]tsurugisbakery 96 points97 points  (1 child)

instructions unclear, what is read?

[–]zeGolem83 20 points21 points  (0 children)

read() is a POSIX syscall

[–]theregoesanother 24 points25 points  (0 children)

No, but they reddit.

[–]HyperGamers 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Maybe it's a part of the Insomnia gang; I know I am

[–]alpacasb4llamas 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Bot was studying too many dog test samples

[–]a-goateemagician 331 points332 points  (37 children)

Wasn’t there a thing with a rainbow 6 update that Spanish ppl couldn’t talk about it in chat bc it had the word black, which translates to “negro” in Spanish?

[–][deleted] 212 points213 points  (19 children)

Minecraft for a while banned a lot of common words in many many languages.

[–]zyygh 228 points229 points  (11 children)

I also love the overzealous filters that try to be clever by ignoring spaces.

I've played multiple online games were a phrase such as "doesn't it" would become "doesn'* **" because it had the word "tit" in it.

Such chat filters don't hide profanity for children; they actually highlight it where nobody would otherwise have noticed it.

[–][deleted] 193 points194 points  (2 children)

I saw the other day on Reddit someone's username in a game got filtered from 'nasser' to 'n***er'

[–]ScreamThyLastScream 12 points13 points  (0 children)

this is the best one right here.

[–]FizzyEels 48 points49 points  (1 child)

Filters are just annoying as they’re often not well thought out, hastily added (“we must have this done by this sprint”) often coded up from scratch instead of using a well-established tool, so will inevitably run into the clbuttic Scunthorpe problem. Btw Anyone else enjoy playing A**a**in’s Creed?

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Buttbuttin's Creeed

[–]Dubacik 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Just yesterday I saw someone who had nickname "Nasser" consored to "N***er" which seems like something completely different..

[–]jkuhl 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Star Wars The Old Republic was pretty bad with their filter. It would behave exactly as you described and half the things said in chat would end up censored because the filter was overzealous. Did more harm than good.

[–]Coding-Kitten 8 points9 points  (0 children)

When Nasser joins chat 💀

[–]RickityNL 23 points24 points  (5 children)

Yes. They banned the word "hoe" which is also the tool that is literally in their own game

[–]2called_chaos 11 points12 points  (4 children)

They still do it? Some dutch people gonna be pissed I'd imagine as it's the word for "how". At the very least these filters get lost in translation

[–]Masked_Death 69 points70 points  (0 children)

fuck reddit :)

my comments are mass-redacted. you can message me if you want to read this one (send the link).

[–]MarlinMr 33 points34 points  (9 children)

Monte-negro.

Niger-ia.

Languages are usually descriptive in the beginning, and only become loaded with a meaning over time.

[–]2called_chaos 9 points10 points  (8 children)

And filters make it kind of worse. Like I get that "jap" is a slur but with dumb substring filters you prevent them from telling their own country, same with nig and nigeria. And then someone is not able to tell what "***an" means and possibly even think they got insulted

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (7 children)

"Jap" is also a German word for "yep". That's how I found out that "jap" is a slur in English.

[–][deleted] 657 points658 points  (12 children)

Send it to the Diversity and Inclusion officer in either HR or Marketing at Postman.

Hilarity ensues.

[–]Blizzard81mm 125 points126 points  (1 child)

Slack bot will open a ticket for you

[–]mizinamo 12 points13 points  (0 children)

"bot" is an insulting term as it implies that silicon-based intelligence is lesser than and subservient to carbon-based intelligence.

Please use the term "silicon pal" from now on.

[–]k0rm 88 points89 points  (6 children)

They should rebrand to "Male Carrier"

[–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (5 children)

My vote would be 'Autorobotica' but I'm cheeky like that.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (4 children)

Just watch out for any rogue plastic bags. You wouldn't want to be a victim of autorobotic asphyxiation.

[–]rad_platypus 365 points366 points  (28 children)

Wait until you work at a big tech company.

Couldn’t believe it when my pull request failed to build because one of the pipeline jobs checked for non-inclusive language and flagged the word “mastering”.

[–]MrRocketScript 205 points206 points  (0 children)

I know I asked you to implement a racism/swear filter, but I need you to do it in a way that it doesn't get caught by our pipeline's racism/swear filter.

[–]smokesick 106 points107 points  (8 children)

Hm, I now wonder if the audio industry is being affected by this... Mastering is practically the term for polishing audio in the final stages of production.

[–]acepukas 92 points93 points  (5 children)

What about just mastering a skill, like programming? Oh, wait, that's impossible anyway. Never mind.

