Gender-neutral pronouns
Hi list, I opened bug #18432 https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=18432 because I saw several places in the Koha codebase where the pronoun "he" was being used to refer to a generic third person who could be of any gender. Jonathan Druart noted that this should be a coding guideline, as otherwise new instances of gendered pronouns might continue to be added. Perhaps it belongs on the "Terminology" page of the wiki? So here's my proposal. I'm trying to be concise. ---- *Use gender neutral pronouns* When referring to a person who could be of any gender, you should use the words they/them/their. This goes for code comments, text in templates, and strings in tests. For example, here's a string from a patrons test updated to be gender neutral. Before*:* is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) ); After: is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) ); Gender neutral terms are preferable for a few reasons. They're more welcoming, showing that Koha expects users and contributors to be of any gender. They're also more accurate. Inappropriately using a particular gender can cause confusion, leading someone to believe that code operates differently based on the value of borrowers.sex, for instance. ---- I hope that's clear. I'm happy to reword it, and to attend the next Koha developers meeting to explain further if need be. Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu | vault.cca.edu 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
Hi Eric, Eric Phetteplace writes:
Hi list,
I opened bug #18432 https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=18432 because I saw several places in the Koha codebase where the pronoun "he" was being used to refer to a generic third person who could be of any gender. Jonathan Druart noted that this should be a coding guideline, as otherwise new instances of gendered pronouns might continue to be added. Perhaps it belongs on the "Terminology" page of the wiki?
So here's my proposal. I'm trying to be concise.
----
Use gender neutral pronouns
When referring to a person who could be of any gender, you should use the words they/them/their. This goes for code comments, text in templates, and strings in tests. For example, here's a string from a patrons test updated to be gender neutral.
Before:
is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
After:
is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
Gender neutral terms are preferable for a few reasons. They're more welcoming, showing that Koha expects users and contributors to be of any gender. They're also more accurate. Inappropriately using a particular gender can cause confusion, leading someone to believe that code operates differently based on the value of borrowers.sex, for instance.
----
I like the proposal, thanks for putting it together! Best wishes, Alex
+1 :D From: Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> To: Eric Phetteplace <ephetteplace@cca.edu> Cc: koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2017 3:23 AM Subject: Re: [Koha-devel] Gender-neutral pronouns Hi Eric, Eric Phetteplace writes:
Hi list,
I opened bug #18432 https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=18432 because I saw several places in the Koha codebase where the pronoun "he" was being used to refer to a generic third person who could be of any gender. Jonathan Druart noted that this should be a coding guideline, as otherwise new instances of gendered pronouns might continue to be added. Perhaps it belongs on the "Terminology" page of the wiki?
So here's my proposal. I'm trying to be concise.
----
Use gender neutral pronouns
When referring to a person who could be of any gender, you should use the words they/them/their. This goes for code comments, text in templates, and strings in tests. For example, here's a string from a patrons test updated to be gender neutral.
Before:
is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
After:
is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
Gender neutral terms are preferable for a few reasons. They're more welcoming, showing that Koha expects users and contributors to be of any gender. They're also more accurate. Inappropriately using a particular gender can cause confusion, leading someone to believe that code operates differently based on the value of borrowers.sex, for instance.
----
I like the proposal, thanks for putting it together! Best wishes, Alex _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
+1 El mié., 19 de abr. de 2017 4:23 AM, Alex Sassmannshausen < alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com> escribió:
Hi Eric,
Eric Phetteplace writes:
Hi list,
I opened bug #18432 https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=18432 because I saw several places in the Koha codebase where the pronoun "he" was being used to refer to a generic third person who could be of any gender. Jonathan Druart noted that this should be a coding guideline, as otherwise new instances of gendered pronouns might continue to be added. Perhaps it belongs on the "Terminology" page of the wiki?
So here's my proposal. I'm trying to be concise.
----
Use gender neutral pronouns
When referring to a person who could be of any gender, you should use the words they/them/their. This goes for code comments, text in templates, and strings in tests. For example, here's a string from a patrons test updated to be gender neutral.
Before:
is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
After:
is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
Gender neutral terms are preferable for a few reasons. They're more welcoming, showing that Koha expects users and contributors to be of any gender. They're also more accurate. Inappropriately using a particular gender can cause confusion, leading someone to believe that code operates differently based on the value of borrowers.sex, for instance.
----
I like the proposal, thanks for putting it together!
Best wishes,
Alex
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-- Tomás Cohen Arazi Theke Solutions (https://theke.io <http://theke.io/>) ✆ +54 9351 3513384 GPG: B2F3C15F
Greetings, +1 to the idea of gender neutral pronouns. However, the example confused half-awake me. Sometimes the antecedent is not always clear when using a pronoun, and the pronoun should be avoided. --- BEGIN SNIP --- Before: is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) ); After: is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) ); --- END SNIP --- Who is to pay? The kid? The guarantor? We also need to avoid antecedent confusion. “Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay” might be better worded “A child growing and becoming a juvenile has a fee of “. Because frankly, a library doesn’t care who pays a fee. They only care that a fee charged for a particular reason is paid. This would also clarify that it is the change of class, not a particular gender that affects the fees, because “[i]nappropriately using a particular gender can cause confusion, leading someone to believe that code operates differently based on the value of borrowers.sex, for instance.” Just some random morning thoughts. GPML, Mark Tompsett
On 2017-04-18 08:25 PM, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug [snip] Before*:* "Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay " After: "Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay "
Political correctness has never been my strong point (although I try to understand it), but I'm proficient in grammatical rigour. [1] "Kid" is a singular noun, "a" is a singular article -- "they" is a plural pronoun. Perhaps replace "they" with "[s]he"? or "Kids growing and becoming juveniles, they should pay"? From a code maintenance p.o.v., it's easier to find and replace 'he' with '[s]he' if really this becomes a priority for Koha. Best -- Paul [1] I am aware of the so-called "singular third person epicene 'they'", but academically object to it -- it often suggests androgyny rather than gender neutrality.
