Some folks are more relaxed than others. I have even seen servers named after gods in the distant past, can you imagine? Try naming a server Odin now, or Loki, etc. Used to be a popular naming scheme but today it would have someone complaining to HR about inappropriate religion in the workplace.

I gotta say that whoever flagged that post has the thinnest skin I've yet encountered. Even for HN, I am slightly surprised.

For servers that, er, probably filter out porn stars?

You realise someone has to do this stuff, right?

Why is this being downvoted? It is highly inappropriate to do this in a work context.

Because it's like having subtle adult jokes in Disney movies, the adults get it and the children are oblivious and unharmed by them. Anyone offended by the use of porn star names wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) know what it's referencing.

I know that porn is pretty normalised by western culture, and I’m not reply anti porn myself, but if you can’t see how another adult might find porn references in their work inappropriate then I don’t know what to tell you.

Heh, 9 out of 10 people couldn't even tell you where those names came from. They never even had a chance to be offended. And frankly, not too many people wandering through the datacenter spent much time reading all the labels.

> Anyone offended by the use of porn star names wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) know what it's referencing.

“Offended by the use of X to name servers at their workplace” doesn't imply “have never heard and wouldn't recognize the names of X”. Whether X is “porn stars” or “Nazi leaders”.

I'm naming my server Godwin.

It is somewhat amazing how reliable that rule is. A part of me wonders how many people actually do it on purpose.

Maybe. But they were doing web filtering, so I get it.

Some people work in porn hub, and some in the mormon church. Of course the culture will differ. I, personally, would rather work for the pornhub than the mormons purely due to ethical reasons.

The example that cited upthread (a smaller ISP) had nothing to do with either of those examples, which are both extremes in terms of corporate culture.

Naming your servers after porn stars is the digital equivalent of having pin ups in your auto shop. Can you not see how this creates a hostile work environment for some employees? It’s inappropriate, unprofessional and unnecessary.

I shouldn’t even need to footnote this by saying that I don’t care whether someone enjoys porn in their personal life. If the business is not about porn, porn shouldn’t be a topic in the business.

Again, it is a matter of workplace culture, that is, the collective understanding of what's ok and what's not in that particular workplace. If everyone's ok with having pornstar names for servers, fine, whatever rocks your boat. I'm for diversity of workplace cultures instead of bland corporatism "safe space" and samethink. And besides, ain't nothing wrong with pinups in the autoshop as long as they do not discriminate them by gender, color and age :)

Peace & chill.

It's downvoted I guess because it's inflammatory and causing conflict/political discussion where there was absolutely none. I.e. We're talking about something innocent like naming servers.

It got as many upvotes as downvotes, actually.

People also name servers after Norse gods, which might be offensive to religious folks. Many naming schemes are not innocent unless you just aren't offended about the particular topic. Here's the thing, though -- once we decided that the metric was whether or not someone could be offended by something, then we made everything offensive. Whoops!