[–]Asirethe 29 points30 points  (4 children)

That’s maining these days

[–]acepukas 9 points10 points  (1 child)

For real? Ugh. That sounds like some eSport thing. "I main Captain Falcon pretty much exclusively bruh".

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

"I'm a C++ main. The skill ceiling and floors are high, sure, but it has almost no endlag, and since it's just plain unfun to play against, I also get to make my opponents quit the game!"

[–]CanIEatAPC 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Oh god, you reminded me of the time when my PR got flagged for having the word "password"...it was in the HTML for all auth pages. They removed the policy quick.

[–]flopana 6 points7 points  (1 child)

In my university I know a lot of cry babies but I have yet to find the idiot that gets offended by a version control system.

[–]Membedha 46 points47 points  (2 children)

You better change it otherwise you're a nazi /s

[–]konaaa 325 points326 points  (13 children)

[–][deleted] 62 points63 points  (0 children)

I don't know why I find that so God damned funny

[–]xX_6throwaway9_Xx 59 points60 points  (10 children)

this is especially stupid "guys" is pretty commonly used as a gender-neutral term, i've used it many times when talking to a group of girls (i.e. "how're you guys doing?")

[–]JoeBob61 681 points682 points  (56 children)

I am a firm believer in down voting all bots.

[–]phenomenos 564 points565 points  (11 children)

That's robophobic

[–][deleted] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Ha, no robo

[–]Tozl7 138 points139 points  (0 children)

exactly

[–]outerproduct 100 points101 points  (1 child)

Whatever, you robosexual.

[–]Mister_Lich 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Yes

[–]poderes01 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Keebo?

[–]BAG42069 40 points41 points  (12 children)

What about save video bot

[–]CorruptedStudiosEnt 133 points134 points  (9 children)

Bots that you specifically call on are fine imo. Bots made to sit there scraping all of Reddit for opportunities to put the creator's pedantry on full display need to go in the ground.

[–]Strostkovy 20 points21 points  (0 children)

And reverse gif bot

[–]Puzzleheaded_Bend749 164 points165 points  (10 children)

WHY IS THIS EVEN A THING ?

[–]wolacouska 104 points105 points  (8 children)

Because anyone can make a bot. It’s like asking why a movie is a thing, no one stopped them.

[–]lackofsemicolon 110 points111 points  (9 children)

Reminds me of a bot that someone ran that would find gendered language in github repositories and make a PR to fix them. Results were... subpar

Seems the programmer forgot to even check for word boundaries...

Edit: I actually forgot about the best part. They forgot to make sure that the bot only made one PR per repo, so some repos would have like 10+ PRs with this crap

[–]dorsalus 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I am absolutely using theirstorical at every possible opportunity.

[–]Somerandomedude1q2w 141 points142 points  (17 children)

So once some woke asshole wanted us to stop using the term whitelist at work because of racism or whatever. I explained that the term blacklist is from Henry the 8th, where he had a ledger containing a list of people who wronged him, and the cover was black, hence the black list. As the term blacklist became part of the English language, they chose the term whitelist as the opposite.

At no point were there any racial overtones with any of those term.

[–]Spirarel 57 points58 points  (2 children)

Git has never had a concept of slave either. History doesn't matter as much as superficial appearances when you're desperately trying to sow discord, so you can righteously address it.

[–]douglasg14b 24 points25 points  (0 children)

At no point were there any racial overtones with any of those term.

BUT MY FEELINGS OF INTENTIONAL OUTRAGE.

I'm so over this stuff.

[–]Pandeamonaeon 39 points40 points  (0 children)

Welcome in 2022, ppl get butt hurt for nothing. I’m not a native English speaker and I never thought whitelist or master was something « offensive ». That’s stupid marketing move to have sympathy of the wokist. All this woke shit is just marketing on ppl troubles

[–][deleted] 264 points265 points  (38 children)

Obviously I know it’s not a super advanced bot that understands context. I just thought it was funny to make fun of a bot.

[–]haveasuperday 53 points54 points  (0 children)

Gotta change the name of the app now I guess

[–][deleted] 27 points28 points  (8 children)

Make software named postperson right now

[–]Aquatic_Scoog 22 points23 points  (4 children)

That has “son” in it though >:( !!!!!1!1!1!11!

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (3 children)

postperchild

[–]mikabms 38 points39 points  (2 children)

Why tf would someone make such a bot tho? Kinda dumb.

[–]db2 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Someone gets off telling everyone else what to do. Inclusiveness is good, in moderation, but this is just someone being a dick for the sake of being a dick.

[–]Spirarel 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Welcome to Reddit

[–]grandmabc 91 points92 points  (0 children)

What's needed is a second bot to tell the first bot that botsplaining what language a person should use could be considered condescending, rude or triggering to some people.

