Avoid using "people" when we mean relays in tor's comments

There are places in the tor codebase where relays and/or clients are referred to as "he" or "guy".

We could remove these unnecessary gender references, as it's more accurate to use "it" or "they".

changed milestone to %Tor: 0.3.0.x-final

added component::core tor/tor doc milestone::Tor: 0.3.0.x-final owner::jryans points::0.1 priority::low resolution::fixed severity::trivial status::closed type::defect labels

This is silly.

Trac:
Severity: Normal to Trivial

Replying to cypherpunks:

This is silly. It's important to some people. And it's a minimal amount of effort.

Please see my branch bug18145 on https://github.com/teor2345/tor.git

I've put comment changes in separate commits to log message changes.

And I've separated out the changes to the Alice/Bob client/hidden service terminology. Personally, I find it confusing, but as it's conventional usage in cryptography, I'm happy to keep Alice/Bob.

Does this need a changes file?

This bug is clearly a patriarchal conspiracy to undermine the femdom darknet, which relies on male servant nodes to relay its traffic.

Ack; calling relays "he" is a bit silly. And while we once had our entire HS protocol described in terms of "Alice" and "Bob", we haven't really done that for about a decade, and it sure doesn't belong in the log messages. Merged.

(We don't do changes files for comments-only changes.)

Relay operators and users remain free to assign whatever gender they like to their computers and the software they are running.

(And please nobody give me any crap about "they" in the singular or I'll get out my Chaucer.)

Trac:
Status: new to closed
Resolution: N/A to fixed

Trac:
Resolution: fixed to N/A
Status: closed to reopened

Sorry, missed a few references to "guy" or "guys" (and another "him").

It's much easier to understand most of these comments when we avoid the pronoun, and just talk directly about the certificate/relay/server etc.

Please merge the latest commit on my branch bug18145.

There are also instances of people which can be replaced with either users or tor-specific components such as OR, OP, etc.

Tweaked and applied.

There are also instances of people which can be replaced with either users or tor-specific components such as OR, OP, etc.

+1 to replacing people with relays where appropriate, since that's more clear.

-0 on replacing people with users in the general case. Users are people.

-1 on introducing more uses of OP; that term never caught on. +1 on saying "tor client", and possibly on replacing OP in more places.

+0 on retaining "bad guy" as a term of art.

Trac:
Status: reopened to new

Trac:
Priority: Medium to Low

Trac:
Summary: Avoid gender-specific language in tor's comments to Avoid using people when we mean relays in tor's comments

Trac:
Summary: Avoid using people when we mean relays in tor's comments to Avoid using "people" when we mean relays in tor's comments

Throw most 0.2.8 "NEW" tickets into 0.2.9. I expect that many of them will subsequently get triaged out.

Trac:
Milestone: Tor: 0.2.8.x-final to Tor: 0.2.9.x-final

teor: this wasn't "unsavory people" looking to dox you snarking this ticket, it was someone right here in the Tor community too nervous about the social power associated with viewpoints like this to oppose openly. Ironically, I couldn't find any objection to this if it had been proposed on the grounds of grammar, but this ideologically motivated business of reading malintent into what's clearly actually a rather common grammatical mistake for Romance-language native speakers with imperfect English is dangerous, and caving to it on small matters invites more of it on big ones.

I also took your behavior as kinda creepy, cpunks.

And before somebody goes omg teh hegemony, nick is saying that disagreement is creepy, that's not what I'm talking about. It's the trolling that is creepy.

Replying to cypherpunks:

teor: this wasn't "unsavory people" looking to dox you snarking this ticket, it was someone right here in the Tor community too nervous about the social power associated with viewpoints like this to oppose openly. Ironically, I couldn't find any objection to this if it had been proposed on the grounds of grammar, but this ideologically motivated business of reading malintent into what's clearly actually a rather common grammatical mistake for Romance-language native speakers with imperfect English is dangerous, and caving to it on small matters invites more of it on big ones.

Thanks for letting me know what you were trying to achieve. I couldn't tell what was going on, or how many people were involved, or why it was happening, or what outcome people wanted. Can we stick to the topic of the ticket next time?

(Challenging social power dynamics by making off-topic comments on a bug tracking system is unlikely to change much - it's not a place or method I've ever seen work.)

I think we are more alike than you realise:

• we both fear that people who disagree with us will attack us for our views,
• we both agree that making minor grammatical fixes improves the readability of comments,
• neither of us read malintent into grammatical mistakes or writing styles. (I used "gendered" as descriptive term - I didn't realise how politically laden it was.)

I am sorry that you don't feel you can associate your objections with your preferred handle or public identity. I am sorry that you don't feel free to speak out because of social power dynamics. There are places I can't speak out or participate because of my views or identities. It's a really awful experience.

I am happy to have a further conversation about this, but this ticket is not an appropriate venue. (Or I'm happy to consider the issue closed.) You know how to find me, and you can do so anonymously if you want. I can't, so be gentle in how you use your anonymity.

Trac:
Points: N/A to small
Reviewer: N/A to N/A