Hi Paul, English has a singular "they". It doesn't suggest androgyny, either, from the definitions I've seen. For instance, Oxford English Dictionary: 2. In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender: he or she. The first usage example OED provides is from 1375. I don't think replacing "he" with "she" addresses the problem, it's still assuming a default gender. It's not too much tricker to search code for he/him & replace with they/them but that's also just an implementation issue, not a policy one. It sounds like people are otherwise supportive but I'm not sure what the next step should be. Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu | vault.cca.edu 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 8:42 AM, Paul A <paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com> wrote:
On 2017-04-18 08:25 PM, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug
[snip]
Before*:*
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay "
After:
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay "
Political correctness has never been my strong point (although I try to understand it), but I'm proficient in grammatical rigour. [1]
"Kid" is a singular noun, "a" is a singular article -- "they" is a plural pronoun. Perhaps replace "they" with "[s]he"? or "Kids growing and becoming juveniles, they should pay"?
From a code maintenance p.o.v., it's easier to find and replace 'he' with '[s]he' if really this becomes a priority for Koha.
Best -- Paul
[1] I am aware of the so-called "singular third person epicene 'they'", but academically object to it -- it often suggests androgyny rather than gender neutrality.
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
Dear Colleagues, Why don't we just get rid of the pronouns all together with, "Kid growing and becoming a juvenile, that kid must pay"? FWIW, Christopher Davis, MLS Systems & E-Services Librarian Uintah County Library cgdavis@uintah.utah.gov (435) 789-0091 ext.261 uintahlibrary.org basinlibraries.org facebook.com/uintahcountylibrary instagram.com/uintahcountylibrary On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 10:56 AM, Eric Phetteplace <ephetteplace@cca.edu> wrote:
Hi Paul,
English has a singular "they". It doesn't suggest androgyny, either, from the definitions I've seen. For instance, Oxford English Dictionary:
2. In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender: he or she.
The first usage example OED provides is from 1375. I don't think replacing "he" with "she" addresses the problem, it's still assuming a default gender. It's not too much tricker to search code for he/him & replace with they/them but that's also just an implementation issue, not a policy one.
It sounds like people are otherwise supportive but I'm not sure what the next step should be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu | vault.cca.edu 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 8:42 AM, Paul A <paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com> wrote:
On 2017-04-18 08:25 PM, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug
[snip]
Before*:*
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay "
After:
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay "
Political correctness has never been my strong point (although I try to understand it), but I'm proficient in grammatical rigour. [1]
"Kid" is a singular noun, "a" is a singular article -- "they" is a plural pronoun. Perhaps replace "they" with "[s]he"? or "Kids growing and becoming juveniles, they should pay"?
From a code maintenance p.o.v., it's easier to find and replace 'he' with '[s]he' if really this becomes a priority for Koha.
Best -- Paul
[1] I am aware of the so-called "singular third person epicene 'they'", but academically object to it -- it often suggests androgyny rather than gender neutrality.
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
The next step would be to provide a check to our QA tests to make sure we will not introduce future occurrences. I am pretty sure they will not be caught manually by QAers. On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 13:56 Eric Phetteplace <ephetteplace@cca.edu> wrote:
Hi Paul,
English has a singular "they". It doesn't suggest androgyny, either, from the definitions I've seen. For instance, Oxford English Dictionary:
2. In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender: he or she.
The first usage example OED provides is from 1375. I don't think replacing "he" with "she" addresses the problem, it's still assuming a default gender. It's not too much tricker to search code for he/him & replace with they/them but that's also just an implementation issue, not a policy one.
It sounds like people are otherwise supportive but I'm not sure what the next step should be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu | vault.cca.edu 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 8:42 AM, Paul A <paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com> wrote:
On 2017-04-18 08:25 PM, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug
[snip]
Before*:*
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay "
After:
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay "
Political correctness has never been my strong point (although I try to understand it), but I'm proficient in grammatical rigour. [1]
"Kid" is a singular noun, "a" is a singular article -- "they" is a plural pronoun. Perhaps replace "they" with "[s]he"? or "Kids growing and becoming juveniles, they should pay"?
From a code maintenance p.o.v., it's easier to find and replace 'he' with '[s]he' if really this becomes a priority for Koha.
Best -- Paul
[1] I am aware of the so-called "singular third person epicene 'they'", but academically object to it -- it often suggests androgyny rather than gender neutrality.
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
How many of "these" are there to change? Not that the work itself will be massive, but putting a 'they' in the middle of a sentence does not make it easy to translate intuitively, I would think. If it's a consideration (it is for non-English users, at least). Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inLibro.com> inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com <http://www.inLibro.com> On 04/19/2017 01:16 PM, Jonathan Druart wrote:
The next step would be to provide a check to our QA tests to make sure we will not introduce future occurrences. I am pretty sure they will not be caught manually by QAers.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 13:56 Eric Phetteplace <ephetteplace@cca.edu <mailto:ephetteplace@cca.edu>> wrote:
Hi Paul,
English has a singular "they". It doesn't suggest androgyny, either, from the definitions I've seen. For instance, Oxford English Dictionary:
2. In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender: he or she.
The first usage example OED provides is from 1375. I don't think replacing "he" with "she" addresses the problem, it's still assuming a default gender. It's not too much tricker to search code for he/him & replace with they/them but that's also just an implementation issue, not a policy one.
It sounds like people are otherwise supportive but I'm not sure what the next step should be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu <http://libraries.cca.edu> | vault.cca.edu <http://vault.cca.edu> 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 8:42 AM, Paul A <paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com <mailto:paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com>> wrote:
On 2017-04-18 08:25 PM, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug
[snip]
Before*:*
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay "
After:
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay "
Political correctness has never been my strong point (although I try to understand it), but I'm proficient in grammatical rigour. [1]
"Kid" is a singular noun, "a" is a singular article -- "they" is a plural pronoun. Perhaps replace "they" with "[s]he"? or "Kids growing and becoming juveniles, they should pay"?
From a code maintenance p.o.v., it's easier to find and replace 'he' with '[s]he' if really this becomes a priority for Koha.
Best -- Paul
[1] I am aware of the so-called "singular third person epicene 'they'", but academically object to it -- it often suggests androgyny rather than gender neutrality.
