Thanks for the examples from French and I'm sure that our experienced translators will have in mind specific best practice guides to turn to. I like your illustration of "un/une adminstra-teur-trice" to show the challenges. The use of "singular they" remains uncomfortable for many English readers, but it has become a recommended standard for journalists writing in English.[1]
Once the principle of gender neutrality is agreed, I just don't know what our next steps will turn out to be for non-English versions. However I am much encouraged by the positive views on Commons, and I'm hopeful we can, and should, find a way to set a better example for our fellow projects in our aim to feel welcoming for all contributors. :-)
Links 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
Thanks Fae Wikimedia LGBT+
On 6 April 2017 at 12:30, Antoine Musso hashar+wmf@free.fr wrote:
Le 05/04/2017 à 12:52, Fæ a écrit :
I'm taking that further by proposing that we stick to a neutral gender for all our policies and help pages. In practice this means that policies avoid using "he or she" and stick to "they" or avoid using a pronoun at all.
As a non native English speaker the use of a plural form definitely confuses me or at best. The example takes a sentence from Commons:FAQ which roughly looks like:
A photographer has to be given credit when his or her picture is used.
With the proposal to instead:
A photographer has to be given credit when their picture is used.
Why isn't "picture" plural as well? If using masculine as a neutral pronoum is the issue, just stop using the pronoum entirely. Eg one can instead write:
A photographer has to be given credit when the picture is used.
That is going to be quite a challenge when ported to other languages. For 'A photographer', the english indefinite article is gender less.
In french that would be either 'un' (masculine) or 'une' (feminine). What some are advocating is using:
Un/une photographe
If the noun varies as well, that becomes messy. Here for 'administrateur':
Un/une adminstra-teur-trice
That is not solvable in french and all other latin based languages most probably have the same issue (blame Rome!).
-- Antoine "hashar" Musso