Pronouns: Have Them, the Forums Should

thesarahandcompany

I'm wondering if there even is a way, outside of the signature, to enter pronouns. If there isn't, could a mod confirm whether that's a possibility?

@ZOS_GinaBruno -- Happy to help with this. I work for a national LGBTQ+ rights org and can link to resources if they're needed. It would mean a lot and have an immediate positive impact on a lot of people.

Ratzkifal

Since the forum is available in all sorts of languages, would that even work to have a general solution for all of these languages at once? Or would this have to be a complicated solution where I'd have to pick new pronouns every time I go to the forum of another language?

I feel like the signature is a good workaround already, even if I understand the need for some to have their pronouns recognized this way.

_Zathras_

I feel like the signature line is good enough.

..as the OP has chosen to do.

MaraxusTheOrc

Hurts no one and only improves the sense of community if folks have an option for this. Would encourage @ZOS_GinaBruno and company to see if that’s a functionality the forums can add.

spartaxoxo

_Zathras_ wrote: »

I feel like the signature line is good enough.

..as the OP has chosen to do.

Not everyone can see the signature line by default. I know that I can swap to it if I'm alerted to a signature by swapping to desktop mode, but the vast majority of my browsing is gonna be on mobile mode because I'm on mobile. So it's not a great workaround

ETA

Anyway I can see why some would like this. I'm not opposed to it but probably wouldn't set it myself. I'm not LGBT and don't care if people take a guess based off my avatar and how I talk. If they guess wrong and it feels like it matters in the moment, I'll point it out. But mostly I just ignore it. However I'm cishet female so that's really easy for me to say, since I don't experience pronoun based discrimination and my gender identity isn't treated like it's up for political debate. I have other issues as a black woman, but that's not one of them. So I understand why others may feel much more comfortable able to set them. And support their addition should they choose to add them. It matters to people and that's okay.

thesarahandcompany

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Since the forum is available in all sorts of languages, would that even work to have a general solution for all of these languages at once? Or would this have to be a complicated solution where I'd have to pick new pronouns every time I go to the forum of another language?

I feel like the signature is a good workaround already, even if I understand the need for some to have their pronouns recognized this way.

Good point. Didn't think of this. Note, my reply here assumes the forums has the back end functionality.

I think for she/her, he/him and maybe they/them pronouns -- it wouldn't be a challenge. I would assume for neopronouns, it would be more of a challenge. Baby steps though.

Ratzkifal

spartaxoxo wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

I feel like the signature line is good enough.

..as the OP has chosen to do.

Not everyone can see the signature line by default. I know that I can swap to it if I'm alerted to a signature by swapping to desktop mode, but the vast majority of my browsing is gonna be on mobile mode because I'm on mobile. So it's not a great workaround

ETA

Anyway I can see why some would like this. I'm not opposed to it but probably wouldn't set it myself. I'm not LGBT and don't care if people take a guess based off my avatar and how I talk. If they guess wrong and it feels like it matters in the moment, I'll point it out. But mostly I just ignore it. However I'm cishet female so that's really easy for me to say, since I don't experience pronoun based discrimination and my gender identity isn't treated like it's up for political debate. I have other issues as a black woman, but that's not one of them. So I understand why others may feel much more comfortable able to set them. And support their addition should they choose to add them. It matters to people and that's okay.

Will pronouns automatically translate? How is it going to translate if someone chose "they/them" as their pronouns if in German "Sie/Ihr" is identical to "she/her"? Not to be confused with the polite "you", which is also "Sie/Ihr" and plural no less. For German it could be the default to only use the polite pronoun but then you cannot have informal discussions anymore and backwards translating it into English will be impossible unless everyone is now "They/Them", which some people might actually not want.
I get that this makes sense in English and I get why people want it, but I feel like actually implementing this, unless you allow it to be free text like the signature, isn't really going to work. And if it's free form text, is that still acceptable for the issue at hand?

francesinhalover

Good idea!

thesarahandcompany

Ratzkifal wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

I feel like the signature line is good enough.

..as the OP has chosen to do.

Not everyone can see the signature line by default. I know that I can swap to it if I'm alerted to a signature by swapping to desktop mode, but the vast majority of my browsing is gonna be on mobile mode because I'm on mobile. So it's not a great workaround

ETA

Anyway I can see why some would like this. I'm not opposed to it but probably wouldn't set it myself. I'm not LGBT and don't care if people take a guess based off my avatar and how I talk. If they guess wrong and it feels like it matters in the moment, I'll point it out. But mostly I just ignore it. However I'm cishet female so that's really easy for me to say, since I don't experience pronoun based discrimination and my gender identity isn't treated like it's up for political debate. I have other issues as a black woman, but that's not one of them. So I understand why others may feel much more comfortable able to set them. And support their addition should they choose to add them. It matters to people and that's okay.