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org <mailto:Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org> http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org <mailto:Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org> http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
The patches only affect code comments so no translation needed. On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 15:12 Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com> wrote:
How many of "these" are there to change? Not that the work itself will be massive, but putting a 'they' in the middle of a sentence does not make it easy to translate intuitively, I would think. If it's a consideration (it is for non-English users, at least).
Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique
Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com On 04/19/2017 01:16 PM, Jonathan Druart wrote:
The next step would be to provide a check to our QA tests to make sure we will not introduce future occurrences. I am pretty sure they will not be caught manually by QAers.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 13:56 Eric Phetteplace <ephetteplace@cca.edu> wrote:
Hi Paul,
English has a singular "they". It doesn't suggest androgyny, either, from the definitions I've seen. For instance, Oxford English Dictionary:
2. In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender: he or she.
The first usage example OED provides is from 1375. I don't think replacing "he" with "she" addresses the problem, it's still assuming a default gender. It's not too much tricker to search code for he/him & replace with they/them but that's also just an implementation issue, not a policy one.
It sounds like people are otherwise supportive but I'm not sure what the next step should be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu | vault.cca.edu 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 8:42 AM, Paul A <paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com> wrote:
On 2017-04-18 08:25 PM, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug
[snip]
Before*:*
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay "
After:
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay "
Political correctness has never been my strong point (although I try to understand it), but I'm proficient in grammatical rigour. [1]
"Kid" is a singular noun, "a" is a singular article -- "they" is a plural pronoun. Perhaps replace "they" with "[s]he"? or "Kids growing and becoming juveniles, they should pay"?
From a code maintenance p.o.v., it's easier to find and replace 'he' with '[s]he' if really this becomes a priority for Koha.
Best -- Paul
[1] I am aware of the so-called "singular third person epicene 'they'", but academically object to it -- it often suggests androgyny rather than gender neutrality.
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
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_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
My mistake, I hadn't read the original bugzilla. :-( Well, can I -1 this or only +1 are politically acceptable? Since this is politic, really. Could you amend the ticket to also rewrite all the comments to some acceptable level of English, to start with? Syntax, grammar, conjugation... Call me obtuse, but 'they' can be quite offputting in the middle of a sentence. I've read some short novels with that usage (used as an androgynous pronoun). To someone whose first language is not English, that can be quite disconcerting on first and second read. The ticket also refers to someone having written "it" for a person in some comment. Well, that's the type of things that occurs in a software partly written by French (I'm not pointing), Indians and Finns... You want to set a rule forcing them to use proper English, you'll fail their patches because of it, in the name of inclusivity??? That's productive... Frankly, a much better "rule" should have been to write all comments using the _female_ form. Clear and concise. But I don't believe that was the aim of the ticket... Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inLibro.com> inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com <http://www.inLibro.com> On 04/19/2017 02:18 PM, Jonathan Druart wrote:
The patches only affect code comments so no translation needed.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 15:12 Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inlibro.com>> wrote:
How many of "these" are there to change? Not that the work itself will be massive, but putting a 'they' in the middle of a sentence does not make it easy to translate intuitively, I would think. If it's a consideration (it is for non-English users, at least).
Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique
Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inLibro.com>
inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com <http://www.inLibro.com> On 04/19/2017 01:16 PM, Jonathan Druart wrote:
The next step would be to provide a check to our QA tests to make sure we will not introduce future occurrences. I am pretty sure they will not be caught manually by QAers.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 13:56 Eric Phetteplace <ephetteplace@cca.edu <mailto:ephetteplace@cca.edu>> wrote:
Hi Paul,
English has a singular "they". It doesn't suggest androgyny, either, from the definitions I've seen. For instance, Oxford English Dictionary:
2. In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender: he or she.
The first usage example OED provides is from 1375. I don't think replacing "he" with "she" addresses the problem, it's still assuming a default gender. It's not too much tricker to search code for he/him & replace with they/them but that's also just an implementation issue, not a policy one.
It sounds like people are otherwise supportive but I'm not sure what the next step should be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu <http://libraries.cca.edu> | vault.cca.edu <http://vault.cca.edu> 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 8:42 AM, Paul A <paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com <mailto:paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com>> wrote:
On 2017-04-18 08:25 PM, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug
[snip]
Before*:*
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay "
After:
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay "
Political correctness has never been my strong point (although I try to understand it), but I'm proficient in grammatical rigour. [1]
"Kid" is a singular noun, "a" is a singular article -- "they" is a plural pronoun. Perhaps replace "they" with "[s]he"? or "Kids growing and becoming juveniles, they should pay"?
From a code maintenance p.o.v., it's easier to find and replace 'he' with '[s]he' if really this becomes a priority for Koha.
Best -- Paul
[1] I am aware of the so-called "singular third person epicene 'they'", but academically object to it -- it often suggests androgyny rather than gender neutrality.
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Of course we won't fail patches, thanks for the strawman. We can easily fix them instead. In fact I volunteer to do that. You're welcome to fix grammar too, send some patches. And of course you can vote -1 you just did. I certainly noticed it. Chris On 20 April 2017 7:16:22 AM NZST, Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com> wrote:
My mistake, I hadn't read the original bugzilla. :-(
Well, can I -1 this or only +1 are politically acceptable? Since this is politic, really. Could you amend the ticket to also rewrite all the
comments to some acceptable level of English, to start with? Syntax, grammar, conjugation...
Call me obtuse, but 'they' can be quite offputting in the middle of a sentence. I've read some short novels with that usage (used as an androgynous pronoun). To someone whose first language is not English, that can be quite disconcerting on first and second read.
The ticket also refers to someone having written "it" for a person in some comment. Well, that's the type of things that occurs in a software partly written by French (I'm not pointing), Indians and Finns... You want to set a rule forcing them to use proper English, you'll fail their patches because of it, in the name of inclusivity??? That's productive...
Frankly, a much better "rule" should have been to write all comments using the _female_ form. Clear and concise. But I don't believe that was the aim of the ticket...
Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique
Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inLibro.com>
inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com <http://www.inLibro.com> On 04/19/2017 02:18 PM, Jonathan Druart wrote:
The patches only affect code comments so no translation needed.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 15:12 Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inlibro.com>> wrote:
How many of "these" are there to change? Not that the work itself will be massive, but putting a 'they' in the middle of a sentence does not make it easy to translate intuitively, I would think. If it's a consideration (it is for non-English users, at least).
Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique
Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inLibro.com>
inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com <http://www.inLibro.com> On 04/19/2017 01:16 PM, Jonathan Druart wrote:
The next step would be to provide a check to our QA tests to
make
sure we will not introduce future occurrences. I am pretty sure they will not be caught manually by QAers.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 13:56 Eric Phetteplace <ephetteplace@cca.edu <mailto:ephetteplace@cca.edu>> wrote:
Hi Paul,
English has a singular "they". It doesn't suggest androgyny, either, from the definitions I've seen. For instance, Oxford English Dictionary:
2. In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender: he or she.
The first usage example OED provides is from 1375. I don't think replacing "he" with "she" addresses the problem, it's still assuming a default gender. It's not too much tricker
to
search code for he/him & replace with they/them but that's also just an implementation issue, not a policy one.
It sounds like people are otherwise supportive but I'm not sure what the next step should be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu <http://libraries.cca.edu> | vault.cca.edu <http://vault.cca.edu> 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 8:42 AM, Paul A <paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com <mailto:paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com>> wrote:
On 2017-04-18 08:25 PM, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug
[snip]
Before*:*
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay "
After:
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay "
Political correctness has never been my strong point (although I try to understand it), but I'm proficient in grammatical rigour. [1]
"Kid" is a singular noun, "a" is a singular article -- "they" is a plural pronoun. Perhaps replace "they" with "[s]he"? or "Kids growing and becoming juveniles, they should pay"?
From a code maintenance p.o.v., it's easier to find and replace 'he' with '[s]he' if really this becomes a priority for Koha.
Best -- Paul
[1] I am aware of the so-called "singular third person epicene 'they'", but academically object to it -- it often suggests androgyny rather than gender neutrality.
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That's no strawman, that's a genuine questionning. You talk inclusivity, I'm all for it, but can we walk the talk now? 'They' is a bigger barrier to entry than 'he' for non-English readers/coders. But hey, what do I know, what is my perspective here? The stated initiative is good: the majority of users are female, the code is male-centric, can we be progressive, inclusive... But 'they' sucks. As I said, why not use "she" ? I don't send formating and commenting patches, the QA team having quite enough on its plate already. Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inLibro.com> inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com <http://www.inLibro.com> On 04/19/2017 03:20 PM, Chris Cormack wrote:
Of course we won't fail patches, thanks for the strawman. We can easily fix them instead. In fact I volunteer to do that.
You're welcome to fix grammar too, send some patches.
And of course you can vote -1 you just did. I certainly noticed it.
Chris
On 20 April 2017 7:16:22 AM NZST, Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com> wrote:
My mistake, I hadn't read the original bugzilla. :-(
Well, can I -1 this or only +1 are politically acceptable? Since this is politic, really. Could you amend the ticket to also rewrite all the comments to some acceptable level of English, to start with? Syntax, grammar, conjugation...
Call me obtuse, but 'they' can be quite offputting in the middle of a sentence. I've read some short novels with that usage (used as an androgynous pronoun). To someone whose first language is not English, that can be quite disconcerting on first and second read.
The ticket also refers to someone having written "it" for a person in some comment. Well, that's the type of things that occurs in a software partly written by French (I'm not pointing), Indians and Finns... You want to set a rule forcing them to use proper English, you'll fail their patches because of it, in the name of inclusivity??? That's productive...
Frankly, a much better "rule" should have been to write all comments using the _female_ form. Clear and concise. But I don't believe that was the aim of the ticket...
Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique
Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inLibro.com>
inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com <http://www.inLibro.com> On 04/19/2017 02:18 PM, Jonathan Druart wrote:
The patches only affect code comments so no translation needed.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 15:12 Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inlibro.com>> wrote:
How many of "these" are there to change? Not that the work itself will be massive, but putting a 'they' in the middle of a sentence does not make it easy to translate intuitively, I would think. If it's a consideration (it is for non-English users, at least).
Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique
Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inLibro.com>
inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com <http://www.inLibro.com> On 04/19/2017 01:16 PM, Jonathan Druart wrote:
The next step would be to provide a check to our QA tests to make sure we will not introduce future occurrences. I am pretty sure they will not be caught manually by QAers.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 13:56 Eric Phetteplace <ephetteplace@cca.edu <mailto:ephetteplace@cca.edu>> wrote:
Hi Paul,
English has a singular "they". It doesn't suggest androgyny, either, from the definitions I've seen. For instance, Oxford English Dictionary:
2. In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender: he or she.
The first usage example OED provides is from 1375. I don't think replacing "he" with "she" addresses the problem, it's still assuming a default gender. It's not too much tricker to search code for he/him & replace with they/them but that's also just an implementation issue, not a policy one.
It sounds like people are otherwise supportive but I'm not sure what the next step should be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu <http://libraries.cca.edu> | vault.cca.edu <http://vault.cca.edu> 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 8:42 AM, Paul A <paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com <mailto:paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com>> wrote:
On 2017-04-18 08:25 PM, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug
[snip]
Before*:*
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay "
After:
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay "
Political correctness has never been my strong point (although I try to understand it), but I'm proficient in grammatical rigour. [1]
"Kid" is a singular noun, "a" is a singular article -- "they" is a plural pronoun. Perhaps replace "they" with "[s]he"? or "Kids growing and becoming juveniles, they should pay"?
From a code maintenance p.o.v., it's easier to find and replace 'he' with '[s]he' if really this becomes a priority for Koha.
Best -- Paul
[1] I am aware of the so-called "singular third person epicene 'they'", but academically object to it -- it often suggests androgyny rather than gender neutrality.
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Hi
You talk inclusivity, I'm all for it, but can we walk the talk now? 'They' is a bigger barrier to entry than 'he' for non-English readers/coders. But hey, what do I know, what is my perspective here? The stated initiative is good: the majority of users are female, the code is male-centric, can we be progressive, inclusive... But 'they' sucks. As I said, why not use "she" ?
