GitHubInclusifier: Finding and fixing non-inclusive language in GitHub repositories

• Main Authors: TODD, Liam, GRUNDY, John, TREUDE, Christoph
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2024
• Subjects: Inclusive language; refactoring; biased language; inappropriate language; software documentation; software maintenance tools; Software Engineering
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8918; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9921/viewcontent/icse2024_2.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Non-inclusive language in software artefacts has been recognised as a serious problem. We describe a tool to find and fix non-inclusive language in a variety of GitHub repository artefacts. These include various README files, PDFs, code comments, and code. A wide variety of non-inclusive language including racist, ageist, ableist, violent and others are located and issues created, tagging the artefacts for checking. Suggested fixes can be generated using third-party LLM APIs, and approved changes made to documents, including code refactorings, and committed to the repository. The tool and evaluation data are available from: https://github. com/LiamTodd/github-inclusifier