LJ gender shenanigans

[rm]

Check your profile. If you have previously selected "unspecified" for gender on LJ, that has now been changed to "it's personal" (something which I find so annoying, it tempts me to switch my gender on the profile back to female).

For people who would actually choose that option (there are lots of good reasons to not want to reveal your gender online), it's a good option. For people that would prefer "other" and could at least deal with "unspecified" (because adequate choices were not presented) it's an act of non-consensual re-closeting with snarky commentary.

Despite some people saying that LJ has already fixed this so it's changed back to now "other/unspecified" that does not actually seem to be the case. (ETA: it seems to be a "proposed change" but we're not sure of implementation yet).

There is some threading on all of this in news (page 6 of comments) wherein people make many good arguments about why this is a problem and the LJ staff tells us they care as much as we do. In the abstract, surely possible. In reality? Clearly this isn't something that affects them personally or this whole ridiculous thing wouldn't be going on.

elionwyr has a decent round-up: http://elionwyr.livejournal.com/2145058.html

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

OMGWTF is this, I don't even...

Not that the other choices were ideal, but why...oh, what's the point of even asking why. It's all just abject cruelty and stupidity on their part.

*throws hands up*

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

I have only heard about this through the perspective of an LJ volunteer azurelunatic, but it seems to have been a translation issue.

Changelog: http://www.livejournal.com/translate/diff.bml?lang=en_LJ&it=1:6084&change=3

[rm.livejournal.com]

That's what they said the last time. I don't speak Russian and I don't know the conversation that led to all of this, but I have a hard time grasping how "unspecified" translates into "it's personal." Also, until the change is pushed through and LJ employees in news stop telling people affected by this what they think those people should and should not be offended by, there's a problem.

I'm hopeful about the change that hasn't gone through yet, but I'll also believe it when I see it. I've pretty much consistently been in every single constituency that LJ has ever done poorly by.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

I am unsurprised about newsfail, but also tending to give the translation issue the benefit of the doubt.

*nods*

[delchi.livejournal.com]

неспецифицированная " It is unspecified "

личная " Personal "

( Sorry for the edits, using an English keyboard )

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

And also? As a company with an international presence, wouldn't it fall under good business practice to make sure your translation says what you intend?

[azurelunatic]

Translation system, not translation issue. I do not think that anyone in the Moscow office had anything to do with this. It has bluemeringue's fingerprints all over it.

[i-am-schizo.livejournal.com]

I must have selected the language to be German when I first signed up, I don't even know anymore, but the drop-down menu for gender says "keine Angabe" ("not stated"), which I guess they use as the German equivalent to "unspecified". I can't say whether it's ever said anything else or whether they always only fucked with the English settings and never bothered to translate it.

I wish they'd provide "other" as an option already, but keep the "unspecified" option for people like me who just don't like to be forced to state their goddamned gender all the frigging time. Though admittedly, I don't like "it's personal" either because it doesn't really cover it, but I see how other people might prefer this one.

In conclusion to my blather, LJ sucks!

[weirdquark]

Yeah, I'd like to see more options.

I was on an online forum that let you fill in a box with information about your sexual orientation (Gender now has male, female, and neither, though when I signed up they had an option to not pick anything.) so I put in "irrelevant" which did double meaning for me as "that information is not needed" and also being a more accurate summation of my sexual orientation than pretty much any other of the options one usually gets, except for sometimes queer.

[dr-is-in.livejournal.com]

You would think they would get it by now, with so many users giving them input when LJ seemed to not understand the issues at hand.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Sigh. Just, sigh.

[manycolored.livejournal.com]

There need to be at least 4 options:
man
woman
other [option to add description]
not specified

[missdeanna.livejournal.com]

And really, how hard would it be for them to implement that? My understanding is that they haven't made an "other" option because there isn't a single term that will work for everyone, but something like what you describe sounds like it would please most people, at least.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Man.
Dude.
Fellow?

Fuck.

What is this shit?

[therealycats.livejournal.com]

Chap?

[manycolored.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing so people can look for relationship partners?

[ursamajor]

Well, LJ Singles has been around for a long while (2002, IIRC?) and that never took off. >_>

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's for advertising demographics.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's for advertising demographics.

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

For people who would actually choose that option (there are lots of good reasons to not want to reveal your gender online), it's a good option.

Still not a great option, imo. I changed to "unspecified" during the last round of LJ gender!fail mostly as an act of solidarity, but back when I did actively avoid revealing my gender online, I'd still have found "it's personal" a bit squicky. Definitely offensive as the *only* non-binary option.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

Where does this show up on the profile? I can't seem to see it.

