Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 13:17:27 +0200 From: "Amir E. Aharoni" <amir.aharoni(a)mail.huji.ac.il> Subject: [Foundation-l] Editors survey and gender To: foundation-l <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <AANLkTi=6-fXCKsCNRoXnSBd-4cjdKiOR0z=fSAp66pY=(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 What i say here about Hebrew may be useful for many other languages, too. I am translating the Editors survey into Hebrew. The survey is written as a long series of questions in the second person ("you"). In Hebrew the second person is very gender-dependent - the wording is significantly different for women. When translating MediaWiki messages, we more or less manage to avoid it and though it's not perfect and we should use {{GENDER}} more, it's not a disaster. In the survey, however, it would be very, very bad with all the personal questions about family life etc. It's not just a matter of being politically correct and welcoming - the language simply doesn't natural. Would it be possible to have the Hebrew translation in the feminine gender, too? The default can be masculine, but putting a button at the beginning that opens another form in the feminine would be really great. In the Meta talk page Casey said that it's not possible with LimeSurvey, but i nevertheless want to try asking it again: Can i write two versions of the survey, for example "Hebrew-masculine" and "Hebrew-feminine" and let the reader switch it? The results can be combined later. Thanks a lot for the understanding. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni ? ?????? ????????? ?????????? http://aharoni.wordpress.com "We're living in pieces, ?I want to live in peace." - T. Moore