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Google+ can now hide your gender "in response to user feedback"
- pkulak 15y agoWow. The people spoke and Google re-wrote all the gender specific language in their product to listen.
- callahad 15y agoAs far as I can tell, Google hadn't (yet?) implemented gender-specific language. E.g. http://i.imgur.com/1B5rT.png http://i.imgur.com/1B5rT.png
- Joakal 15y agoWhy is a gender specific language important?
- benbscholz 15y agoThe issue was brought to my attention by this post: https://plus.google.com/111588569124648292310/posts/SeBqgN9Zoiu https://plus.google.com/111588569124648292310/posts/SeBqgN9Z...
- Joakal 15y agoNo, I can understand some people would want to hide their gender. I was asking why there should be gender-specific language when your very reference is pointing out that people want to hide their gender. If someone hides their gender and you see posts like Dan who wished to hide their gender would be exposed with "Dan has not filled out his profile yet."
- edanm 15y agoWhen someone hides their gender, the language used from then on will be neutral. That's what they had to implement - neutral (instead of gender specific language).
- MikeCapone 15y agoIn some languages it is much more important than in English, and it would just sound weird for Google pages to refer to you in a gender-neutral way by default.
- Joakal 15y agoCan you give an example of referring to a gender-specific way that's weird in using gender-neutral words?
- bricestacey 15y agoMany languages have different ways of saying "you" depending on gender. For example, many arabic verbs have suffixes "ak" (you, masc) and "ik" (you, fem). There is no gender-neutral way to directly address someone (there is only masculine and feminine nouns). PS. I have only rudimentary knowledge of Arabic so any native speakers, forgive me if I'm way off.
- eddington 15y agoIf you were to try to say "my friend's house" in lots of languages you have to use a gender-specific word. In spanish, for example La casa de mi amigo / La casa de mi amiga. If you were to try to do it in a gender neutral manner ... La casa de una persona que conozco bien. Which translates roughly to "the house of a person that I know (and know well)."
- wccrawford 15y agoSpanish speakers don't have the same hangups about using 'he' as the gender-neutral pronoun. It's just a part of their language. English is the one where people get bent out of shape over it.
- mtts 15y agoNo, Dutchies don't like it either. I don't think it's language specific. It probably has something to do with how much machismo or political correctness there is in a culture :-) By that logic, Americans are probably more upset about this than, say, Nigerians (I assume Nigerian culture(s) are rather less PC than American culture).
- jdp23 15y agoActually they had. From the video: "One of the major things we use gender information for on Google+ is for picking gender pronouns - her, his, theirs - when we refer to you. Google is committed to building products that people all over the world use, and in some languages gender is much more deeply part of how sentences are formed than in say, English. Having gender information helps to make Google+ more conversational. If you decide to make your gender private on Google+, we'll to use gender-neutral language to describe you whenever someone else encounters gender-related information about you but doesn't have permission to see your gender. For example, instead of saying 'Greg added you to his circles' or 'Frances added you to her circles', we'll say 'Greg added you to their circles' or 'Frances added you to their circles'. Yes, I know this is grammatically questionable. You don't need to message me about it. We value helping people control their privacy as being much more important than being grammatically perfectly."
- bobo888 15y agoI would like to remind you that there are other languages on Earth too besides English.
- cjzhang 15y agoActually, they introduced the concept of private fields and restructured all their architecture to allow for profile fields to be optionally hidden... Oh wait, they already had that.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- Zakuzaa 15y agoGoogle is cool again. Yay!
- jdp23 15y agoGoogle is clearly listening to user feedback on Plus. This is at least the third change so far in where I've seen Google folks engage in the initial discussions, describe their reasoning for why it was initially implemented the way it was, and (after a few days) come back with changes. Very impressive. There's a transcript at https://plus.google.com/106912596786226524817/posts/KCUbRMKQ7VP https://plus.google.com/106912596786226524817/posts/KCUbRMKQ...
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- aneth 15y agoInteresting that it's "impressive" when Google listens to user feedback and makes a small change based on it. That highlights how awful they usually are at listening to, responding to, and supporting users. Why is the bar so low for Google?