In this case - why not introduce a new variable so everyone can choose the word that feels best for them and her and him? Best wishes: Michael
Hi Philippe, "She" doesn't solve either of the problems I outlined in my original statement, however. It still excludes people who aren't of a particular gender and it's still inaccurate in places where it implies a particular value for borrowers.sex. I don't mean to make more work for anyone, cause trouble, or to make things more confusing. There are places where Chris' suggestion makes sense; we can avoid pronouns altogether, if possible. But I'm not sure that works in every comment. I just see so little harm in correcting the existing instances of gendered language and establishing a guideline for future writing. Most of this work has already been done. When you look at the current terminology guidelines <https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Terminology>, some choices have already been based upon locality. Thus the use of "patrons" over "borrowers" even though the database table was named borrowers, for instance. There will always be tradeoffs. I think "they" is the best option given the available choices, for reasons already articulated.
The ticket also refers to someone having written "it" for a person in some comment.
If you're referring to my bug, you've misunderstood my comment; an object, not a person, was being referred to as "he" and I changed it to "it." Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu | vault.cca.edu 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 12:48 PM, Philippe Blouin < philippe.blouin@inlibro.com> wrote:
That's no strawman, that's a genuine questionning.
You talk inclusivity, I'm all for it, but can we walk the talk now? 'They' is a bigger barrier to entry than 'he' for non-English readers/coders. But hey, what do I know, what is my perspective here? The stated initiative is good: the majority of users are female, the code is male-centric, can we be progressive, inclusive... But 'they' sucks. As I said, why not use "she" ?
I don't send formating and commenting patches, the QA team having quite enough on its plate already. Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique
Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com On 04/19/2017 03:20 PM, Chris Cormack wrote:
Of course we won't fail patches, thanks for the strawman. We can easily fix them instead. In fact I volunteer to do that.
You're welcome to fix grammar too, send some patches.
And of course you can vote -1 you just did. I certainly noticed it.
Chris
On 20 April 2017 7:16:22 AM NZST, Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com> <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com> wrote:
My mistake, I hadn't read the original bugzilla. :-(
Well, can I -1 this or only +1 are politically acceptable? Since this is politic, really. Could you amend the ticket to also rewrite all the comments to some acceptable level of English, to start with? Syntax, grammar, conjugation...
Call me obtuse, but 'they' can be quite offputting in the middle of a sentence. I've read some short novels with that usage (used as an androgynous pronoun). To someone whose first language is not English, that can be quite disconcerting on first and second read.
The ticket also refers to someone having written "it" for a person in some comment. Well, that's the type of things that occurs in a software partly written by French (I'm not pointing), Indians and Finns... You want to set a rule forcing them to use proper English, you'll fail their patches because of it, in the name of inclusivity??? That's productive...
Frankly, a much better "rule" should have been to write all comments using the *female* form. Clear and concise. But I don't believe that was the aim of the ticket... Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique
Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com On 04/19/2017 02:18 PM, Jonathan Druart wrote:
The patches only affect code comments so no translation needed.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 15:12 Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com> wrote:
How many of "these" are there to change? Not that the work itself will be massive, but putting a 'they' in the middle of a sentence does not make it easy to translate intuitively, I would think. If it's a consideration (it is for non-English users, at least).
Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique
Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com On 04/19/2017 01:16 PM, Jonathan Druart wrote:
The next step would be to provide a check to our QA tests to make sure we will not introduce future occurrences. I am pretty sure they will not be caught manually by QAers.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 at 13:56 Eric Phetteplace <ephetteplace@cca.edu> wrote:
Hi Paul,
English has a singular "they". It doesn't suggest androgyny, either, from the definitions I've seen. For instance, Oxford English Dictionary:
2. In anaphoric reference to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined gender: he or she.
The first usage example OED provides is from 1375. I don't think replacing "he" with "she" addresses the problem, it's still assuming a default gender. It's not too much tricker to search code for he/him & replace with they/them but that's also just an implementation issue, not a policy one.
It sounds like people are otherwise supportive but I'm not sure what the next step should be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu | vault.cca.edu 510.594.3660 <(510)%20594-3660> 2>/dev/null
On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 8:42 AM, Paul A <paul.a@navalmarinearchive.com> wrote:
On 2017-04-18 08:25 PM, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug
[snip]
Before*:*
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay "
After:
"Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay "
Political correctness has never been my strong point (although I try to understand it), but I'm proficient in grammatical rigour. [1]
"Kid" is a singular noun, "a" is a singular article -- "they" is a plural pronoun. Perhaps replace "they" with "[s]he"? or "Kids growing and becoming juveniles, they should pay"?
From a code maintenance p.o.v., it's easier to find and replace 'he' with '[s]he' if really this becomes a priority for Koha.
Best -- Paul
[1] I am aware of the so-called "singular third person epicene 'they'", but academically object to it -- it often suggests androgyny rather than gender neutrality.
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I have to admit that 'they' sounded unusual to me at first, but that doesn't mean it's not correct English and that we shouldn't use it. What's wrong about learning about gender neutral language in English? I definitely prefer gender neutral to 'she'. On 19.04.2017 21:48, Philippe Blouin wrote:
That's no strawman, that's a genuine questionning.
You talk inclusivity, I'm all for it, but can we walk the talk now? 'They' is a bigger barrier to entry than 'he' for non-English readers/coders. But hey, what do I know, what is my perspective here? The stated initiative is good: the majority of users are female, the code is male-centric, can we be progressive, inclusive... But 'they' sucks. As I said, why not use "she" ?
I don't send formating and commenting patches, the QA team having quite enough on its plate already.
Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique
Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inLibro.com>
inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com <http://www.inLibro.com> On 04/19/2017 03:20 PM, Chris Cormack wrote:
Of course we won't fail patches, thanks for the strawman. We can easily fix them instead. In fact I volunteer to do that.
You're welcome to fix grammar too, send some patches.
And of course you can vote -1 you just did. I certainly noticed it.
Chris
On 20 April 2017 at 07:48, Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com> wrote:
That's no strawman, that's a genuine questionning.
