6 ms·

He's written about gender very well before.[1] It is certainly a subject that I don't know very much about, but I appreciate that it can get very complicated ve

by macrael 15y ago

He's written about gender very well before.[1] It is certainly a subject that I don't know very much about, but I appreciate that it can get very complicated very quickly. What are the good reasons for requiring it to be public? Secondly, do you think that "other" is enough? To what lengths should developers go to handle rare corner cases? [1]: http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/06/sex-and-gender/ http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/06/sex-and-gender/

MartinCron 15y ago
It seems that giving people an option to make it non-public would be sufficient. That's not a crazy corner case, really.
- dazzer 15y ago
  Yup I see it as an oversight. While I believe that people get overly sensitive about gender (or any politicall-incorrectness), I also believe that it is in their right to do so, and if Google does fulfil this request then all the better for it. Aside, though, this post by Randall seems a little overkill at this stage... unless Google has taken an obvious stance on the issue there is no reason to take umbrage.
  - flipside 15y ago
    He's making a point since this is such a frequently overlooked issue. By raising awareness, other companies and startups are less likely to make this mistake.
  - wnoise 15y ago
    > seems a little overkill at this stage Better to correct earlier than later. > no reason to take umbrage. I don't see umbrage, just a desire to have something fixed.
tiddchristopher 15y ago
Male, female, other, and leave blank / prefer not to disclose are all the options I would list. It's important to allow women and men who do not want to disclose their gender that option. It's also important to allow people who would like to list their gender as other to do so. Gender is an extremely tricky issue. Whatever you do, I recommend NOT listing "male to female" or anything of that sort. Transgendered people identify, from my understanding, as their adopted (actual) gender, not the one society would often assume them to have. I hope this helps.
- wunderfool 15y ago
  these pages aren't your "identity", hasn't years of facebook abuse taught people anything? these pages exist to tune an ad matching algorithm. hel-lo, this is what google does even better than facebook. your freedom to expand or contract your profile will be consistent with google's ad targeting agenda. people who want a free-form digital identity should get their own domain and move on. i know we're in a honeymoon here where google can do no wrong, but randall is just showing himself up here as a second rate thinker...the real answer to owning your identity is to not equate it with a database row
Qz 15y ago
I vote for the text field option.
- pvarangot 15y ago
  I'm with you! It would also be ideal, given the current sexist state of language, to add a combo box to choose if you want to be refered to as "he", "she", or, in what now seems like a distant utopia, gender-neutrally, obviously given each language possibilities. That would be so much a big step into having gender equality on the net that the fact no big social network has done it yet tells us about how misunderstood a problem discrimination and biases towards sex and gender are.
  - waterhouse 15y ago
    The user specifies what pronouns to use, and perhaps there would be default values (or you could fill them all in by selecting a "traditional" option). I actually really like this idea. Users would be able to hide their gender if they wanted, and if they wanted to use something like "he or she/him or her/his or her" or "ey/ey/eir", they would be able to just fill it in, and the system would use it in its automatically generated notifications and stuff (Alex posted a comment on eir webzone). This would give us an easy way to gain exposure and experience to the various attempts at creating gender-neutral singular third-person pronouns, and maybe figure out which ones are good (or whether it's worth bothering about). Also, it might allow for funsies like this. Possessive: His Majesty's Subjective: His [random from: Awesomeness, Sleepiness, Whimsy]
    - henrikschroder 15y ago
      I pity the people working on localization if you have that system. Also, some languages, for example Finnish, doesn't have gender-specific 3rd person pronouns, so giving them that option wouldn't make any sense to them.
- FeministHacker 15y ago
  The range of answers you get when you give a free text entry field is wonderful, and proves why this is the best route. On matters like forced revealing of gender, my gender is rage. I'm in the process of trying to convince an genderfork academic I'm friends with to actually put a 20 marks question on an exam "what is your gender?".
dazzer 15y ago
I vote for the solution below which asks "how do you wish to be identified" instead of "what is your gender".
- hugh3 15y ago
  Which is larger? The number of people who would object to "what is your gender" on weird-ass gender politics grounds, or the number of people who would object to "how do you wish to be identified?" on the grounds that it's ridiculous politically correct pandering to weirdoes? I don't just "wish to be identified" as a man... I am a man, and I have the external sexual organs, facial hair, Adam's apple and XY chromosomes to prove it. Someone's always gonna complain, no matter what you do.
- dfxm12 15y ago
  This fixes the issue of "there's more to gender than male/female/other", but it doesn't fix the issue of "women might not want to get sexualized comments sent to them".
gojomo 15y ago
Clearly, gender should be represented as a user-chosen 32-bit value with separate R, G, B, and A channels, and conveniently represented as an 8-digit hexadecimal number. In this Portable Network Gender (PNG) system, the R channel is degree of traditional female gender; the B is degree of traditional male gender; the G is a catchall for other gender expressions (or perhaps a lookup table rather than a magnitude); the A indicates the overall transparency/importance of the other values. On the other hand, this only offers around 4 billion unique combinations, which may not be enough to represent the diversity of the planet's 6-billion-plus individuals (not to mention situational identities). Everyone deserves gender-appropriate and gender-precise targeted advertising! So ultimately, a new Gender Protocol offering 128-bits of resolution may prove necessary (GPv6).
- yid 15y ago
  Jokes aside, I like to fit people into two numbers between 0 and 1, non-inclusive. The first, number A represents your gender identification, with 0 being ideally female and 1 ideally male (remember the scale is non inclusive of the bounds). The second number B represents the gender identification that you're attracted to. So, for example: Hetero male: A=0.8, B=0.2 Gay male: A 0.7 b 0.9, or a 0.8 b 0.7 It's a convenient way to explain gender to nerds, and remember that there are error bars on each number that vary over a lifetime.
  - TeMPOraL 15y ago
    I like this idea. Could be useful when doing some fuzzy computations. EDIT According to the comment by walrus down the thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2741580 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2741580), we should upgrade this system to use three numbers :).
  - pvarangot 15y ago
    I don't know how much has your technique been exposed to the scrutiny of gay people, neither I want to be overly critic... But just be aware that many gay men are far from identifying with being "ideally female", and many gay women are far from identifying themselves as "ideally male". Making gender one-dimensional is of course richer than using a boolean flag, but I think the problem is even more complicated than that. EDIT: as gjm11 states, I'm wrong and your scale is indeed two dimensional, as in one might feel a (wo)man and be attracted to a (wo)man.
cube13 15y ago
>Secondly, do you think that "other" is enough? To what lengths should developers go to handle rare corner cases? Other is enough. It covers all the possible alternate cases. If the person really doesn't identify with either gender, they can select it. If they don't want it to be public, it's broad enough that selecting it doesn't reflect anything on the person, especially if they post pictures(like several people in the "other" camp do in the comments have). Randall even admitted in his blog post that it's simply not worth the effort to cover all the possible cases. The problem with this entire thing is that it's so complicated. The original survey apparently wasn't good enough for a segment of the population, and the question was framed for pure genetics. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't, because you'll get complaints no matter what you do.

