this is what we call timing: LJ GenderFail

[rm]

LJ is about to require that all users specify whether they are male or female. This will apply both to new account creation and existing accounts. The current "unspecified" option will be removed.

Requiring people to specify their gender is surely just an attempt to acquire demographic data either for ad sales or an attempt to sell LJ once again. However, this is probably a bad strategy -- leave the "unspecified" option and only 1% or 2% of your userbase will choose it. Tell us you're taking it away, and watch 20% of us choose it.

Why does this matter? Really?

Well, it says people like me don't exist (although I just discovered I didn't have unspecified selected until like ten minutes ago, so I fail there, just in terms of full disclosure and all that). It tells people that they know less about their gender than a company. And that the needs of advertising are more important than who they really are. It implies that people have a right to know what's in your pants (whether you're male, female or somewhere else on a spectrum) regardless of whether they'll ever meet you.

But particularly, it's unwelcoming to many LGBTQIA people, and LJ already has a history of being, at best, clumsy towards this community (a community of which I identify with more letters than not).

Additionally, it may be (working on links) once the code push goes through, after you choose your gender when creating an account, you can't change it later (can anyone confirm that gender is to be removed from the editable profile fields? commenters are discussing, may just be rumour, leaving in here for now). That's a lovely bit of bullshit there for people who transition to deal with; I wonder what "proof" LJ will require to change it -- if they'll change it.

And what happens to people who are basically forced to lie because of only two options? Lying on account creation is a TOS'able offense. Do you really think anyone should have to ask if their man or woman enough to be on LJ? Isn't this ludicrous? And offensive? And sort of a disaster?

Practically, this is one of those things that probably has no relevance for most of you. But for some of us it's a tiny little splinter that yet somehow manages to hobble. And for some of us, it's just simply everything.

So many of us learn to construct and define our gender on LJ. It's pretty tacky when they effectively ask us to lie about ourselves and claim it never happened.

Details and what you can do here: http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/366609.html

Comments

[elf]

It also requires that many people lie in the info they give LJ... which is a TOSable offense.

[rm.livejournal.com]

added. thnx

[virginia-fell.livejournal.com]

Edited my profile, sent feedback, and emailed the GM of US operations.

Thank you very much for giving me a heads up.

[virginia-fell.livejournal.com]

Got a response from Anjelika Petrochenko.

hi Virginia,

thank you for your feedback.
However, the code update that you refer to is not live and did not have any chance to go live. That was a beta release, we always push code to beta to see if everything works correctly. In many cases it does not and we either fix bugs or pull the code from the final release plan.
We were going to add a gender field to the sign up user flow, which is fine, but by mistake it became a mandatory "female/male" field for everyone. This is why this is not going live. And this is what beta releases are for, to see problems and solve them before any user faces a problem.

I would appreciate if you share this information with your friends that are also concerned. I am sorry that you were misinformed.

Best regards,

Anjelika Petrochenko

[marcmagus]

Additionally, once the code push goes through, after you choose your gender when creating an account, you can't change it later.

Source? They may well do exactly that, but it's not in the changelog entry synecdochic linked to, and I haven't yet seen anybody claiming that with a link to an appropriate changelog entry. The linked changelog entry seems to only affect new account creation [although I don't know the LJ codebase well enough to be absolutely certain].

This is completely full of Fail. WTF?

[rm.livejournal.com]

I don't even know at this point (Twitter, moving very fast, updates as I get them, but I'm seeing descriptions that say it's a field that will no longer be a part of "profile" for editing when you update your profile).

[toujours-nigel.livejournal.com]

Have signal-boosted. Will change info.

[kaffy_r]

I've changed the gender ID on my profile. I'll send an email to LJ and will post about it myself. What a hot pile of failtastic corporate-flavored fecal matter.

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

I linked to this on Twitter. I hope that's okay.

This bugs me because I don't see any reason for them to require you to give any *more* information than you might already be comfortable giving. I don't even see the need for them to have your birthdate or your location or anything like that. As for lying on account creation being TOS'able, fine, but just to play devil's advocate: why shouldn't you be allowed to lie about yourself on the internet?

The whole thing seems honestly totalitarian to me. People need to be a lot more concerned about the effect that corporations and businesses have on personal liberty. Oppression isn't just a game for governments anymore.

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

Birthdate is to verify that LJ is in compliance with COPPA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act). Gender is for ad targeting.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

Thank you, very much.

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

Signal boosted and emailed LJ. My gender was already unspecified (I figure it's nobody's business).

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Profile was already set to unspecified, but I sent a polite but firm comment to feedback indicating my displeasure.

I just checked my profile

[newwaytowrite.livejournal.com]

It seems I choose unspecified because I thought it was not one of those necessary pieces of information in this format.

