The purpose of these guidelines are to provide some best practices and examples of inclusive communication. Like many other best practices, you may be referred to these guidelines by your colleagues as part of code reviews, feedback sessions, document comments, and retrospectives, etc, so please do take time to digest them effectively. They are relevant to all forms of communication including verbal, written, drawing and code.
Please do submit any edits you feel necessary, and these will be reviewed and merged by a member of the EM team.
- Makes people feel naturally included
- Doesn’t trigger memories of someones’ prior trauma
- Brings more individuals within the perceived normality
- Helps overcome rather than cement peoples’ cognitive biases
| Non-inclusive | Alternatives |
|---|---|
| Whitelist | Allowlist |
| Blacklist | Denylist |
| Master/slave | Leader/follower, primary/replica, primary/standby |
| Grandfathered | Legacy status |
| Gendered pronouns (e.g. guys) | Folks, people, you all, y'all |
| Gendered pronouns (e.g. he/him/his) | They, them, their |
| Man hours | Person hours, engineering hours |
| Sanity check | Quick check, confidence check, coherence check |
| Dummy value | Placeholder value, sample value |
| Non-inclusive | Alternatives |
|---|---|
| Blackbox | Closed / Opaque box |
| Whitebox | Open / Clear box |
| God mode | Staff mode / CSR mode / Admin mode |
| Back of a fag packet | Back of an envelope/napkin |
| Straw man | Straw person/head |
| mental | unbelievable/horrible |
https://github.com/dialpad/inclusive-language
It can be difficult to suddenly stop using words that have been in general circulation for many years, and it’s understandable that people will still use them accidentally. How you react to repair your miscommunication is far more important than whether you made it or not.
If you would like to cement the improvements in both your own and your team’s mind, a good way to do it is by spending some time reviewing existing materials and making changes. See the associated resources below.
GNM takes deliberate or repeated use of non-inclusive language very seriously, so if you are aware of this happening, please report it to a manager or HR as normal. GNM’s Dignity at Work policy can be found in the GNM Employee Handbook.
- The GNM Employee Handbook has a section on WorkingTogether which covers GNM’s Equality and diversity, Trans equality and Dignity at Work policies.