by macrael 15y ago

MartinCron 15y ago

It seems that giving people an option to make it non-public would be sufficient. That's not a crazy corner case, really.

dazzer 15y ago
Yup I see it as an oversight. While I believe that people get overly sensitive about gender (or any politicall-incorrectness), I also believe that it is in their right to do so, and if Google does fulfil this request then all the better for it. Aside, though, this post by Randall seems a little overkill at this stage... unless Google has taken an obvious stance on the issue there is no reason to take umbrage.
- flipside 15y ago
  He's making a point since this is such a frequently overlooked issue. By raising awareness, other companies and startups are less likely to make this mistake.
- wnoise 15y ago
  > seems a little overkill at this stage Better to correct earlier than later. > no reason to take umbrage. I don't see umbrage, just a desire to have something fixed.

tiddchristopher 15y ago

Male, female, other, and leave blank / prefer not to disclose are all the options I would list. It's important to allow women and men who do not want to disclose their gender that option. It's also important to allow people who would like to list their gender as other to do so. Gender is an extremely tricky issue. Whatever you do, I recommend NOT listing "male to female" or anything of that sort. Transgendered people identify, from my understanding, as their adopted (actual) gender, not the one society would often assume them to have. I hope this helps.

wunderfool 15y ago
these pages aren't your "identity", hasn't years of facebook abuse taught people anything? these pages exist to tune an ad matching algorithm. hel-lo, this is what google does even better than facebook. your freedom to expand or contract your profile will be consistent with google's ad targeting agenda. people who want a free-form digital identity should get their own domain and move on. i know we're in a honeymoon here where google can do no wrong, but randall is just showing himself up here as a second rate thinker...the real answer to owning your identity is to not equate it with a database row

Qz 15y ago

I vote for the text field option.

