[Foundation-l] Showing the difference between the sexes

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
<grin> I find it funny that this is so far a male only conversation </grin>

The development of this bit of software was not undertaken for Dutch or
German. It is of particular value to those languages where women are
addressed differently in any sentence. It is a missing part of the work that
has been done so far. The fact that it can be of use for Dutch and German is
a bonus.

When people do not identify themselves as either male or female, there are
default ways of dealing with this. Typically a person is then addressed as
male. As this is a personal choice, it is best left to the person involved.
This means that a person chooses what fits best for him or her.

When something is unusual and addressing people personally in software is
unusual it will get peoples heckles up. There will be opposition. The
situation we face is one where females for all kinds of reasons do not
contribute to our projects. We now have the ability to have a user interface
that will address people properly once they have identified themselves in
this way.

While leaving it to the community is the default best answer, this is where
a distinct minority will be affected by whatever choice made. The word
paternalistic comes to mind when we males are to decide for the women.

>From my perspective, it should be implemented for any language where the
[[gender]] setting is used in the localisation already. Not doing it would
leave an inconsistency that is fixed by this software. For languages like
Dutch and German there is a choice. The word "gebruiker" is not like
"kameraad" that does not have a female form. I would prefer to leave it to
people to make up their own mind.
Thanks,
        Gerard

On 13 February 2011 11:12, Thomas Goldammer <thogol at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Lodewijk is absolutely right. For example, "Benutzer" in German is a
> default term, it covers both male and female users (probably the same
> with gebruiker in Dutch), so why change it to something causing
> problems all over the place, not only technical ones? They can add it
> to the code of Mediawiki but per default it would be disabled, and to
> enable it, it needs of course a community decision.
>
> Btw., Gerard, this wouldn't really help to attract more new female
> users. Or how would you think the software could know the gender of an
> anonymous user to address them with female language if appropriate? ^^
>
> Best regards
> Th.
>
> 2011/2/13 Lodewijk <lodewijk at effeietsanders.org>:
> > And do you want it to be implemented :) But that question is to be
> > answered on a community level of course - but I guess there are a few
> > potential reasons why they might not want to implement it:
> > * It could potentially give people the feeling they have to tell their
> > gender: some people might not be willing to (male or female)
> > * Although grammatically correct, I would find "gebruikster" in Dutch
> > very weird - because it is rarely used it would put a huge emphasis on
> > the fact that someone is female - this will depend per language.
> > * I'm no expert in the field, but I can imagine some issues around
> > transgender people
> > * If you have a male/female version, and someone never told which they
> > are: which will be the default? Male of female?
> > * What to do when people fill in the "incorrect" gender? Will there be
> > attempts to enforce correctness? (because it could be perceived as
> > lying)
> >
> > etc. I would be a supporter of making it possible for a community to
> > make this choice, but I would not like us to make that choice for
> > them.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Lodewijk
>
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