Include pronoun field as default

Continuing the discussion from Announcing - Gender Pronouns Userfield on Meta

For the sake of convenience, maybe it would make sense to bake it into all Discourse communities? I don’t see any harm in having it enabled by default.

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No, there is no sense at all.

First at all it is an idelogic choise and easily done by an admin. Second: do you know how many languages out there is where is not gender related pronouns? I’m one of those :wink:

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Not if that administrator is inexperienced with Discourse. Like I’ve already said, it’s a matter of convenience.

Maybe it should be limited to English instances of Discourse? :thinking:

I’ve often wondered if we shouldn’t provide some standard custom user fields that admins can choose to add when setting up their site, and then edit again after creating them. There could be a step for this in the setup wizard or they could be provided in /admin/customize/user_fields.

If the field names and contents are standardized, then the display of them could also be designed for in themes. For example:

  • Preferred pronouns
  • Company/Organization affiliation
  • Contacts (for team collaboration - phone number, social media handles, email address)
  • “Ask me about…”
  • Add me to the newsletter
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If there is an intent to set the gender field as sort of an out-of-the-box feature (using custom fields or not), I think it would be a good idea to do it in the setup wizard. I second this. :+1:

(English still not being my primary language despite my efforts :sweat_smile:, I hope my sentence isn’t too wonky)

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Yeah, great idea @tobiaseigen! You have my vote! :grin:

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What shall you do with swedish then :wink:

Sure, there can be another settings more — there isn’t too many yet :rofl: — but this is an example of case where everyone does own modification.

Because:

Then someone should do a simple component. We have a lot options behind a plugin or theme component, that I would like to see as part of core.

But sure — there is another point of view and it is more or less yours :wink: It can be in the core, but outside admin’s options. Let users decide what they want or want not tell. Like we do (kind of) with real names.

Settings for an user starts to grow bit too fast too, though.

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Except wizard should be one time experience. If we start to have settings on two different (actually four…) locations this start to b mess.

What’s wrong with a theme component?

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Nothing I guess :slight_smile:

I’m also fine with not including this option neither in the wizard or the site settings, or, why not, having it as an example (among others) in the custom fields page to let people know such a field can be set in users’ registrations. There are a lot of possibilities and they all have their pros and cons :slight_smile:

That doesn’t prevent me from liking Tobias’s suggestion, even if, like others solutions, it can raise potential drawbacks like the valid ones you mentioned:

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I wouldn’t be against a #theme-component, but nobody has stepped up to the plate yet.

That can tell another story too: quite few think the whole pronoun is important thing and those who see differently already have it in use.

I think it shouldn’t be behind any settings just because out there can be an admin who can’t use custom user field.

But I know

  • using it can’t be default for many reason
  • there can’t be much more settings, and defenetly such trivial ones

Well, to reiterate what the OP said…

Encouraging the disclosure and use of gender pronouns helps create inclusive and welcoming work environments, and one of the simplest ways to promote the appropriate and correct use of pronouns is by being open about your own in everyday communications.

We’ve added an optional Gender Pronouns Userfield on Meta you can now add to your profile so you can share what pronouns you would like to be referred to as while interacting within the community.

Using a person’s chosen name and desired pronouns is a form of mutual respect and basic courtesy, and a way to demonstrate empathy and kindness towards other people. Everyone deserves to have their self-ascribed name and pronouns respected.

As a diverse team, we hope that this addition will help continue promoting an inclusive environment and provide a positive impression on LGBTQ+ individuals, especially for those who may feel particularly vulnerable in a digital environment.

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What is optional for an user here in Meta is totally different thing than have an anothert setting in every Discourses (when out there is already Custom User Field for that).

Seems I need to clarify that there is no particular intent at the moment to implement anything like this. I was just spitballing. If it were to be added in the future, it would be entirely optional. So there’s no need to go back and forth here right now on whether and how and why it will be implemented.

We are working on improving the experience new admins have when setting up a new community using Discourse. The setup wizard is obviously an important part of this because it can help new admins who have never used Discourse before to customize the site right away with a minimum of effort. It is actually possible to run it again by going to /wizard and we encourage it in the newest UI. Admins can go through three steps to complete basic setup and then jump into the forum if they don’t feel like completing the next three steps right away to customize the theme and add a logo etc. But then we provide some links back to the wizard until the wizard has been completed, and we link to it at the top of discourse/ADMIN-QUICK-START-GUIDE.md at main · discourse/discourse · GitHub.

The admin dashboard is also important because there are going to be things to do later on, once community members have been invited and are actively. Currently there is not much guidance provided on how to set things up and to do things like add user fields. I think it might be a good idea to provide some sample fields that sites might like to add, including gender pronouns.

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