Core: Genderization! Gender support for translations.

[amdad]

It's really needed. Without it in my language forum speaks to users like sport commentator, talking to them about what's going on on forum as spectator ;). In 3rd person. Any direct speaking to user is impossible in straight way.

So I suggest extension should have option to enable in forum to REQUIRE from user choosing Man/Woman in account settings. Prompt modal window on first login,

We should be able to use male/female node/form to override/extend ANY YAML's string.

[dcsjapan]

Ahah, I didn't see what you were getting at when you brought this up the forums. Now I understand!

Allow me to jot down a few things that will need to be considered:

Where should it go?

This reminds me of the need for "name pronunciation" profile fields to allow proper sorting of Japanese names. That's a clear case of something that belongs in the language pack extension. Gender is a much more common phenomena, so there may be a case for bundling it as a default extension.

Use for other purposes

If it is bundled, then some admins may want to use the gender profile fields as a way for users to show their gender, even if they're not using a language where gender is an issue. In such cases, the profile field would have to include an "Unspecified" option for those users who'd rather not say.

Mandatory gender selection

As @amdad suggests, forums would need some way to prompt users to specify their gender. A modal that offers a choice of buttons on first login would be one way to handle it, but it may not be necessary to go that far. (And it wouldn't be necessary in situations where grammatical gender isn't important.)

As an alternative, could be handled as part of the new user welcome process. The welcome banner displays a link to a page (or sticky thread) on forum policies. There, the user finds an explanation of how to open the Settings page and set his/her gender. In the meantime, the forum uses a default setting.

... It might be nice if the extension included a configuration setting so admins could specify the default gender for their forum. (So a forum oriented specifically toward women could use the female gender as the default, for example.)

[amdad]

Most common think on the world is gender, so I think no other like, it MUST be a core extension. Even if disabled by default. Still should be shipped. Just because of language need it. Unless my language is only one who needs it. Then ok, exception don't need to be in core.

1. Option to REQUIRE from user for choosing it's gender after first login.
   
   
   
   • Modal popup just for that,
   
   
   • or showing this option in place of top banner that cannot be hidden without user choice,
   
   
   • else redirection to user profile which cannot be saved without defining user gender.
   
   
2. Admin should have options to enable or disable completely "Unspecified" option. Because as we can require user to make choice, admin should decide if require to choose always between male/female or male/female/unspecified. I like this "unspecified" word rather of "not tell", just from psychological perspective. Some users will more likely avoid "unspecified" (because of their convenience of yourself) when in compare "not tell" will point user to: "Oh, if I can hide something from public (more anonymous!) why not".
3. Optionally as @dcsjapan suggest in gender extension admin should choose which form of language should be used by default. If forum is only or mostly for men/women. When requiring to choose is not important. So admin can left it in just in profile as option. or even turn off those profile option. When forum is 100% oriented on one gender only.

[franzliedke]

The additional complexity that we would have to introduce by forcing users to select their gender is something I would not want to support; especially given how much it complicates localization.

@amdad Is there absolutely no way to address the user in a gender-neutral way? How is it done when you get advertisement letters where the sender don't know whether you're male or female?

[amdad]

I wrote nothing is "required" - everything is optional for site admin to choose if we require to choose from user, or if we just suggest him to choose. And then, choose between what: male/famale or maybe want to stay as undefined. Totally freedom. Site admin should decide what is required, and if Gender extension will be even enabled or not. I suggest it should be in the core but by default disabled. Since not many languages require it. Still it's very useful plugin for all sites to use. Because, it add some most basic info on the world about person. So why not in core? If not in core, no problem. It can be installed separately. But should have power to use those special Yaml's strings crafted in localization files for that matter.

You have pluralization, you have strings that allow different ordering words in phrase, Even drop punctuate() function because some languages don't use it https://github.com/flarum/core/issues/527#issuecomment-141848163.

No, it is not possible to speak neutral to people in my case. Verb always pointing person gender. Only in exceptions like "Someone replied to your message" you use by 'default' male form, because you don't know who is "someone",

I already translated Flarum by using "neutral" but incorrect form. Instead of using Simple Past I used Past Continuous. Because I cannot said "He replied", "She replied". I use "He replying", "She replying", as sport spectator. Anyway, that's incorrect.

In advertisement letters you can say sometimes directly by YOU. Like "You'll buy", "Your choice". But in case you want to be more formal. You just using "Welcome mr/mrs!" And so on.. Just placing 2 full forms separated by slash. Or just different endings of verb. But it's not cool anyway.

