On 18 July 2012 11:56, Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:
And I don't think the cases where it is
unclear or a matter of privacy (a vanishingly small number) should
preclude the obvious cases being done. It doesn't seem quite right
that the potential for arguments over edge cases and how to handle
them sensitively, would preclude being able to search by gender.
Well, OK. As far as I can see, the standard infobox for people does
not include a field M/F. Within [[Category:Actors]], where the
WikiProject specifies use of an infobox, it seems that the gendered
occupation "actress" is still widely used. I had assumed this was
obsolescent, as "poetess" and "authoress" are now obsolete. It would
be an improvement to use "actor" throughout and make M/F either an
field in the infobox, or a category, or both.
I just think we should contemplate what is going on here. A couple of
points are:
* information in infoboxes and categories is subject to WP:V like
everything else, though stuff is often enough sneaked in (nnot good);
and
*the "German" style of categorisation, per previous discussion here,
has both advantages and disadvantages.
In the light of Wikidata, an infobox route whereby V for infobox
entries is applied "centrally" now looks good. Native speakers tend to
be able to read gender from forenames (not in all cases, though). We
should have a well-considered case for flagging it to non-native
speakers.
Charles