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Inclusive Language in Slack

Feli (she/her) on September 29, 2021

Since the start of the pandemic a lot of us moved their company communication to Slack (or similar tools). To help my colleagues and support them w...
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darkwiiplayer profile image
𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️

if a bot tells me not to use the word "blacklist", I will start looking for another job

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kotzendekrabbe profile image
Feli (she/her)

i can recommend to read this article (or google) why it’s important to also take care about black and white list when it comes to inclusive language
forbes.com/sites/carolinamilanesi/...

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darkwiiplayer profile image
𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️ • Edited

I'll read that article properly some other day, but from reading the first two paragraphs and glancing over the rest of it, my observations are: This is mostly about cultural sensibilities of the USA, which I find about as unsurprising as the attitude that the rest of the world should somehow care; I also didn't yet spot any explanation for what the problem with black and white list is, so at best that's not what the article is mainly about, in which case, why post it at all?


EDIT: Never mind, I just read this paragraph

Apple argues that each person has a unique perspective, but that perspective is built on the intersectionality of human characteristics and experiences that relate to age, gender and gender identity, race and ethnicity, sexuality, physical attributes, cognitive attributes, permanent, temporary, and situational disabilities, language and culture, religion, education, political or philosophical opinions and social and economic context.

and don't think an article that wastes that many words to say "people have personalities" respects the readers time. There doesn't seem to be anything other than unsubstantiated claims anyway.

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kotzendekrabbe profile image
Feli (she/her)

Just a question, did you read the code of conduct of dev.to? If not you should, ASAP.

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darkwiiplayer profile image
𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️

I have indeed, several times, in fact. If you'd like to point out which part of it you mean specifically, I'll most likely be able to explain how that's not relevant here; but until then I'll assume you're referring to where it says:

Using welcoming and inclusive language

I don't know if I need to point this out, but that applies only to dev.to, not to the workplace of any dev.to user. But please correct me if you were referring to something else.

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kotzendekrabbe profile image
Feli (she/her)

You argue that the article has to many words which are also used in dev.tos Code Of Conduct (which is a super good one). It's normal to name all the different background when it comes to inlcusion and diversity.
On top of it you argue that it's "US" focused, surprise - most terms in software development are comming from the US. You are not seeing the fact that it has nothing to do where you live if People Of Color see that black and white list are connected to bad and good (as explained in the article).
Beside that you started with just trolling around with "if a bot tells me not to use the word "blacklist", I will start looking for another job" is not critic at all, it's just trolling about something you seem to not understand. That's not inclusive behaviour at all.

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ilyasmez profile image
ilyasmez • Edited

Great article!
What I don't like about the Slackbot is that it punishes the user publicly, which might result in people hating the idea of inclusive langauge instead of embracing it.

In my company we use this bot: slack.com/apps/A034T9X5YAU-inclusi...

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kotzendekrabbe profile image
Feli (she/her)

Looks very promising, will have a look at it. Thanks for sharing

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josefine profile image
Josefine Schfr

I really like the idea of using a Slackbot to spark more reflections around inclusive language in the workplace as it takes away the responsibility from individuals to point out the use of phrases or words that might not be inclusive. Thanks for sharing your perspective on this :)
There are some slackbots (like e.g. a11ybot) which come with a large set of non-inclusive words they check for and nice wording to suggest alternatives. This would mean a little less effort setting up, but might not be as flexible in defining all terms one would like to check for. And it's a paid service which of course is not accessible to everyone...

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kotzendekrabbe profile image
Feli (she/her)

We tried it, but it wasn’t enough words/phrase and no option to add some, sadly.

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coderbyheart profile image
Markus Tacker 🇳🇴

Great writeup! In the Slack communities that are dear to me (like the Software Crafters Slack, the Friends of Good Software Slack, the Distribute Aid Slack, ...), we had good success with a mixture of automation (using bots the privately ask people to use more inclusive language), and training the moderators to have an eye on channel descriptions, and other places that can't be directly covered by bots.

This helps to create a very inclusive and welcoming community.

The great thing with using bots is that enables a community to be consistent, regardless who is using outdated language, and provides a good way to point people to guides with better language examples immediately after they've sent a message. This is the best moment when they can quickly reword their message and help them avoid causing harm.

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chaos_monster profile image
little chaosmonster

Great article. Looking forward to see something like this in my slack .

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board4life profile image
Board 4 Life • Edited

Thanks for posting this article, although we don't use Slack at work but it made me realise that we could change some of the language we use to be more inclusive. I mentioned this to management and they readily agreed. So thought you might like to know that you helped speed up the path to more inclusive in language in part of an internationally well known organisation by writing this piece :)

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kotzendekrabbe profile image
Feli (she/her)

woooohooo. thank you for sharing, that makes me really happy! made my day. Thank you so much <3

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pixari profile image
Raffaele Pizzari Studio M - Song

Thank you @kotzendekrabbe for this article.
I would love to have such Slack bots on all my workspaces.

I never thought about something like that but I think it could be very effective.

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kotzendekrabbe profile image
Feli (she/her)

happy to help setting them up, espacially on your community workspace. If you want to :)

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Davide Savoldelli

I wonder why people should take an effort in order to respect this pathetic rules. Being offended by those words is unbelievable.