admarus
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Mubelotix
Add blacklist support
All the documents pinned to our node are automatically indexed on Admarus, but we may want to keep some documents private.
As and when this is considered for implementation, it'd be a good idea to call this a "denylist", "stoplist", "blocklist" or similar, rather than a "blacklist"; it may seem a minor change, but there's harm in perpetuating the idea that black is bad!
I do understand your serious concern about this name. I spent some time writing this message hoping it can also be useful for others in the future.
First, I need to give you some background on Admarus. Admarus is made by french people, and is deeply rooted in french culture. Even its name comes from a Gaulish word, the language from our ancestors (which we feel deeply connected to).
In France, the origin of the usage of black/white for allowing and denying access come from a fable from La Fontaine, Le Loup, la Chèvre et le Chevreau. It tales the story of a child goat locked in his house while his mother is away. His mother warned him against wolves, which he had to deny access to. The wolf heard the goat's warning, so he attempts to fool the kid by imitating the mother's voice. The kid is smart and asks the wolf to show his paw. If the paw is white, then it's his mother and he will grant her access. If the paw is black, it means it's a wolf, and he will get denied access. The wolf cannot abuse this verification and goes away empty-handed. From this fable, comes the commonly-used french expression "montrer patte blanche" (showing white paw) which is an exact quote. La Fontaine didn't even invent this tale, he only translated it from an older text. I don't know how long this tale has been around, but it's hundreds of years, potentially thousands. It's very deeply rooted in french culture. We teach it to kids in our schools. When we are talking about blacklists and whitelists, everyone thinks about sheep and wolves.
France is light-years ahead america on social issues like racism. People live together in peace, without even noticing the differences in color in our everyday lives. We do not care about skin colors. We rarely even mention it. It's just not relevant.
People coming here to tell me the color black is depicted as bad seems crazy to me (do not take it personally). It seems so far-fetched and wrong to associate the two. Why are people doing this? Does anyone really makes a connection here? It's like telling me that using the word master is bad. In France, students call their teachers master, but it's actually the teacher that serves its students. That's because it has nothing to do with slavery, and nobody ever made the mistake to even imagine one.
Yes, colors have meanings, but these meanings depend on context. Sometimes red means love but it can also mean danger. Sometimes green means nature but it can also mean toxic. Sometimes yellow means energy but it can also mean caution. It's the same for the black color, it can mean anarchy, night, elegance, revolution, oil, mystery, and so many different things that have nothing to do with each other. Same as other colors, some meanings are "bad" and some are "good" though it's arbitrary. But none of the meanings come to your mind when you see black people in the street right? It's obviously also the same for white (peace, surrender, emptiness, light, etc).
Remember Alice in Wonderland, when the queen orders to paint the white roses to red? Let's not fall in that kind of non-sense. I like blacklist, and as a french I do not like to change what works. I hope this message cleared things up, and if it turns out to not be enough, I might rename it to liste-noire so that the gap away from american culture is clearer
PS: Were you the one running a node yesterday? If so, I would love to hear about your experience and the potential issues you encountered at [email protected]
Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response! I understand your views here, I also come from a place that is more accepting than many — you're absolutely right that all things have their context, I offered my suggestion as a small act for the engineers living and working in the many not so lucky contexts.
My personal preference here was to suggest the change, as (for me) it would have been of no consequence, but may be beneficial for others — but I respect that your culture's weightings of cost to yourself and benefit to others may be very different!
One totally separate reason that might make denyList a smart choice here would be that the IPFS team made that swap a few years ago in their own codebases.
That aside (and having come back from a weekend hiking), indeed I was running an Admarus node! I'm keen on running one permanently, and I'd be happy to share my experience, I'll keep that in a separate issue though so as not to take this too far off topic!
Yes, there is probably a more appropriate naming in this case as it's about indexing, not restricting access. In this case, I was thinking about ignored-cids, no-index-list or something like that. But the day will come when blacklist is appropriate, so it's better to have this conversation before it happens
Hi! I found this project while looking for a replacement for ipfs-search.com that I used in Capyloon (https://capyloon.org) for content discovery. It's great to see activity and progress here!
I'm French too, but also expat in the US for >10 years so I have a fairly good grasp of both cultures. I have to say that overall I'm perplexed by @Mubelotix explanations.