When sender is know if receiver is male or female sending two different forms of letter. Even in advertisement. So Franz, you want Flarum to be worse than SPAM? :stuck_out_tongue:

[amdad]

Oh.. DAMN! I thought, I lost this first message because accidentally close tab. So read it twice. Ough.

If it still not clear here you go:

Hey, who said FORCING? I meant Option for admin to require it or not. Because some sites want suggesting (push) user to decide, and some of them _require_ from user to decide. I gave you few scenarios here. Only in just one of them admin can decide if user must choose. And if must choose, even then he is not required to choose between man/woman but can choose undefined.

I already translate Flarum without using direct gender oriented messages. But it is really weird way of speaking here. Extension will not harm any way languages that don't need it. You just don't enable it or (if it will not core) don't install it at all. Just extend possibilities for those languages who want to use it. What's problem with that?

In natural way I must say like this:

User posting... User replying... User removing... User ...ing. All the time. So all of it is in

I cannot use just normal verb User post_ed_, User repli_ed_, User remov_ed_. Cannot say, "She replied" or "He replied" because there is another form of verb according to gender. There is even third for of verb if you taking about child! :) But here we don't need it. Since, child also have own gender.

So it's not correct to use _Past Continuous_ form of verb where should be _Simple Past_,

So we just in verb form give you information what gender is person we speak about.
And understand this. Forum is much more informative that way, because you instantly know that this User is woman or male. From user experience is +1. People feel treated better way, more individual by software. From years, it was just crappy done in forums. We just added alternative form or ending of form after slash. That sucks. In advertisement letters too, but in this type of you can say directly YOU and then you skip problem of gender. For example "Someone replied to your message" is correct in male form. Just because we don't know who this person is. But for example We cannot say the same about woman. Like "Anna replied to your message". We need to use different ending of verb 'replied', because "default" form pointing that Anna is male.

I hope you understand now. You have {placeholders} in Yaml's because different languages have different orders of phrase. You have pluralization for the same reason. Without it, local grammar is violated. And the exactly the same issue is with gender.

[amdad]

Feature is pull off from stable release. But I hope it will be done after? This "needs discussion" tag make me nervous a little bit ;)

[dcsjapan]

"Needs discussion" simply means the devs need to discuss how to implement it.

[amdad]

That's good info! Thx

[franzliedke]

Honestly, in this case I added the label because we need to discuss whether/how we want to implement this at all. Because there is lots of complexity involved (language files; dealing with the setting in user profile; we'd still need a neutral variant for all strings if no gender is configured).

:christmas_tree: :christmas_tree: :christmas_tree:

[amdad]

Franz, please treat gender specific translation as optional. As additional strings under general translation strings.

As I see, first of all in stable there will be no gender support. And it's not a problem since stable release have enough problems to solve. So this is answer to your question. Basic Flarum will speak.

Real example from older Flarum lang file:

In locale/core.php

return [
    'plural' => function ($count) {
        if ($count == 1) {
            return 'one';
        }
        else if ($count > 1 AND $count < 5) {
            return 'two';
        }
        else {
            return 'other';
        }
    }
];

The same we should be able to do for genders:

    post_stream:
      added_tags_text: "{username} added the {tagsAdded}."
         male: "{username} 'he_added' the {tagsAdded}."
         female: "{username} 'sheadded' the {tagsAdded}."

In core result it will be like:

      do_something: 
           one: "{username} did something"
                 male:  "{username} 'hedid' something"
                 female:  "{username} 'shedid' something"
           two: "{username} 'bothdid'_ something"
                 male:  "{username} 'twomalesdid' something"
                 female:  "{username} 'twowomansdid' something"
           other: "{username} 'manydid' something"

So, if gender extension is not exist or not enabled. Also if gender specific strings are not included in lang file there will be no problem at all.

But if languages like mine need it then, Gender plugin can be enabled. And sub strings will be used. So it doesn't affect/hurt any of you at all who doesn't need it.

Even for people who don't want to split community with gender choice, for some reason. Forum will speak in gender neutral way. Ignoring additional strings. Or if we let user decide. MALE / FAMALE / INCOGNITO then also global phrases will be used.

This is important as I said many times in this topic https://discuss.flarum.org/d/164-proposal-translation/17 . Because there are RULES in language that cannot be broken. Not all languages are simple.

[amdad]

Franz, I fight fot this matter from two years man. And was told this will be implemented this way or a not her. And you kick the doors and... SURPRISE MOTHER FURTHER!^#%!