[azurelunatic]

It's in the edit profile settings, rather than displayed publicly.

[natf.livejournal.com]

BTW, I replied to a potential troll on the news post who replied to your comment there. my reply

[firinel.livejournal.com]

the thing that gets me about the "it's a joke" excuse by that person is wt*F* part of rm's comment sounded as if the right sort of tone in reply to it was joking?

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

I don't get why they need gender at all. Or why not have it optional so that you have to choose to be identified rather than choosing not to be identified? And 'It's personal' it just weird IMHO.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

I don't get why they need gender at all.

Demographic data for advertisers.

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

I really don't understand why they don't just have a write-in option.

[nisaa.livejournal.com]

Right. This is the kind of BS that made me switch to dreamwidth. Now I remember why I won't be giving LJ my money when my account expires in a few days.

[natf.livejournal.com]

My take.

[azurelunatic]

My explanation here: http://inkstone.dreamwidth.org/66626.html?thread=697922#cmt697922

I can't know for certain who thought of this, nor who was involved with the discussion. There are a very small number of people who have access to do this. From the comments in news, it sounds as if bluemeringue (the person who's been writing the news posts since the end of October) thought this was a good idea, ran it past her transgendered friends, they didn't object, and put it into place.

It was done via the translation system, which is different than "a translation issue"; the quirks of the translation system means that a) only a few people have access to make this change, b) there is no accountability for who *did* make this change, c) I have no idea when it was actually made, nor when it was changed again, and d) it may yet be a while before the so-far-final change propagates around.

exor674 (one of the Dreamwidth developers, and a long-time LJ volunteer before that, and intimately familiar with the code) gets into the technical issues involved with the caching a bit here: http://azurelunatic.dreamwidth.org/6362655.html?thread=11527711#cmt11527711

The "en_LJ" translation is the master translation for the site; all other translations are derived from that one. This is the record of the change that has been made; if someone changes it in the future, it will show up as a [Change 4] link on that page.
http://www.livejournal.com/translate/diff.bml?lang=en_LJ&it=1:6084&change=3

As of right now, "Unspecified/Other" is the canonical master change, and everything on the site is waiting to catch up.

This is separate from changelog; that is where the changes to the underlying structure of the code are logged.


The "proposed" bit, I gather, is that bluemeringue is considering what people are saying, and may deign to make changes based on user feedback later, unless someone senior to her revokes her translate en_LJ priv first, and/or schools her in the proper use of it.

Despite over three months of writing the news post what looks to be pretty much solo, and appearing to read every comment to it, bluemeringue is not yet well-assimilated into LJ culture. From all reports by staff to those volunteers who have become impatient with her, she is very sweet, she means well and she is trying hard.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the clarification on this!

Not, then, as innocent an error as I had presumed. Sigh.

[azurelunatic]

Yes and no.

Yes, it wasn't done anything other than deliberately, and that's fairly sad.

No, there's actually no indication about how a consensus of LJ staffers as a whole feel about this, other than the fact that someone changed it back; no official person other than an employee who may well be acting as a rogue has made a statement; there's no indication that she was ordered to do this, got someone's blessing for this, or even asked permission in the first place.

I am hoping to see, sometime tomorrow or within the next week, a statement to the effect of "Yes, the people responsible were Spoken To," if not "...were sacked".

Think of the negative stereotype of the California Liberal -- sees a Gnarly Situation, rushes in to Make It All Better, and succeeds in Making It Worse, and Pissing Off People This Affects. It is entirely consistent with what I've seen of her so far, and I am appalled that they gave her access to change en_LJ oh g-d WHY.

(I asked JD to FOR THE LOVE OF BLINKIE CHANGE IT BACK OH GOD CHANGE IT BACK last night; Ryan was Sensible and said that no, a staff member should probably do it; I pointed out that at this point it would be timely damage control; JD and Ryan stood firm on the NOT TOUCHING THIS FUCKER WITH A 10 FOOT POLE with a side dish of THEIR TRAINED MYSPACE PERSON GOT THEM INTO THIS, SOMEONE WHO HIRED HER CAN GET THEM OUT front, and then we discovered that someone had in fact already changed it, and I stood down and started commencing with the mopping-up.)

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

Gah. What would be so hard about picking something like "decline to state", if potentially the hangup is coders getting tangled up in the semantics of "unspecified"? (IE, making it obvious that it means "I heard you and I choose not to answer", vs possibly "I didn't see the question in the first place" or whatever the hell imagined offense this coder was taking it upon herself to address when she made it worse instead...)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*head desk*

Apart from the fact they're just simply wrong to assume there is male/female or "it's personal", I cannot fathom why they keep making changes like this which damage their reputation.