I'm all with rooting projects names / goals / aspirations in some cultural background - that's very natural, and often is a good way to learn something! I also like stupid puns like calling Capyloon's CLI tool jackady which usually makes French speakers :smile:
However, I can't read that:
France is light-years ahead america on social issues like racism. People live together in peace, without even noticing the differences in color in our everyday lives. We do not care about skin colors. We rarely even mention it. It's just not relevant.
without reaction. France has a racism issue, always had and it's not getting better. I'm sure you know about the recent riots linked to systemic racism from the police. There is racial discrimination in many aspect of the French society: by police, when looking for jobs, housing access etc. These are well documented facts. The far right has never been so close to power unfortunately. Either you're naive with your idyllic depiction or you play the extreme game of moving the Overton window.
France's colonial past is not very different from slavery either.
Then you say:
People coming here to tell me the color black is depicted as bad
but this is not issue. The issue is that in code, a "black list" is very often "bad elements we want to get rid of". Do you see how that maps to people of color? Would you react the same if that was called a "french list" with the same underlying meaning?
The problem is not what you feel when hearing "black list", it's what other potential users / contributors will feel. Of course it's your project and you choice, but this can be important. There are safe alternatives, so why not use them?
Personally I would be interested in contributing but that will depend on the outcome of this discussion. Your argumentation is too close the those saying in the US that "Black Lives Matter" is bullshit because "All Lives Matter" while the real meaning is of course "BLM as much as white ones".
I hope you'll change your mind!
Hi Fabrice,
I agree with you that France has racism issues. Also yes, slavery and colonies were used in France too, not too long ago. I don't think there is much to add to what you said, the "light-years ahead" is obviously a bit of an exaggeration indeed. Still, we are ahead (right?).
People who know me will agree with you that I have an idyllic vision of things. I see things as they should be, and I'll fight their current state until they become what they should be.
The rest of your message isn't relevant to me, because you did exactly what I said people should avoid doing: you drew a connection between the word "blacklist" and black people. This should never happen. This is a mistake and this leads to chaos in your mind. There is no fucking connection between human skin color and the concept of blacklists. I'm sure you already understood that from my first message, but you chose to disregard it (maybe because you disagreed?). The problem is not the word, it's people's vision of the word. Of course, it would be so much easier for me to remove the word, but it's people's vision of it that needs to be fixed
I'm astonished the discussion is going so off-topic. Of course "Black Lives Matter". Of course "All Lives Matter". Of course "BLM as much as white ones". None of those are bullshit. I'm sad to see people jumping to such conclusions and doubts. I'm trying my best at being open and justifying the choices made here, just to see people use my efforts for the opposite. Maybe I should never have commented on this. The term isn't even anywhere in the codebase, how absurd is all this? Imagine waiting the entire day doing the things you must do, only to realize that instead of using your free time for useful things like implementing new features on Admarus, you need to spend it writing such boring comment on github
I'm sorry and I won't lie to you: you didn't change my mind. The only thing that would change my mind is if the word actually comes from something evil and was invented for racist purposes. Since I'm pretty sure it's a fairly innocent word coming from a completely unrelated source, I just don't think it's right removing it. I'm particularly sad to see people misunderstood what I tried explaining. If anyone is now convinced I'm some unsympathetic conservative, then let it be. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't the opposite to be honest, but it doesn't really matter. The project is what matters, and the project goes on.
you drew a connection between the word "blacklist" and black people.
Believe me, I didn't drew that connection. Black people did, and pushed for change in places it was used (same for the master/slave terminology). I just accept that even if I can't personally relate to that, I can show empathy with them and stop using these terms.
@fabricedesre
you drew a connection between the word "blacklist" and black people.
Believe me, I didn't drew that connection. Black people did, and pushed for change in places it was used (same for the master/slave terminology). I just accept that even if I can't personally relate to that, I can show empathy with them and stop using these terms.
Correct, you didn't draw the connection, thus you have no right to impose that belief on others. You're not being empathetic, you're being a thoughtless zealot.
Blacklist stems from black ink which infers opaque. Whitelist stems from the lack of ink which infers transparent.
These terms were never used racially.
And that's not even to get into the master/slave argument... To assume that only black people have been enslaved shows an immense lack of knowledge about history.
