Genders

[Master_Cylinder]

It could just be an Extension for those that need it...

[bantu]

First of all, from an implementation standpoint, all profile fields should be custom profile fields that can be disabled and changed, etc.
I am not sure whether phpBB should provide a gender profile field by default. Probably not.
Then, I am not sure the increased complexity of having "gendered language" outweights the benefits of having them.
Also, priority wise, development time is probably better spent elsewhere right now.
I would also like to note that some people do not think that gender is a male/female question.
Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender

[BioLogIn]

Facebook, f.e., separates genders from preferred pronouns. One can select from ~50 genders, and independently select preferred pronoun from male/female/neutral.
https://apps.facebook.com/gender-pronouns/
Which, I think, is sensible in a way.

Gender selector is a custom field that is easy to add by forum administration and that doesn't affect board functionality. This should bot be in the core.

Preferred pronouns alter language engine behaviour. This, I think, should be in the core, is devs have time for this.

[Pony99CA]

But if every user has his gender determined, we could do more with phpBB script. I mean, script messages could be displayed according to gender. In English maybe it's not that visible, but other languages uses different forms for female and male.

Language genders don't apply to people as far as I know. They only apply to titles (Mr., Ms., etc.), and phpBB doesn't address people by title.

Gender for things, like "el" vs. "la" in Spanish, is handled by translators in the message files.

I was thinking about writing RFC "Language genders" when I saw this topic. I just finished translation of phpBB 3.1 and I can say in some languages would be very nice to have grammatical genders in phpBB. For me it is similar issue as plurals. In English language there is only one form of the word, but in my (Czech) language we use different form of the word when we talk about man or woman. Example from common.php

'NOTIFICATION_PM' => '%1$s sent you a Private Message "%2$s".',

If the sender is male there should be: '%1$s vám poslal soukromou zprávu "%2$s".',
If the sender is female there should be: '%1$s vám poslala soukromou zprávu "%2$s".', (added "A" to the end of word poslal)
As a translator I have to choose if I will write about everyone as about males or females or I can write something not too nice like this: '%1$s vám poslal(a) soukromou zprávu "%2$s".', It's kind of OK when there is only one such a word in sentence, but it really looks ugly if there is more words with brackets, or if there is bigger change in word than adding "A" to the end of the word.
If we know gender of user who sent the message we would get nicer translations.

I've heard that good tech writers are supposed to write in a gender-neutral manner. For example, instead of saying "He sent you a Private Message", you should write "The user sent you a Private Message."

And what about people who don't want to indicate a gender? For example, some women may not want to indicate that they're female to avoid being harassed by men. They also shouldn't have to say that they're men, so there should be a "Not provided" option (as this RFC suggested). So how would you address somebody whose gender is unknown in Czech?

To go old school, suppose that you were writing a cover letter for a job to somebody whose gender you don't know. How would you do that in Czech? (I hope that you don't have to resort to the equivalent of the ugly "Dear Sir or Madam"....) If there's a way to do that in Czech, that's how you should translate, too.

By the way, based on your second example ("You have not selected any avatar.'"), doesn't the "you" in the first example ("sent you") need to take gender into account in Czech? (Just curious.)

Steve

[leschek]

I've heard that good tech writers are supposed to write in a gender-neutral manner. For example, instead of saying "He sent you a Private Message", you should write "The user sent you a Private Message."

I'm trying to do that, but it is not always possible. If you want (or software does) name the user you can have for example: "John sent you PM" or "Jane sent you PM". Now in Czech if I want to translate it correctly I should write:
"John vám poslal SZ" or
"Jane vám poslala SZ". (added "A")

Example 2: "User sent you PM" -
if user is male I should write: "Uživatel vám poslal SZ"
if user is female it should be: "Uživatelka vám poslala SZ"

And what about people who don't want to indicate a gender? For example, some women may not want to indicate that they're female to avoid being harassed by men. They also shouldn't have to say that they're men, so there should be a "Not provided" option (as this RFC suggested). So how would you address somebody whose gender is unknown in Czech?

If user doesn't want to indicate a gender then there would be default option (whatever it is called) and user would see texts on board in present form.

If there is unknown person we use for example word "osoba" (person) and create sentence around that. Because "osoba" is feminine noun we would talk about such person as about female. We could also use word "člověk" (it also mean "person"), but "člověk" is masculine noun and we would talk about such a person as about male. Does it make a sense?

To go old school, suppose that you were writing a cover letter for a job to somebody whose gender you don't know. How would you do that in Czech? (I hope that you don't have to resort to the equivalent of the ugly "Dear Sir or Madam"....) If there's a way to do that in Czech, that's how you should translate, too.