pvarangot 15y ago
I'm with you! It would also be ideal, given the current sexist state of language, to add a combo box to choose if you want to be refered to as "he", "she", or, in what now seems like a distant utopia, gender-neutrally, obviously given each language possibilities. That would be so much a big step into having gender equality on the net that the fact no big social network has done it yet tells us about how misunderstood a problem discrimination and biases towards sex and gender are.
- waterhouse 15y ago
  The user specifies what pronouns to use, and perhaps there would be default values (or you could fill them all in by selecting a "traditional" option). I actually really like this idea. Users would be able to hide their gender if they wanted, and if they wanted to use something like "he or she/him or her/his or her" or "ey/ey/eir", they would be able to just fill it in, and the system would use it in its automatically generated notifications and stuff (Alex posted a comment on eir webzone). This would give us an easy way to gain exposure and experience to the various attempts at creating gender-neutral singular third-person pronouns, and maybe figure out which ones are good (or whether it's worth bothering about). Also, it might allow for funsies like this. Possessive: His Majesty's Subjective: His [random from: Awesomeness, Sleepiness, Whimsy]
  - henrikschroder 15y ago
    I pity the people working on localization if you have that system. Also, some languages, for example Finnish, doesn't have gender-specific 3rd person pronouns, so giving them that option wouldn't make any sense to them.
FeministHacker 15y ago
The range of answers you get when you give a free text entry field is wonderful, and proves why this is the best route. On matters like forced revealing of gender, my gender is rage. I'm in the process of trying to convince an genderfork academic I'm friends with to actually put a 20 marks question on an exam "what is your gender?".

dazzer 15y ago

I vote for the solution below which asks "how do you wish to be identified" instead of "what is your gender".

hugh3 15y ago
Which is larger? The number of people who would object to "what is your gender" on weird-ass gender politics grounds, or the number of people who would object to "how do you wish to be identified?" on the grounds that it's ridiculous politically correct pandering to weirdoes? I don't just "wish to be identified" as a man... I am a man, and I have the external sexual organs, facial hair, Adam's apple and XY chromosomes to prove it. Someone's always gonna complain, no matter what you do.
dfxm12 15y ago
This fixes the issue of "there's more to gender than male/female/other", but it doesn't fix the issue of "women might not want to get sexualized comments sent to them".

gojomo 15y ago

Clearly, gender should be represented as a user-chosen 32-bit value with separate R, G, B, and A channels, and conveniently represented as an 8-digit hexadecimal number. In this Portable Network Gender (PNG) system, the R channel is degree of traditional female gender; the B is degree of traditional male gender; the G is a catchall for other gender expressions (or perhaps a lookup table rather than a magnitude); the A indicates the overall transparency/importance of the other values. On the other hand, this only offers around 4 billion unique combinations, which may not be enough to represent the diversity of the planet's 6-billion-plus individuals (not to mention situational identities). Everyone deserves gender-appropriate and gender-precise targeted advertising! So ultimately, a new Gender Protocol offering 128-bits of resolution may prove necessary (GPv6).

yid 15y ago
Jokes aside, I like to fit people into two numbers between 0 and 1, non-inclusive. The first, number A represents your gender identification, with 0 being ideally female and 1 ideally male (remember the scale is non inclusive of the bounds). The second number B represents the gender identification that you're attracted to. So, for example: Hetero male: A=0.8, B=0.2 Gay male: A 0.7 b 0.9, or a 0.8 b 0.7 It's a convenient way to explain gender to nerds, and remember that there are error bars on each number that vary over a lifetime.
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  I like this idea. Could be useful when doing some fuzzy computations. EDIT According to the comment by walrus down the thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2741580 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2741580), we should upgrade this system to use three numbers :).
- pvarangot 15y ago
  I don't know how much has your technique been exposed to the scrutiny of gay people, neither I want to be overly critic... But just be aware that many gay men are far from identifying with being "ideally female", and many gay women are far from identifying themselves as "ideally male". Making gender one-dimensional is of course richer than using a boolean flag, but I think the problem is even more complicated than that. EDIT: as gjm11 states, I'm wrong and your scale is indeed two dimensional, as in one might feel a (wo)man and be attracted to a (wo)man.

cube13 15y ago

>Secondly, do you think that "other" is enough? To what lengths should developers go to handle rare corner cases? Other is enough. It covers all the possible alternate cases. If the person really doesn't identify with either gender, they can select it. If they don't want it to be public, it's broad enough that selecting it doesn't reflect anything on the person, especially if they post pictures(like several people in the "other" camp do in the comments have). Randall even admitted in his blog post that it's simply not worth the effort to cover all the possible cases. The problem with this entire thing is that it's so complicated. The original survey apparently wasn't good enough for a segment of the population, and the question was framed for pure genetics. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't, because you'll get complaints no matter what you do.