Gender as Text Field vs Radio Button

[Stryker]

[Split from avatar thread. Gets more serious later. - Monk]

I don't know if this belongs here, but we should be able to type our genders, just so that we can proudly have a Chuckman Level Chuckman who is a Chuckman situated at Chuckman.

[Tankred]

I don't know if this belongs here, but we should be able to type our genders, just so that we can proudly have a Chuckman Level Chuckman who is a Chuckman situated at Chuckman.

For what purpose.

[Sorrow]

Chuckman is quite obviously male, and nothing else, though.

[pwhodges]

For what purpose.

For people whose gender is non-standard. I have done exactly this at the QuestionableContent forums, where I've removed the binary "gender" option and added a free-text "personal information" field in its place.

[Tankred]

For people whose gender is non-standard.

I suppose so. But it seems like a nonissue as someone is usually male or female.

[Stryker]

For what purpose.

just so that we can proudly have a Chuckman Level Chuckman who is a Chuckman situated at Chuckman.

[pwhodges]

I suppose so. But it seems like a nonissue as someone is usually male or female.

So it's usually a non-issue - except when it isn't.

[Tankred]

So it's usually a non-issue - except when it isn't.

I don't personally think there's a go between except in exceedingly rare cases.

[Stryker]

what if "Chuckman" was a gender option?

[Gob Hobblin]

Chuckman is the only gender option.

[Nuclear Lunchbox]

I don't personally think there's a go between except in exceedingly rare cases.

In the case of QC, considering some things brought up in the comic, it seems like a perfectly reasonable option to have.

[Rosenakahara]

Eh intersex is like the minority of the minority, trans people will usually just pick the gender they identify with online (my friend does it everywhere but she is the only person i have experience to draw from) so it really isn't too big of an issue unless somebody joins and starts complaining about a lack of an [other] option, though just for shits and giggles it would be a funny feature.

[Sorrow]

People already put all sorts of things in their location and occupation options, so I see no reason not to do the same for gender. For some it'd be for a laugh, and for others it may be more comfortable for them to put something other than male or female; then for others they simply wouldn't care.

I don't see a con, myself.

[pwhodges]

Eh intersex is like the minority of the minority, trans people will usually just pick the gender they identify with online (my friend does it everywhere but she is the only person i have experience to draw from) so it really isn't too big of an issue unless somebody joins and starts complaining about a lack of an [other] option, though just for shits and giggles it would be a funny feature.

And given that there is no difficulty in providing flexibility, what is your argument for not doing so, and thereby preventing those (few) people who would benefit from it being able to?

[Rosenakahara]

Never gave one, just pointing out its not necessary......but it would be nice.

[Sorrow]

But to some it is. That's the point, and the one Mr. Hodges was making.

Not necessary for 99.06% of people is not the same as not necessary.

[Rosenakahara]

i think people are misunderstanding me here, I'm not opposed to the idea and saying it is not necessary does not mean much as technically we don't need avatars as they are not necessary, hell why even have a theme that isn't necessary.

That is all fluff to make the site more appealing but we still have it because we want that stuff, my posts here were pretty much a response to the previous shitstorm about the topic as in: everyone should chill, no need to get up in arms about it, harmless feature that doesn't matter and only adds.

The minority of the minority thing though? that was just me playing the devil's advocate.

Yes i waited till the thread was made just to post this, i have no life.

[Ornette]

The code for the gender stuff wasn't mine, was lifted as one of those phpbb hacks, and like anything involving the profile, spans pretty much throughout the entire system including the admin pages. While changing what it displays given the BIT that is stored in the database (1, 0, or NULL), is easy enough, but changing the system so that you can arbitrarily enter anything for that field (right now it's just a BIT) isn't a trivial change, and so far, I'm not convinced I should make time to put in that work.

[pwhodges]

Fair enough; The QC forum software has the facility to turn off any fields in the profile, and to add newly defined ones, so I could do it without programming (unless I want to display the new field next to posts). I didn't have to change the gender field, because I replaced it.

As a matter of interest, we considered (and rejected) having no means to specify gender at all.

[Sorrow]

Yes i waited till the thread was made just to post this, i had something to say.

No shame in that.

Ornette: it sounds like a lot of work, and any attempt to accommodate others at your own expense is certainly admirable. If you should decide against it, I think that would be fair enough.