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Emphasize using verbs or participles to replace whitelist/blacklist
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Languages other than English may not allow turning a noun into a verb with
the same agility that English has.  Some of them might not form compound
words easily and resort to English loan words.  In such a scenario,
it would not be impossible for the translator to revert "allowlist"
into a loan word based on "blacklist", because that's a more commonly
known word to his audience of non-English speakers.  This would make
the effort to use inclusive language vain.

Therefore, emphasize more the possibility to use not just the "-ed"
form of verbs, but also the verbs themselves without the "list" suffix.
Their past participles easily work as adjectives, and they are easily
translated. Also propose "valid" and "invalid" as replacements for
whitelisted/blacklisted as an adjective.

See also: inclusivenaming#45
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bonzini committed May 27, 2021
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Expand Up @@ -10,17 +10,28 @@ Lists which permit or deny a set of nouns, or select enabled features.

**Proposed alternative:**

* allowlist/denylist
* allowedNouns/deniedNouns
As a verb:
* For whitelist: allow, accept, enable, include
* For blacklist: deny, block, disable, exclude, skip, ignore

As an adjective:
* For whitelisted: allowed, accepted, enabled, included, valid
* For blacklisted: denied, blocked, disabled, excluded, skipped, ignored, buggy, invalid

As a noun:
* Use the adjective as an entity prefix (e.g., _allowedNouns_)
* Also acceptable: allowlist, denylist, etc.


**Reasoning:**

The underlying assumption of the whitelist/blacklist metaphor is that white = good and black = bad.
Because colors in and of themselves have no predetermined meaning, any meaning we assign to them is cultural: for example, the color red in many Southeast Asian countries is lucky, and is often associated with events like marriages, whereas the color white carries the same connotations in many European countries.
In the case of whitelist/blacklist, the terms originate in the publishing industry – one dominated by the USA and England, two countries which participated in slavery and which grapple with their racist legacies to this day.

From a technical communication perspective, using whitelist/blacklist as a naming convention applies metaphor (and, in turn, unintended meaning) when it isn’t needed.
More directly descriptive words like allowlist/denylist enhances understanding. Allowlist/denylist, or simply using allowed/denied as an entity prefix has the added benefit of being easily translatable to other human languages.
From a technical communication perspective, using whitelist/blacklist as a naming convention applies metaphor (and, in turn, unintended meaning) when it isn’t needed. Using a suitable verb or adjective, either directly or as an entity prefix, enhances understanding and has the added benefit of being easily translatable to other human languages.

In descriptive text (as opposed to code) you may want to prepend "list of"; e.g., "list of allowed recipients" instead of "recepient whitelist". Alternatively, words such as "allowlist" and "denylist" are still more descriptive than whitelist/blacklist.

**Recommendation:** Adopt immediately

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