It’s kind of a simple question, but I can’t find a specific answer. Do the terms, WhiteList and BlackList, that we commonly use these days to block/allow e-mail, web sites and comments have racist origins?
I can’t find the answer. I think about it every time I modify instructions for our mail filtering at work, just waiting for someone to ask me, but I can’t find an answer anywhere on the history of it. I’ve found some things when looking on-line related to hollywood (usually political writing) and on blackballing people (also from work or organizations) but nothing on the origins of the word even in that context.
I’ve seen some software FAQs skate around it with some stupid explanations to avoid the issue, but I think red + green universally mean stop + go so greenlist and redlist makes sense and since we don’t have green people it wouldn’t be considered racist (or even incorrectly thought to be). Maybe this is a non-issue, but I’m wondering what you think. Continue reading
Do me a favor? Go get a Gravatar!
Do you ever notice that sometimes in the comments you can see an image of the poster? Those are called Avatars. Sometimes they are of the poster and sometimes they are image representing them. Regardless of which one you use anything is more interesting than nothing. It gives a little more recognition / flavor to your post…
Gravatar has a way to put those on places where you comment. Two cool things about that. One: They’re free!!! Two: They’re retroactive. If you set it up, it’ll automagically show up on any old comments you left on this site and on thousands (and thousands) of sites where you may have already commented! Plus, they’ve just gone back on-line after redesigning their site.
It’s not a big favor and I never ask you for much so please find a image of yourself (it’ll let you size/crop it) and go sign up! Of course you realize you need to come back here and leave a comment, right? And I’ll need a volunteer or two who already has a Gravatar to leave one so other’s can see how they work…
Please note: I’ve noticed that after you add an image you have to go to the My Gravatar page and say you want to associate that image with your e-mail address.
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Tagged avatar, blogging, comments, gravatar, web sites