[franzliedke]

I don't understand what this is about.

I've said I am not too happy about supporting this additional complexity in core. But as you can see, we haven't made a decision here, either.

[amdad]

I didn't ask it for 'Core' support. Only by extension. But official one. Lang file is made by authors. And if they ignore extending it for additional strings it's like it didn't exist. Only for those who need it. It is such a simple thing to do, and pros are giant.

[amdad]

From Gitter:

Dominion @dcsjapan sep 21 2015 22:42
Now: please believe me when I say that we understand the need for genderization.
I studied French in high school and majored in linguistics in college. Franz is German, a language with three genders. So even though we may not know much Polish, we understand well how important gender can be.

What we're talking about now is how to best implement gender, not whether it should be implemented. There's a big difference there.
At any rate, the issue tracker is not the best place for long discussions.
It is a place for programmers to note down what needs to be done (or discussed), and is not really designed for hashing out the details at great length.
If you feel a subject needs more discussion, the best thing to do would be to create a topic in the forums (or use an existing one if it exists) and drop a link to it in the issue tracker.
reate a topic in the forums (or use an existing one if it exists) and drop a link to it in the issue tracker.

If you feel a subject needs more discussion, the best thing to do would be to create a topic in the forums (or use an existing one if it exists) and drop a link to it in the issue tracker.

[amdad]

Something like example above from forum/extensions/langpack/locale/core.php

return [
    'genderize' => function ($gender) {
        if ($gender == male) {
            return 'male';
        }
    else if ($gender == famale ) {
            return 'female';
        }
        else {
            return 'default';
        }
    }
];

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. We do this to keep the amount of open issues to a manageable minimum.
In any case, thanks for taking an interest in this software and contributing by opening the issue in the first place!

[amdad]

So... I'm refreshing topic.

[tankerkiller125]

Do any other forums software support genderized translations? I have yet to see one that does. Generally speaking they tend to stick with "neutral" translations or default gender translations regardless of user genders.

[jtojnar]

Some languages are inherently gendered and trying to make the phrases “neutral” just make them sound weird. (Speaking from experience as long-time Czech software translator. And Czech is still one of the more flexible languages on this matter.)

If some software does not support this, it is likely for technical reasons. But we should not cop out of user experience improvements just because other software is not particularly user friendly. These days, there are solutions (e.g. Mozilla’s Fluent) allowing to implement this rather easily.

[amdad]

Über language!

[franzliedke]

These days, there are solutions (e.g. Mozilla’s Fluent) allowing to implement this rather easily.

Fluent is super-cool! :+1: I've liked that ever since I discovered it. It takes some things that we already do (like referencing translation keys in other translations) and takes it to a very good extreme, in my eyes.

May be worth switching to it at some point. But first ... stable!

[bryantmilan]

Hi, I just found this topic thanks to clarkwinkelmann. Below I will put the post I wrote in one discussion on Flarums forum to see what my problem is. I see that a solution has been found with Mozilla Fluent, at first glance it looks like the right solution and I think it should be inserted, it should not be a priority, but it would be great!

My post from Flarums forum:
"Well, I found one small issue while I was translating from english to serbian language. In the serbian language, we have a difference between the masculine and the feminine. In fact, some words do not have the same ending depending on gender. Here's an example to better understand:

For the masculine:

English: John started the discussion a few seconds ago.
Serbian: John je započeo diskusiju pre nekoliko sekundi.

For the feminine:

English: Barbara started the discussion a few seconds ago.
Serbian: Barbara je započela diskusiju pre nekoliko sekundi.

As you can see there is a difference between the words "započeo" and "započela". When I was translating from english to serbian I had to use the universal word "započeo/la" so users could use correct form of the word depending of the situation. It would be great if during registration users could choose what gender they are, whether they are male or female. The translation would be adjusted accordingly. This would make the translation much more meaningful and make it easier for users to use and read on forum. I am not an expert in literature and grammar, but I think this does not only apply to the serbian language but to all the languages of the former Yugoslavia and I think it also applies to the russian language, but I do not want to speak on their behalf. This isn’t such a big deal, but it would be great to have."

[amdad]

There is a reason why in Fluent third and last example is Polish. I told you ;) Słowianie (eng. Slavs or I would say Slavians) means exactly Wordians. We're masters of this craft :)

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. We do this to keep the amount of open issues to a manageable minimum.
In any case, thanks for taking an interest in this software and contributing by opening the issue in the first place!