You talk inclusivity, I'm all for it, but can we walk the talk now? 'They' is a bigger barrier to entry than 'he' for non-English readers/coders. But hey, what do I know, what is my perspective here? The stated initiative is good: the majority of users are female, the code is male-centric, can we be progressive, inclusive... But 'they' sucks. As I said, why not use "she" ?
Interestingly enough, my first language Māori has no gendered pronouns at all. All of them are non gendered. So they is much easier to understand for me. Anei tōnā ngeru Here is their cat. There's your useless trivia for the day. Not all non english speakers have gendered pronouns either :) Chris
I appreciate the trivia, I was not aware of that possibility. I certainly envy the students of the language. But I'll presume you've since used English quite enough to be considered fluent in it, unlike most other Koha contributors. And if Kate is ready to learn genderless pronouns, as I'm sure are most of the well rounded and educated individuals that make up this community, _it is not intuitive nor easy, in fact it is very very confusing_ to the discrete contributor. An unwarranted confusion, in my opinion. Again, to be clear, we're not talking about the face of Koha we're presenting to the world, the Product. We're talking about coding guidelines for _code comments_ added genuinely by naive contributors. Lower the barrier to entry, do not raise them! Anyway... have a good day/night/evening/dusk/dawn/lunch Damn it! It's hard to be inclusive! Have a good they Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com <mailto:philippe.blouin@inLibro.com> inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com <http://www.inLibro.com> On 04/19/2017 04:54 PM, Chris Cormack wrote:
On 20 April 2017 at 07:48, Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com> wrote:
That's no strawman, that's a genuine questionning.
You talk inclusivity, I'm all for it, but can we walk the talk now? 'They' is a bigger barrier to entry than 'he' for non-English readers/coders. But hey, what do I know, what is my perspective here? The stated initiative is good: the majority of users are female, the code is male-centric, can we be progressive, inclusive... But 'they' sucks. As I said, why not use "she" ?
Interestingly enough, my first language Māori has no gendered pronouns at all. All of them are non gendered. So they is much easier to understand for me.
Anei tōnā ngeru Here is their cat.
There's your useless trivia for the day. Not all non english speakers have gendered pronouns either :)
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On 20 April 2017 at 09:19, Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com> wrote:
I appreciate the trivia, I was not aware of that possibility. I certainly envy the students of the language.
But I'll presume you've since used English quite enough to be considered fluent in it, unlike most other Koha contributors. And if Kate is ready to learn genderless pronouns, as I'm sure are most of the well rounded and educated individuals that make up this community, it is not intuitive nor easy, in fact it is very very confusing to the discrete contributor. An unwarranted confusion, in my opinion.
Again, to be clear, we're not talking about the face of Koha we're presenting to the world, the Product. We're talking about coding guidelines for code comments added genuinely by naive contributors. Lower the barrier to entry, do not raise them!
I've already volunteered to fix any mistakes spotted, without making the person resubmit. So case closed eh? :) Bonne nuit, Pō mārie Chris
Anyway... have a good day/night/evening/dusk/dawn/lunch
Damn it! It's hard to be inclusive!
Have a good they
Philippe Blouin, Responsable du développement informatique
Tél. : (888) 604-2627 philippe.blouin@inLibro.com
inLibro | pour esprit libre | www.inLibro.com On 04/19/2017 04:54 PM, Chris Cormack wrote:
On 20 April 2017 at 07:48, Philippe Blouin <philippe.blouin@inlibro.com> wrote:
That's no strawman, that's a genuine questionning.
You talk inclusivity, I'm all for it, but can we walk the talk now? 'They' is a bigger barrier to entry than 'he' for non-English readers/coders. But hey, what do I know, what is my perspective here? The stated initiative is good: the majority of users are female, the code is male-centric, can we be progressive, inclusive... But 'they' sucks. As I said, why not use "she" ?
Interestingly enough, my first language Māori has no gendered pronouns at all. All of them are non gendered. So they is much easier to understand for me.
Anei tōnā ngeru Here is their cat.
There's your useless trivia for the day. Not all non english speakers have gendered pronouns either :)
Chris _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
Hi Eric, +1 Reading the discussion so far, I want to ask people to keep in mind that Koha is a very international project. I only learned about the use of they/them/their as singular neutral pronouns not so long ago and I think for a lot of other non-native speakers it might be similar. Our code comments are not perfect and we can always improve, but please let's be nice about it. I'd rather have a non-perfect code comment with imperfect grammar than people stop commenting :) Katrin On 19.04.2017 02:25, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug #18432 https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=18432 because I saw several places in the Koha codebase where the pronoun "he" was being used to refer to a generic third person who could be of any gender. Jonathan Druart noted that this should be a coding guideline, as otherwise new instances of gendered pronouns might continue to be added. Perhaps it belongs on the "Terminology" page of the wiki?
So here's my proposal. I'm trying to be concise.
----
*Use gender neutral pronouns* * * When referring to a person who could be of any gender, you should use the words they/them/their. This goes for code comments, text in templates, and strings in tests. For example, here's a string from a patrons test updated to be gender neutral.
Before*:* * * is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
After:
is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
Gender neutral terms are preferable for a few reasons. They're more welcoming, showing that Koha expects users and contributors to be of any gender. They're also more accurate. Inappropriately using a particular gender can cause confusion, leading someone to believe that code operates differently based on the value of borrowers.sex, for instance.
----
I hope that's clear. I'm happy to reword it, and to attend the next Koha developers meeting to explain further if need be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu <http://libraries.cca.edu> | vault.cca.edu <http://vault.cca.edu> 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
+1 for trying to achieve gender neutrality Marc Am 19.04.2017 um 02:25 schrieb Eric Phetteplace:
Hi list,
I opened bug #18432 https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=18432 because I saw several places in the Koha codebase where the pronoun "he" was being used to refer to a generic third person who could be of any gender. Jonathan Druart noted that this should be a coding guideline, as otherwise new instances of gendered pronouns might continue to be added. Perhaps it belongs on the "Terminology" page of the wiki?
So here's my proposal. I'm trying to be concise.