Will we all be getting a notice that we "must" select?

[bare-bear.livejournal.com]

That's really dumb. To hell with that! It's none of LJ's business. I resent being told I have to give personal information like that.

[bare-bear.livejournal.com]

That said, I changed my status and sent some feedback as well. Just to improve on my knee-jerk reaction above.

[marta.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to say that what you described isn't how it was intended to work, and the functions are still in beta. There are still discussions and changes being made (even before tonight).

We know it's a problem. I'd ask, though, that any communication or letters be kept to Feedback, though - it's the place where the most eyes can see each request and is available for all staff to review.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Excuse me? Are you asking me not to post about something that concerns the user base? Am I not allowed to post about LJ actions?

When there's clarification when LJ, I'll post a clarification. If you'd like to clarify to commenters here, feel free.

But last I checked, I was allowed to make this post. Do let me know if I am mistaken.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

I can't believe the nitwits at LJ, sometimes.

Followed the link, done as suggested. Fingers are crossed.

[koppermoon.livejournal.com]

Always have been (unspecified), sent an email to the effect that if I had a gender, it would be my business, not part of LJ's.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

And leaving aside queer issues entirely for only a second, it isn't as if there aren't a ton of reasons why a woman might want to hide her gender, ranging from pay rate to personal safety. Which ups the number of people affected from a single digit percentage to more than half.

Glad I've moved my money to Dreamwidth.

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

This; mine's always been set to "unspecified" simply because I've been on the internet in its various evolutions since the Bad Old Days when to reveal that one identified as female was a recipe for getting heckled or hit on or occasionally both at the same time. I still prefer not to say when I'm allowed not to simply because I don't need the aggro...

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this oversight/insensitivity has to do with the Russian ownership of the site? Folks in the various parts of the former Soviet Union that I've spent time in are deeply invested in the authenticity of a strong gender binary.

Maybe it is just a blip in the code, but I wonder if the code originated with Russian programmers, perhaps they wouldn't see the mandatory choice between M/F as a problem.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Judging by the slightly indifferent English of the dev who posted the relevant code to changelog, you may have a point.

[weirdodragoncat.livejournal.com]

I just found out about this today. I was annoyed enough about it that I changed my 'gender' on my profile from 'female' to 'unspecified' in protest. I doubt it will make any difference to the people that run LJ but it momentarily made me feel better. I will send LJ a nastygram in the morning.

What was that concept about malice Vs lack of competence.

[capybyra.livejournal.com]

I also saw it written as "Any sufficient lack of competence does the same damage as malice" Same with this. Either way- it needs to go away.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

I've changed mine from Female to Unspecified based on the heads up. Thanks!

Also sent feedback with a couple links.

[abnormal-apathy.livejournal.com]

Ditto!

[lonebear.livejournal.com]

the User rep, who I actually know, is on our side here.

see http://kylecassidy.livejournal.com/570254.html

[marcmagus]

I'm getting a 403/Forbidden on that? Oh, well.

[cozzene.livejournal.com]

here was the response waiting for me this morning...

Below is an answer to your support question regarding "Profile info complaint"
(http://www.livejournal.com/support/see_request.bml?id=1028871).

======================================================================

Thank you for taking the time to contact us with your concerns. We understand that gender is not binary, and intend to respect that understanding for our users.

At this time, the code you reference is not live on the site, and will not become so in the future. We know that you, and many other users, have serious concerns about any requirement to specify gender, so we'd like to take a moment to explain events and our position further.

The intention of this code was to change the sign-up process to include a field for the selection of gender; that the code would completely disable the "Unspecified" option at the same time was deemed unacceptable. While the code in question had gone to our beta (testing) server, it had not gone to our production server, and will not do so due to this problem. Furthermore, we'd like to clarify that code posted to the changelog community is not always final, as such code must then go through the beta testing process and can often be changed before actual implementation.

Additionally, some erroneous information has been spread regarding the potential public display of the gender field. We would like to clarify that gender is not currently publicly displayed on the profile, nor anywhere else on the site, and there are no plans to change this behavior.

Regards,
LiveJournal Community Care Team

[elffin.livejournal.com]

ditto.

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up--I changed mine to unspecified as well.

[l33tminion]

The dumb code change in question was subsequently reverted.

[timelady.livejournal.com]

The one I'm personally irked on right now is Facebook making users state whether they're single or in a relationship. Okay, I know most of the sites are like that like MySpace. I just ran into the problem of publically stating that I'm single seems to lead to users hitting on me. As in they just assume that I'm looking since I'm single. um... I need a blank that says something like "single, but not looking" or "it's complicated". I guess I'm mainly just feeling prejudiced that the world expects people to either be in relationships or want to be in relationships and there's no room for those of us who just either want friends or to be left alone while on the internet.