# Inclusive Language Updates

DevFeed: [Inclusive Language Updates](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/inclusive-language-updates-31929.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<http://engineering.remind.com/inclusive-language-updates/>)

Author: Remind

Published: 2022-01-21T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Remind](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/remind.md>)

Topics: [systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/systems.md>), [GitHub](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/github.md>), [Databases](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/databases.md>)

Tags: [databases](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/databases.md>), [engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering.md>), [github](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/github.md>), [inclusive](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/inclusive.md>), [postgresql](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/postgresql.md>), [repositories](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/repositories.md>)

## AI overview

Remind's Sustaining Engineering team describes updates to inclusive language across its codebases, including changing GitHub's default branch from master to main and replacing master/slave and whitelist/blacklist terminology with writer/reader and allowlist/blocklist.

## Source excerpt

Inclusive Language Overview The Sustaining Engineering team at Remind recently implemented changes that focus on using inclusive language within our codebases. We encourage other engineering teams to do the same, and hope these updates create a more inclusive space for everyone at Remind. Terms like master and slave have no place in a modern codebase. They don't belong inside of our repositories, and they certainly do not belong on a repository's default branch on GitHub. At Remind, we have 59 distinct services that power our application. Each of these services has language that needs to be updated thoughtfully and intentionally to ensure that our systems remain available to the parents, teachers, and students that depend on them. We followed the lead of Indeed's VP of Engineering Jack Humphrey to identify and replace problematic language with the help of this blog post. We also had a number of internal conversations between team members that helped us iterate on the language that we intended to change, which worked specifically for our teams at Remind. Hopefully, outlining the changes that we made can serve to help other organizations working to make their workplaces more inclusive. Actions We're Taking We've committed ourselves to the following updates: Github default branch master " main Database Terminology Master/Slave -> Writer/Reader Permission Lists Whitelist/Blacklist -> Allowlist/Blocklist I began our updates within three of the services that my team - Sustaining Engineering - owns and operates within regularly. The steps that I took to update each of these repositories are as follows: Checked the repo for hard coded references to master branch and changed to main locally Checked across all repos at Remind for hard coded references to the master branch of the repo I was currently working to update Checked the repo for master and slave terminology, generally related to databases and updated with writer and reader This was updated from source and replica to