Can We Have A Pronoun Field?

[bloom]

This actually just happened on the Green Forum but I've been meaning to make a thread and ask about this for a little while, so that just reminded me.

Would it be possible to add a pronoun preference field to peoples' profiles? One that's visible under a person's username/avatar on the main forum in the same space as peoples' gender and location. I'd strongly recommend a fill-on-the-blank one over a dropdown list on account of I think there are too many possible pronoun sets to accommodate for with a dropdown list.

Here's why I think this'd be a good idea:

- Makes a person's pronoun preference immediately accessible in as low-effort a way as possible - I know adding a new field to profiles is fairly simple from a technological standpoint.

- Personally, I've had my pronoun preference listed on my profile for a while, and that's certainly an option. But there are plenty of unvalidated members who cannot view profiles at all, not to mention people who just don't bother looking at them once they're validated for one reason or another.

- Regarding actually asking peoples' pronouns instead of having a field specifically dedicated to them, I know several people who are uncomfortable with that kind of directness (which is nobody's fault, it's just A Thing). This gives them a chance to state their preference somewhere quietly where attention won't be drawn to them.

- Wouldn't be a mandatory field; you could just leave it blank if you didn't want to fill it out at all.

Possible cons?:

- I guess people could put stupid things in the box instead of being serious about it? But that says more about them then it does about the concept and they can be judged thusly for it.

Anyway, I think that just about covers it. Thoughts/comments welcome.

[ICan'tThinkOfAnything]

I think this is a great idea. I'm a trans person, and I know there are other trans people on this forum as well who would love to have an area on their profile dedicated to their pronouns.

[squealofapproval]

I third this! I think pronouns are an important part of one's identity, and we need to know people's in order to show respect for their gender identity even when we don't know them that well and are saying "yes, I agree with *insert pronoun here*".

[Joal 555]

Thank you for the suggestion, Junia!

By one of life's strange little coincidences, the staff were already considering this very idea, so we hope to be able to report back in due course (although, obviously we can't make any guarantees at this stage). Please bear with us though, as these things sometimes take a little longer to be debated than we might otherwise hope for, due to other commitments.

[Guest]

This is an excellent idea! It would be nice to have a discreet way to convey pronoun preference. I currently have my preference listed in my profile in my "About Me" section. However, I think that having such a thing listed underneath the user avatar would make things easier for everyone. I have a feeling that the feature would be utilized by many members of the forum seeing as there are many gender identities.

[bloom]

Whale whale whale, look what we've got now. Thanks, staff! Much appreciated.

[Anonymouse]

That was fast as f*ck. Thanks, staff!

[High on Lullabies]

Dear all,

As most of you are already aware, following discussions among the Staff we have added a field to the profile which allows people to add the preferred pronouns they would like to be referred to by in posts, PM's, etc.

The field is a free text field (meaning anything can be typed in it) and it has a character limit of 40.

In addition to being in a member's profile, the field will appear in the sidebar next to a member's posts below the 'gender' field. If nothing is inputted in the field it will not be visible.

Thanks for your attention!

SFF Staff