----
*Use gender neutral pronouns* * * When referring to a person who could be of any gender, you should use the words they/them/their. This goes for code comments, text in templates, and strings in tests. For example, here's a string from a patrons test updated to be gender neutral.
Before*:* * * is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
After:
is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
Gender neutral terms are preferable for a few reasons. They're more welcoming, showing that Koha expects users and contributors to be of any gender. They're also more accurate. Inappropriately using a particular gender can cause confusion, leading someone to believe that code operates differently based on the value of borrowers.sex, for instance.
----
I hope that's clear. I'm happy to reword it, and to attend the next Koha developers meeting to explain further if need be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu <http://libraries.cca.edu> | vault.cca.edu <http://vault.cca.edu> 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
I'll probably be poorly ranked here, but in my opinion there are more important things to fix in Koha... (randomly chosen: clean the wiki from severely outdated pages, test one of the 205 patches waiting for sign-off, improve documentation, investigate why we have 10 blockers or critical bugs open -without a patch-, one of them BZ14731 being >1yr old) additional comment: note that changes not related to code comment will change translations & translators will have additional work to do to fix. Le 19/04/2017 à 02:25, Eric Phetteplace a écrit :
Hi list,
I opened bug #18432 https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=18432 because I saw several places in the Koha codebase where the pronoun "he" was being used to refer to a generic third person who could be of any gender. Jonathan Druart noted that this should be a coding guideline, as otherwise new instances of gendered pronouns might continue to be added. Perhaps it belongs on the "Terminology" page of the wiki?
So here's my proposal. I'm trying to be concise.
----
*Use gender neutral pronouns* * * When referring to a person who could be of any gender, you should use the words they/them/their. This goes for code comments, text in templates, and strings in tests. For example, here's a string from a patrons test updated to be gender neutral.
Before*:* * * is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
After:
is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
Gender neutral terms are preferable for a few reasons. They're more welcoming, showing that Koha expects users and contributors to be of any gender. They're also more accurate. Inappropriately using a particular gender can cause confusion, leading someone to believe that code operates differently based on the value of borrowers.sex, for instance.
----
I hope that's clear. I'm happy to reword it, and to attend the next Koha developers meeting to explain further if need be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu <http://libraries.cca.edu> | vault.cca.edu <http://vault.cca.edu> 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
-- Paul Poulain, Associé-gérant / co-owner BibLibre, Services en logiciels libres pour les bibliothèques BibLibre, Open Source software and services for libraries
Hi, On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 10:59 AM, Paul Poulain <paul.poulain@biblibre.com> wrote:
I'll probably be poorly ranked here, but in my opinion there are more important things to fix in Koha... (randomly chosen: clean the wiki from severely outdated pages, test one of the 205 patches waiting for sign-off, improve documentation, investigate why we have 10 blockers or critical bugs open -without a patch-, one of them BZ14731 being >1yr old)
Well, folks remain free to set their personal priorities in how they choose to contribute to Koha. Trying to be more inclusive by measuring our words more carefully does not preclude working on bugs or updating the wiki... and may also result in more potential contributors deciding to stick around and pitch in. Regards, Galen -- Galen Charlton Infrastructure and Added Services Manager Equinox Open Library Initiative phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) email: gmc@equinoxInitiative.org web: https://equinoxInitiative.org direct: +1 770-709-5581 cell: +1 404-984-4366
Tossing P.C. aside, is the syntax in ”Kid growing and becoming a juvenile, that kid must pay"?" acceptable? Wouldn't "Should a kid start paying on becoming an adult?" (or something among these lines) be preferable? MP Στις 20 Απρ 2017 18:14, ο χρήστης "Galen Charlton" < gmc@equinoxinitiative.org> έγραψε: Hi, On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 10:59 AM, Paul Poulain <paul.poulain@biblibre.com> wrote:
I'll probably be poorly ranked here, but in my opinion there are more important things to fix in Koha... (randomly chosen: clean the wiki from severely outdated pages, test one of the 205 patches waiting for sign-off, improve documentation, investigate why we have 10 blockers or critical bugs open -without a patch-, one of them BZ14731 being >1yr old)
Well, folks remain free to set their personal priorities in how they choose to contribute to Koha. Trying to be more inclusive by measuring our words more carefully does not preclude working on bugs or updating the wiki... and may also result in more potential contributors deciding to stick around and pitch in. Regards, Galen -- Galen Charlton Infrastructure and Added Services Manager Equinox Open Library Initiative phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) email: gmc@equinoxInitiative.org web: https://equinoxInitiative.org direct: +1 770-709-5581 cell: +1 404-984-4366 _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
I imagine there are a number of ways we could re-word it. I don’t fully understand the test out of context, but I suspect maybe something like “The borrower has changed category from kid to juvenile. They should pay X + Y.”. David Cook Systems Librarian Prosentient Systems 72/330 Wattle St Ultimo, NSW 2007 Australia Office: 02 9212 0899 Direct: 02 8005 0595 From: koha-devel-bounces@lists.koha-community.org [mailto:koha-devel-bounces@lists.koha-community.org] On Behalf Of Manos PETRIDIS Sent: Friday, 21 April 2017 2:10 AM Cc: koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org Subject: Re: [Koha-devel] Gender-neutral pronouns Tossing P.C. aside, is the syntax in ”Kid growing and becoming a juvenile, that kid must pay"?" acceptable? Wouldn't "Should a kid start paying on becoming an adult?" (or something among these lines) be preferable? MP Στις 20 Απρ 2017 18:14, ο χρήστης "Galen Charlton" <gmc@equinoxinitiative.org <mailto:gmc@equinoxinitiative.org> > έγραψε: Hi, On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 10:59 AM, Paul Poulain <paul.poulain@biblibre.com <mailto:paul.poulain@biblibre.com> > wrote:
I'll probably be poorly ranked here, but in my opinion there are more important things to fix in Koha... (randomly chosen: clean the wiki from severely outdated pages, test one of the 205 patches waiting for sign-off, improve documentation, investigate why we have 10 blockers or critical bugs open -without a patch-, one of them BZ14731 being >1yr old)
