Changes to the Pronoun Field (Updated 23/4/23)

[hyphae]

Could we please have the option to select more than one entry on the menu?

As a system, we second this.

 

[Enzap]

Sorry it's taking a while, but we are still working on a new system for this. The hope is for the new system to be something where you can select multiple options from a set list, and that list will be a bit more expansive than the one we have now.

 

[hyphae]

No problem. Pronouns are hard. We've gone with Ask (I believe) for now.

 

[RexMissingno]

I've been giving this some thought, and if the issue is trolls misusing the pronoun fields, why not have the ability to add pronouns in a custom field be something you gain the ability to do after making a certain number of posts? Or potentially requiring a person to have an account for a certain amount of time. It might not be a perfect solution, but people are less likely to troll when there's a limitation like that either by needing to actually participate in a community or having that time to think.

Asking for a person's pronouns to me at least (fully understandable others may feel differently) feels like it defeats the purpose in some ways. While there are cases where you do need to ask for pronouns like with genderfluidity or systems, I feel like from using neopronouns it's generally easier to just say the pronouns I use if there's the option for a pronoun field. I've also noticed when ask for pronouns is used people are more likely to default to they/them - and there are legitimate reasons someone might prefer to not use they/them.

Those are just my thoughts a couple months after the fact and I thought I would toss in a different idea. If it's already too far along in development for other user input to be considered, that's also fine. The signature solution seems to work okay, but to me I just don't always like to advertise my pronouns in that way if I don't have to given how some people are about abnormal gender expression.

 

[colours]

I apologise for the long wait, everyone! Life certainly got in the way, but this nevertheless got done!

We've re-done the Pronouns field so you can select multiple from the following options now:



I believe this should be as inclusive as possible while also including those who utilize neopronouns as well. For the latter, we've decided on a "Refer to Profile" option, because it has two main benefits:

• Members can be as specific about their neopronouns as they would like;
• In general it's a good bonus to encourage people to actually check the About pages of user profiles to actually get to know the user in question

In other words, we're achieving basically two goals with one step. Not only would this solve the notable issue previously with bad faith actors abusing the field, but it also allows users to express themselves way more freely than before!

The only bad thing? In the process of doing this, I broke the existing profile field, so..... whoops! Not a huge deal, just need to re-select options so it doesn't show up in a janky way in user posts. u_u

But do let us know what you think!

 

[Archaic]

A quick follow-up on the above change.

If you notice your pronouns are showing up incorrectly (e.g. showing he_him or she_her instead of He/Him or She/Her), then you need to:

1. Remove all of your pronoun settings and save your settings.
2. Add your pronoun settings back and save your settings again.

This will resolve the issue. We're trying to find a way to automate this process, but we've not found an obvious way to do this at this point.

 

[Poke Trey]

I honestly forgot about these things. Thanks for trying to patch them through.

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

Well, for all the stress and drama that all of this seems to have caused, I’m glad that we’ve found a solution that, so far, seems to be satisfying enough for most people! A checkbox selection from a sanctioned list ended up being rather elegant in its simplicity, really.

That said, I hope that as more people come along who use more… for lack of a better word, “unrecognized” neopronouns, they’ll be able to feel more immediately welcome to use their preferred pronouns without having them feel potentially “othered” with, well, only an “other” or “refer to profile” to choose from. If there’s any contention on the admin side about exactly which ones are worth implementing for whatever reason, perhaps keeping an eye on a reference list of most commonly used neopronouns and selecting, maybe, the ten top entries right off the bat could be something to consider.

In any case, thank you, admin people, for your oft-unappreciated work with taking care of all of this. Hopefully what we’ve accomplished will make things easier with this subject matter for all involved, both in the present and the future.

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to make sure that this particular post is seen.

This is kind of unrelated to the whole pronouns thing yet also kind of related, so I figure that I might as well just talk about it here. You know about the Gender field, right above the Pronoun field? Well, in my case, I’ve left it blank ever since I’ve been here at Bulbagarden, actually. Why? Mainly because I’ve never been fully comfortable with sharing my gender online, for reasons that are far too long and complicated for me to explain here. The best descriptor of my feelings would probably be “Prefer not to say”, but that’s never actually been an option here. There’s an “Other” option, yes, but I’ve as that implies, well, “other”, not really the specific thing that I feel. So since we’re on the subject of inclusivity and expanding options when it comes to expressions of gender here, I’m wonder if you all on the admin side might consider adding an option like “Prefer not to say”? I might not necessarily use it now, honestly — I’ve almost become comfortable with just leaving the field blank now — but I feel that it would’ve been nice to have around during those early days that I was here, and that it could be a thoughtful addition for others who have similar feelings that I do.

 

[Sheep]

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to make sure that this particular post is seen.

This is kind of unrelated to the whole pronouns thing yet also kind of related, so I figure that I might as well just talk about it here. You know about the Gender field, right above the Pronoun field? Well, in my case, I’ve left it blank ever since I’ve been here at Bulbagarden, actually. Why? Mainly because I’ve never been fully comfortable with sharing my gender online, for reasons that are far too long and complicated for me to explain here. The best descriptor of my feelings would probably be “Prefer not to say”, but that’s never actually been an option here. There’s an “Other” option, yes, but I’ve as that implies, well, “other”, not really the specific thing that I feel. So since we’re on the subject of inclusivity and expanding options when it comes to expressions of gender here, I’m wonder if you all on the admin side might consider adding an option like “Prefer not to say”? I might not necessarily use it now, honestly — I’ve almost become comfortable with just leaving the field blank now — but I feel that it would’ve been nice to have around during those early days that I was here, and that it could be a thoughtful addition for others who have similar feelings that I do.

We talked this over and will be adding a 'Prefer not to say' option sometime soon, so be on the lookout for that! Thanks for the suggestion

 

[colours]

We talked this over and will be adding a 'Prefer not to say' option sometime soon, so be on the lookout for that! Thanks for the suggestion

@InfiniteBakuphoon this is done btw