Will pronouns automatically translate? How is it going to translate if someone chose "they/them" as their pronouns if in German "Sie/Ihr" is identical to "she/her"? Not to be confused with the polite "you", which is also "Sie/Ihr" and plural no less. For German it could be the default to only use the polite pronoun but then you cannot have informal discussions anymore and backwards translating it into English will be impossible unless everyone is now "They/Them", which some people might actually not want.
I get that this makes sense in English and I get why people want it, but I feel like actually implementing this, unless you allow it to be free text like the signature, isn't really going to work. And if it's free form text, is that still acceptable for the issue at hand?

In my experience, free text is usually ideal for reporting pronouns (in my research in work). Some people use a combination (she/they for example).

bmnoble

Don't really see a need, the signature line seems like a good enough option for those the feel the need to add that info.

Even if it is added I will still only refer to people by their @names or at OP.

AoEnwyr

thesarahandcompany wrote: »

I'm wondering if there even is a way, outside of the signature, to enter pronouns. If there isn't, could a mod confirm whether that's a possibility?

@ZOS_GinaBruno -- Happy to help with this. I work for a national LGBTQ+ rights org and can link to resources if they're needed. It would mean a lot and have an immediate positive impact on a lot of people.

I support this as long as it's optional. I don't think it's a good idea to force people to either pick a gender that they were assigned at birth and risk increasing dysphoria or choose their actual gender and be at risk of being outed when they aren't ready. I also don't think people should be forced to list personal information publicly against their will, especially in anonymous style forums where certain demographics can be more at risk of harassment

If it's purely optional - that's excellent and would absolutely provide a benefit to those who wish to use that feature

FluffWit

Since I've been here no one has ever used a pronoun to address me or vice versa. I don't see any reason to or any need to make this change.

And hey, I do support this stuff in general and even in gaming- i play Sims 4 and they're so far ahead of everyone else on it. I basically decided to buy their next awful cash grab dlc after seeing its trailer because I was so impressed with the way they were telling..... everyone.... it's ok to be... to just be you.

But pronouns on these forums? I don't see any need.

In game on the other hand? Absolutely! Write some story that let's my character have an identity. I think Isobel is gay or at least bi (from the little attention I was paying during her first companion quest) and that's great. But where's the dialogue for me to talk to her about that and tell her how my character identifies?

FluffWit

Actually I changed me mind. It may not be neccesary. But we should do it. We should do it on these forums. And we should do it in game.

How hard is it to add an option to slap a pronoun of the users choice in front of their forum and in game names? With of course the option to not use any if you want.

Again, that's coming from someone who's watched The Sims evolve so far on this in the last few years.

It may mean nothing to most of us but for the people who do care I'm guessing it would mean a lot.

Wolfpaw

Sounds like a waste of resources as others have pointed out, & sure don't need additional moderation if someone ends up complaining about "wrong" pronoun used/or not used either.

sporkfairy

I support this as long as there is the option for people who don't want to participate to hide the feature entirely.

FluffWit

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Sounds like a waste of resources as others have pointed out, & sure don't need additional moderation if someone ends up complaining about "wrong" pronoun used/or not used either.

Fairly sure it'd be more popular then Tales of Tribute and just look at how many resources they devoted to that.

AoEnwyr

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Sounds like a waste of resources as others have pointed out, & sure don't need additional moderation if someone ends up complaining about "wrong" pronoun used/or not used either.

I don't think making others feel more comfortable or engaged in the community is ever a waste of resources. If we can have silly badges for how many Agree or Awesome reacts we get, we can have this.

As for your concern over complaints, people could do that now if they wanted to - and if someone IS going out of their way to deliberately misgender someone as an act of harassment, it's pretty clear so it would fall under standard moderation activities anyway

Wolfpaw

AoEnwyr wrote: »

Wolfpaw wrote: »

Sounds like a waste of resources as others have pointed out, & sure don't need additional moderation if someone ends up complaining about "wrong" pronoun used/or not used either.

I don't think making others feel more comfortable or engaged in the community is ever a waste of resources. If we can have silly badges for how many Agree or Awesome reacts we get, we can have this.

As for your concern over complaints, people could do that now if they wanted to - and if someone IS going out of their way to deliberately misgender someone as an act of harassment, it's pretty clear so it would fall under standard moderation activities anyway

It's literally already in op signature.

Michae

I may understand the need, but in the end it's a text based forum where we have no way of seeing eachother and assuming anything about gender. The nicks many people use are often genderless, the avatars are pictures from in game and can be male, female, but also unspecified. Just look at mine, I don't really know what gender that creature has. And as mentioned, rarely anyone here refers to another user as he/she/they, as more often than not we either address eachother directly by you, or refer to @ nick or OP. I tend to not assign gender in online interactions like these here unless someone specifically states what gender they are, because it's not really important to me, and I have been wrong before. Actually I quite enjoy these "genderless" enviroments, and at least on the forums I haven't really seen anyone discriminated based on their gender. But that's just my anecdotal experience.

