The Inclusive language guide for IT terminology just got easier to search, easier to link to and easier to use. Look up a term, copy a link straight to it and drop that link into a ticket, a code review or a doc.

If you haven’t come across it before, the guide is a quick reference for common IT terms that can unintentionally exclude people, paired with clear alternatives — swapping “whitelist” for “allowlist,” or “sanity check” for “smoke test.” The Division of Information Technology (DoIT) reviews and updates it regularly to keep pace with how people actually talk about technology.

What’s different

An ad hoc committee of IT professionals from across the university spent time rethinking how the guide works, not just what it includes.

They organized terms alphabetically instead of by category, matching the Inclusive Language Guide in UW–Madison’s Editorial Style Guide, and moved the guide into the KB so every entry can stand on its own. Each one now leads with the term to use, so you get your answer first and the reasoning after.

Where the guide came from

Six years ago, Bob Turner, then UW’s Chief Information Security Officer, started a conversation about IT language with his blog post, The colors of cybersecurity. 

That conversation carried into UW–Madison IT Talks Technical, a university-wide IT community that began building a list of replacement terms — words that invite participation and describe things by what they actually do. 

The work later moved to the Events & Education Subcommittee of DoIT’s Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee (EDIC), where Erik Geiger led an effort to expand and update the content.

The work continues

The DoIT Community, Climate & Engagement and Communications departments now steward the guide and will keep working with interest holders across the university to maintain it. A formal review every two years keeps the guide current, because language shifts and inclusion is an ever-widening circle.

The guide is never finished. If you notice a word we missed or a definition that needs more nuance, tell us. We can make small changes between formal revisions.