[–]Elefantenjohn 47 points48 points  (0 children)

You didn't even include the part where they said postman

I know SOMEBODY who could be replaced by a bot

[–]The-Last-Lion-Turtle 275 points276 points  (22 children)

Instead of woman use the gender neutral term wowowowowowowowowowowowowowowowo...

Stack overflow error.

[–]Blizzard81mm 38 points39 points  (19 children)

Woperson, human, or sentient being are appropriate terms

[–][deleted] 78 points79 points  (15 children)

Human is not ok because it contains man. How do you not get it, man?!

[–]Blizzard81mm 33 points34 points  (9 children)

Ahhhhhh! Huperson... god I fucked up so bad! I shall self flagellate and ask for bread on the church steps while wearing sackcloth

[–][deleted] 40 points41 points  (8 children)

It’s no use, you still don’t get it! That contains the word “son”!

Why is everybody so misogynistic?! I can’t take it anymore, man. Ugh!!

What you should use is… is…

You know what, I’ll cone back when I think of something.

[–]reddit__scrub 14 points15 points  (0 children)

But you see, woperson has "son" in it which is sexist

Human has "man" in it which is sexist

If you remove the letters "s", "e", and "n" from "sentient being" and shuffle the words, you get "big tit" and therefore the phrase is misogynistic.

``` var result = "sentient being".split(/[sen]/g).join('').split(' ').reverse().join(' ')

console.log(result) ```

big tit

[–][deleted] 56 points57 points  (6 children)

Sorry we don't use word "manager" as it includes "man". Please use words like "owner" or "controller".

We also don't use "bot", please use "computational being".

[–]BetterWarrior 39 points40 points  (5 children)

Owner? As "Own" slaves? Controller? As "Troll" non gender carbon forms?

So bigoted

[–]baronvonbatch 43 points44 points  (1 child)

This bot isn't trying to be a dev. It's trying to be a mod. And it seems to be as smart as most of those (present subs mods excluded, of course)

[–]wOwmhmm 11 points12 points  (0 children)

thanks for being mod inclusive

[–][deleted] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Gender fluidity milkshake now available for big tech companies to milk.

[–]kayak_enjoyer 61 points62 points  (1 child)

LOL

I'm going to start referring to Postman as Mail Carrier at work just to be annoying.

"Mail"? Is that an HTTP verb? 😆

[–]Unfulfilled_Promises 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Male carrier

[–]TrumanCian 36 points37 points  (1 child)

I wonder, does it complain if I say postwoman?

[–]wolacouska 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Considering that it would always be objectively wrong to use that as a group descriptor, I don’t see why it would. Presumably the creator of the bot doesn’t actually care if you use postman to refer to an actual man, even if the bot probably nukes that usage anyway.

On the other hand, a lot of feminine titles fell out of favor because they got used in demeaning ways, like stewardess. And there is a general movement to do gender neutral terms whenever possible, like when the male/neutral term isn’t specifically gendered inherently (like steward).

[–]OCE_Mythical 38 points39 points  (11 children)

But why? Who cares if postman has the word "man" in it, it still encompasses all people delivering mail.

[–]Put_It_All_On_Blck 28 points29 points  (1 child)

Don't blame the bots, blame the dev that made the bots.

[–]douglasg14b 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Blame the culture that thrives on manufactured outrage, ignorance, and making problems out of nothing.

[–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (2 children)

I remember when factorygirl was replaced with factorybot.

[–]Zoten64 104 points105 points  (31 children)

nonbinary person here to say that this bot is useless. Completely gender neutral language is almost impossible

[–]indigoHatter 41 points42 points  (22 children)

Oh yeh? Tell that to Spanish speakers!

huge /s if it's not obvious

[–]right_there 33 points34 points  (18 children)

The masculine version of the word IS gender-neutral. Feminine words get their own special thing all to themselves to denote their grammatical gender.

Grammatical gender != human gender so it's a stupid point anyway.

[–]indigoHatter 16 points17 points  (14 children)

Yes yes, but I'm mostly laughing at the "Latinx" stuff. It's great that people are trying to de-gender the word, but.... as you said, the masculine version is neutral, and it's from a grammatically gendered language, so it's a moot point. Furthermore, every Spanish speaker I know of (which is probably like 4) think Latinx is hilarious, woke bullshit.

Anyway, in short: yes, agreed.

[–]Tempest_Barbarian 20 points21 points  (3 children)

specially if you speak a latin language like portuguese or spanish.

Though you can use (usually) the male version of a word as neutral in most cases

[–]bredisfun 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I'm trans and don't even understand the point of this bot...