However I sympathise with anyone who would still feel uncomfortable without having their pronouns known, and I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to the idea. For now one can use description as mentioned before, o just write it out at the beginning of their posts if they fear that the description wouldn't be seen by anyone.

EDIT:
I put a space between the @ and "nick", since I didn't want to bother the real Nick. Sorry.

merpins

When you refer to someone in the forums you can refer to them as "You" or "Their" or "That person/player." If you're mentioning someone, you can just @ the name.

And if you're referring to the person posting the thread, you can say OP or @ the name. In the forums, I don't particularly see a need to classify gender when you can just play it safe and go with all non-gender specific pronouns. In-game it's more appropriate, especially in guilds. But in the forums, if you're hellbent on letting people know your preferred pronouns, feel free to do it in the signature. Not that most people will call you them anyway, since non-gender-specific pronouns are generally used in this context anyway. There's no harm in adding it as an option, though I don't much see the point in doing so.

SilverBride

I don't understand how this would even work. Where would this pronoun be displayed and would we have to choose one?

Personally I don't want to be forced to display things about myself in a gaming forum.

spartaxoxo

I don't know a single social media channel that has options for assigning pronouns that forces people to display their gender? What sites are you guys using where that happens so I can avoid them.

spartaxoxo

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Will pronouns automatically translate?

Generally, no. Different languages have different ways they address and use gendered language. It doesn't necessarily translate. In language where it does, the localization team would translate them into expressions that are equivalent in meaning even if it's not a literal word for word translation. And then people could select them for that language. Possibly by letting people select their gender.

kargen27

FluffWit wrote: »

Since I've been here no one has ever used a pronoun to address me or vice versa. I don't see any reason to or any need to make this change.

And hey, I do support this stuff in general and even in gaming- i play Sims 4 and they're so far ahead of everyone else on it. I basically decided to buy their next awful cash grab dlc after seeing its trailer because I was so impressed with the way they were telling..... everyone.... it's ok to be... to just be you.

But pronouns on these forums? I don't see any need.

In game on the other hand? Absolutely! Write some story that let's my character have an identity. I think Isobel is gay or at least bi (from the little attention I was paying during her first companion quest) and that's great. But where's the dialogue for me to talk to her about that and tell her how my character identifies?

Most NPC and companion dialog is kept really generic for a reason. It would get overly complicated trying to pattern game dialog around all the choices that can be made. This is true for in game choices such as class and race and even more true for what would be real world choices.
Better to be generic than try and include all the different ways to identify and somehow leave one out. Even if unintentional it would be a potential disaster.

Tommy_The_Gun

Tbh. Something tells me that it would be used mostly to just um.. "showoff" and may even create an unpredictable and even toxic situations.

Edit:
Just a thought: what it would bring to the table ? I mean what importance it brings to the ESO forum community ? It looks to me like um... it is kinda irrelevant. It is not important. It does not matter if someone is he or she or they or whatever. We are all equal here.

couriersix

I can understand that adding neopronouns would be a bit too much effort, but there wouldn't be any harm in having the ability to show "he/him", "she/her" or "they/them" beneath someone's avatar.

spartaxoxo

couriersix wrote: »

I can understand that adding neopronouns would be a bit too much effort, but there wouldn't be any harm in having the ability to show "he/him", "she/her" or "they/them" beneath someone's avatar.

Yup. Seems easy enough though I'm not sure how easy it would be for this forum. Honestly, it would also make it easier to understand how to refer to someone when you need to say something about a post they made.

Like for example, if someone was looking for examples of how to use those waterfall furnishings in their house because they are so big and they like them, but can't quite think of a good fit.

You could be like check Sparta's post about her grotto house. She uses a lot of waterfalls in her build.

This makes it more natural to talk about a specific person and less impersonal. Most probably wouldn't enable them but that's another reason it could be useful.

Blinx

these forums are to talk about the game, not ourselves, I don't really see a need for this in this particular forum.

BloodMagicLord

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Honestly, it would also make it easier to understand how to refer to someone when you need to say something about a post they made.

How about using the quote button? Or You/Your? Or They/Their? Has worked for 1,000 years since English began its divergence from the language of the Anglo Saxons, still works now.

Magenpie

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Tbh. Something tells me that it would be used mostly to just um.. "showoff" and may even create an unpredictable and even toxic situations.

Edit:
Just a thought: what it would bring to the table ? I mean what importance it brings to the ESO forum community ? It looks to me like um... it is kinda irrelevant. It is not important. It does not matter if someone is he or she or they or whatever. We are all equal here.

I feel this too. I prefer not to know the RL details of my fellow gamers unless I know them personally in game. I don't see the need to know the country, skin colour, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation, sex or gender of anyone here. I support more representation and diversity in game* but I think here, where the real world bumps up against the ESO world, it's best to keep things as neutral as possible. And, as other people have pointed out, the signature feature allows people to express themselves already.

*fwiw - I think ESO does a pretty good job with this, with npcs and with voice actor choices.

emilyhyoyeon

Sounds good to me