Splunk junks 'hanging' processes, suggests you don't 'hit' a key: More peaceful words now preferred in docs

Biased terms can't be ‘grandfathered’ in either – that’s also on vendor's list of language best avoided

Analytics vendor Splunk has followed up on its 2020 decision to stop using the terms “master” and “slave” with a new guide to writing “unbiased documentation”.

Splunk’s style guide offers five points to understand if a term “shows unconscious bias or harms a marginalized or underrepresented group”:

• Don't use words that diminish the historical or current situations of others. For example, use "peer" instead of "slave".
• Don't use words that place a positive or negative connotation on color, race, or people. For example, write "deny list" instead of "blacklist".
• Don't use words that imply otherness or that exclude a group. For example, use "built-in" instead of "native".
• Don't use words that harm, degrade, or insult anyone or any group, whether it be mental, physical, sexual, functional, or criminal. For example, use "placeholder data" instead of "dummy data".
• Don't use words that imply elitism or a position of power. For example, say "primary" instead of "master".

The guide also offers a list of alternatives to biased language. Among the entries The Register has not spotted on other lists are:

Biased word or phrase	Use this language instead	Type of bias
Abnormal	Atypical, not typical	Ableist, disparaging
Dummy data	Placeholder data	Disparaging
First-class entity	Top-level entity	Divisive
Grandfathered	Exempt	Gendered language, racist
Hangs	Stops responding, freezes	Insensitive, violent
Hit	Click, enter, tap	Violent
Illegal characters	Special characters	Disparaging
Native	Built-in, fluent	Divisive, disparaging
Suicide mode	Time until restart	Insensitive

Splunk is far from alone in seeking to change the language it uses in its documentation. In responses to 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests, GitHub, OpenZFS, and Apple all made changes, the latter even warning that some APIs could behave differently because of its changes.

The Linux Foundation, Cisco, Red Hat, IBM, and others eventually joined a new Inclusive Naming Initiative that has in recent days started to establish working groups.

The Register has viewed meeting invitations to the Initiative’s get-togethers. Most take place at times that will work in North America and Europe but are often deep into the evening in Asia – the home of two thirds of humanity, including India which has the world’s second-highest national population of English speakers. ®