If I write such a letter I usually write about myself (and I know my gender) and not about the person I write to, so this is not the best example. BTW we use similar salutation as "Dear Sir or Madam".

By the way, based on your second example ("You have not selected any avatar.'"), doesn't the "you" in the first example ("sent you") need to take gender into account in Czech? (Just curious.)

Yes, there is added "A" in word "poslal" - "poslala". "You" itself is translated as "Vám" and gender doesn't matter.

It seems that you are really interested about Czech language so here is a few wikipedia links: Czech conjugation, Czech declension.

[Pony99CA]

If there is unknown person we use for example word "osoba" (person) and create sentence around that. Because "osoba" is feminine noun we would talk about such person as about female. We could also use word "člověk" (it also mean "person"), but "člověk" is masculine noun and we would talk about such a person as about male. Does it make a sense?

Yes, but I'm more interested in the case where you have a name for the person (or are just referring to the person as "you") where you don't know their gender. Once you know their gender, the problem becomes easy, but what happens when you don't?

To go old school, suppose that you were writing a cover letter for a job to somebody whose gender you don't know. How would you do that in Czech? (I hope that you don't have to resort to the equivalent of the ugly "Dear Sir or Madam"....) If there's a way to do that in Czech, that's how you should translate, too.

If I write such a letter I usually write about myself (and I know my gender) and not about the person I write to, so this is not the best example.

You may have to talk about how you will help "them" (or "your company"). For example, "I believe that I can increase sales for you...." or "If you hire me, then...."

It seems that you are really interested about Czech language so here is a few wikipedia links: Czech conjugation, Czech declension.

I'm not interested in Czech per se; I'm just trying to understand the parameters of the problem. Once we understand that, maybe we can find a workaround that won't require supporting gender. The language files already have exceptions based on plurals; I'd hate to have more exceptions based on gender unless they absolutely can't be avoided.

Steve

[leschek]

Yes, but I'm more interested in the case where you have a name for the person (or are just referring to the person as "you") where you don't know their gender.

If I know name I know the gender, because names (in Czech) are based on genders. If I don't know name and gender I can refer to that person as to "osoba" or "člověk" (explained in my previous post) and I would use gender based on those words.

You may have to talk about how you will help "them" (or "your company"). For example, "I believe that I can increase sales for you...." or "If you hire me, then...."

In your examples it doesn't matter, because I would use very polite "YOU" (in translation "I believe that I can increase sales for Vás....") and it doesn't matter if person I write to is male or female.

I'm not interested in Czech per se; I'm just trying to understand the parameters of the problem. Once we understand that, maybe we can find a workaround that won't require supporting gender. The language files already have exceptions based on plurals; I'd hate to have more exceptions based on gender unless they absolutely can't be avoided.

understand what you mean, but it is difficult to explain something to somebody who speaks in language where are not such a things (that's why I sent the wikipedia links). I remember when they taught me about "THE" and "A" before some words. We don't use it in my language, so it wasn't easy to understand how it works.

I wouldn't worry about adding it to the files, because:
it would be lot of work to implement it
it is not important for all languages
we still can use what we use now (it is not perfect or nice but it works)

In my opinion it is similar issue as plurals - must by hard to understand why somebody use more forms of word than only one plural. In case of plurals helped that it was already implemented in some other softwares or scripts.

[Sumanai]

The language files already have exceptions based on plurals;

This should not be an exception, it should be the rule.

[Pony99CA]

The language files already have exceptions based on plurals;

This should not be an exception, it should be the rule.

You misunderstood. For language strings where the text may be plural or singular, the language files have a different way of defining the strings. They are meant to be the rule, but they're handled as exceptions to the normal definitions.

Steve

[AlexTuesday]

Just my two cents - I'm against the core shipping with genders. I'm agender (non-binary gender identity - basically gender neutral) and there would be a 99.9% chance that this option - and many other options other transgender people use - would not ship with it. I hate having to modify codes that force your users into male or female categories, when many don't fall into those gender identities. Especially if all these language specific modifications came into plan that you're all talking about. It sounds like I'd have to modify a ton of areas just to add a couple of words to a dropdown menu. That's too much work when there are other forum scripts that don't ship with forced gender, and I would just change scripts if I had to modify files and add new language files or what have you every time an update was released.

I use custom profile fields for genders, and combine it with a pronouns field, and I don't have any issues with it - heck, if anything, I'd recommend removing all permanent profile fields and just using custom profile fields for everything. I'm picky. I like to customize.