Well, folks remain free to set their personal priorities in how they choose to contribute to Koha. Trying to be more inclusive by measuring our words more carefully does not preclude working on bugs or updating the wiki... and may also result in more potential contributors deciding to stick around and pitch in. Regards, Galen -- Galen Charlton Infrastructure and Added Services Manager Equinox Open Library Initiative phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) email: gmc@equinoxInitiative.org <mailto:gmc@equinoxInitiative.org> web: https://equinoxInitiative.org direct: +1 770-709-5581 <tel:%2B1%20770-709-5581> cell: +1 404-984-4366 <tel:%2B1%20404-984-4366> _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org <mailto:Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org> http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
-----Original Message----- From: koha-devel-bounces@lists.koha-community.org [mailto:koha-devel- bounces@lists.koha-community.org] On Behalf Of Galen Charlton Sent: Friday, 21 April 2017 1:15 AM To: Paul Poulain <paul.poulain@biblibre.com> Cc: koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org Subject: Re: [Koha-devel] Gender-neutral pronouns
Hi,
On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 10:59 AM, Paul Poulain <paul.poulain@biblibre.com> wrote:
I'll probably be poorly ranked here, but in my opinion there are more important things to fix in Koha... (randomly chosen: clean the wiki from severely outdated pages, test one of the 205 patches waiting for sign-off, improve documentation, investigate why we have 10 blockers or critical bugs open -without a patch-, one of them BZ14731 being
1yr old)
Well, folks remain free to set their personal priorities in how they choose to contribute to Koha. Trying to be more inclusive by measuring our words more carefully does not preclude working on bugs or updating the wiki... and may also result in more potential contributors deciding to stick around and
+1 for gender neutral pronouns, and I agree with Galen; we all have our own priorities, as well as our own limitations and capabilities, when it comes to contributing to Koha. While I think it's the prerogative of the QA team and Release Manager to prioritize certain patches, I don't see any problems with people contributing patches regardless of their perceived importance. As for gender neutral pronouns, users of modern online English interfaces may notice that websites like Facebook are already doing this on their front-end. Instead of "X changed his status" or "X changed her status", it's now "X changed their status" - at least in cases where gender isn't specified. I graduated with a master's degree less than 5 years ago, and the norm was to use "they" instead of "him/her" or "him or her" in academic writing. As others have noted on Bugzilla, "him or her" or "him/her" is heavy to read and non-inclusive. The idea of using "her" instead of "him" (as Phillippe suggested) was used by some writers in the early 21st century, but it's mostly fallen out of fashion. While it was politically significant, it's not inclusive/accurate. While some people might think "they" is overly politically correct, it seems perfectly logical to me. It's more concise, inclusive, and accurate. Consider the following scenario. Your child goes to the doctor as they are feeling ill. They come home and you say, "you've been to the doctor? What was their medical opinion?". You wouldn't say "What was her medical opinion?" or "What was his medical opinion?" as you don't know the gender of the doctor. (Also you are being inclusive of trans and non-gender conforming people as well.) (Note also that I didn't specify the gender of your child either, as I don't know the gender of your child, so I used "they" there too.) I can understand that this might be difficult to understand for people whose primary languages are heavily gendered like French and Spanish. While those languages have engaged with the concept of gender neutrality (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages_with_grammatic al_gender), I think pronouns haven't quite been worked out. I've seen proposals for new gender neutral pronouns in both languages, but I don't think they're widely recognized, while "they" is quite widely used in contemporary English. If I understand Bug 18432 correctly, the change is just to code comments, which are in English anyway, so I don't think there is the problem of gender neutrality in other languages. If we're using gender neutral pronouns in templates/code, I can see that becoming more difficult. David Cook Systems Librarian Prosentient Systems 72/330 Wattle St Ultimo, NSW 2007 Australia Office: 02 9212 0899 Direct: 02 8005 0595 pitch in.
Regards,
Galen -- Galen Charlton Infrastructure and Added Services Manager Equinox Open Library Initiative phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457) email: gmc@equinoxInitiative.org web: https://equinoxInitiative.org direct: +1 770-709-5581 cell: +1 404-984-4366 _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git :
http://git.koha-community.org/
Hi Eric, thx for writing this up! I have added your draft to the agenda of the next dev meeting: https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Development_IRC_meeting_10_May_2017 Katrin On 19.04.2017 02:25, Eric Phetteplace wrote:
Hi list,
I opened bug #18432 https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=18432 because I saw several places in the Koha codebase where the pronoun "he" was being used to refer to a generic third person who could be of any gender. Jonathan Druart noted that this should be a coding guideline, as otherwise new instances of gendered pronouns might continue to be added. Perhaps it belongs on the "Terminology" page of the wiki?
So here's my proposal. I'm trying to be concise.
----
*Use gender neutral pronouns* * * When referring to a person who could be of any gender, you should use the words they/them/their. This goes for code comments, text in templates, and strings in tests. For example, here's a string from a patrons test updated to be gender neutral.
Before*:* * * is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, he should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
After:
is( $total, $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J, "Kid growing and become a juvenile, they should pay " . ( $enrolmentfee_K + $enrolmentfee_J ) );
Gender neutral terms are preferable for a few reasons. They're more welcoming, showing that Koha expects users and contributors to be of any gender. They're also more accurate. Inappropriately using a particular gender can cause confusion, leading someone to believe that code operates differently based on the value of borrowers.sex, for instance.
----
I hope that's clear. I'm happy to reword it, and to attend the next Koha developers meeting to explain further if need be.
Best, Eric Phetteplace Systems Librarian California College of the Arts libraries.cca.edu <http://libraries.cca.edu> | vault.cca.edu <http://vault.cca.edu> 510.594.3660 2>/dev/null
_______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel website : http://www.koha-community.org/ git : http://git.koha-community.org/ bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
participants (18)
-
Alex Sassmannshausen -
BWS Johnson -
Chris Cormack -
Chris Cormack -
Christopher Davis -
David Cook -
Eric Phetteplace -
Galen Charlton -
Jonathan Druart -
Katrin -
Manos PETRIDIS -
Marc Véron -
Mark Tompsett -
Michael Kuhn -
Paul A -
Paul Poulain -
Philippe Blouin -
Tomas Cohen Arazi