- amichail 15y agoTo enhance privacy further, I hope they will provide a way for people to use an artificial animated face and voice in hangouts: https://plus.google.com/102027212307619239744/posts/4iV2fcm2oKt https://plus.google.com/102027212307619239744/posts/4iV2fcm2...
- gokhan 15y agoWith this change, how do you prevent anonymous trolls in hangouts?
- amichail 15y agoThis is about enhancing privacy but not providing anonymity. You could always mute/block/report people.
- wccrawford 15y agoDon't invite them in the first place? If your hangout is public, you'll get trolls. There are plenty of ways of faking a camera feed.
- redthrowaway 15y agoI wonder what it feels like to be Randall Munroe and have this kind of influence over the web.
- masterzora 15y agoI find it curious that you automatically assume that Randall's post was the driving force. This is a piece of feedback that many users were submitting since the day G+ opened up. It's certainly possible that Randall was the influence that convinced Google, but I'd like to think that the feedback of the many would have weighed in more important than the post of a dude people have heard of.
- redthrowaway 15y agoI'm thinking much of the feedback came as a result of his post, not that Google saw he made a post and leapt to do his bidding. It was more a comment on the power of popularity, even online, than about his personal connections or ability to influence decisions.
- masterzora 15y agoI know, I know, anecdata yada yada, but I know a significant portion of my circles had submitted such feedback before Randall ever wrote that post. I'd be interested in knowing what the numbers were pre- and post-Randall.
- atomicdog 15y agoI wonder what it feels like to be Randall Munroe and have sycophantic fanboys for a poorly drawn stick-figure webcomic that was briefly funny a couple of years ago.
- talmand 15y agoWell gee, since you don't like it I guess the rest of us should stop enjoying it.
- 15y ago
- cel 15y agoThis is good. Now they just need to allow people to use pseudonyms. (maybe.) https://plus.google.com/116347431032639424492/posts/Px3uaKZer7D https://plus.google.com/116347431032639424492/posts/Px3uaKZe...
- icebraining 15y agoYou can use pseudonyms, they just need to sound like real names. I'm pretty sure that Google doesn't ask for an ID card. If this was the actual policy - and not just the side effect of their inability to control them - I think it would be reasonable.
- nhangen 15y agoOf all the things people want to fight about, it's gender?
- masterzora 15y agoIt's an important issue and it's not as if you're only allowed to choose one thing to fight for.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- nhangen 15y agoWhy is it an important issue?
- akkartik 15y agoNot really fight; it was just weird that of all the fields that could be mandatory they chose gender.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- masterzora 15y agoIt was "just weird" for some of us, but it was actually a legitimate problem for others. I don't think I'd use the word "fight" either, but it's better than trivialising to being "just weird".
- joejohnson 15y agoI think a possible explanation for this is that they use gender-specific pronouns in other parts of the site: "he said this...", "she +1'd this...", etc. So, I think they needed to re-word more than just the profile section with gender-neutral pronouns. I don't think this is a trivial task, and maybe that's why it will take until the end of the week.
- BonoboBoner 15y agoNice to see them react so fast, but I dont get the point about the feature. Are people really gonna switch a button that lets them hide their gender, something that can usually be easily found out by looking at the user's firstname and/or profile picture?
- masterzora 15y agoFor some people it's not as easy as you seem to think.
- owenmarshall 15y agoGender isn't just about how you look & what your name is. It's a much more personal construct. Google+ is respecting that, and should be commended.
- andrewcooke 15y agono you can't. not yet. at least, i can't.
- mike-cardwell 15y agoI can't either. It's stuck on "Anyone on the web". EDIT: "Starting later this week"
- nealb 15y agoThis is nice, but I'd love to see some more important features opened up instead- things like huddle on mobile web and working video playback in the Android app would be great.
- cies 15y agothe gender thing was prominent when signing up for g+, that i think they might have anticipated this fix + "we do listen"-media-spin on forehand.
- jerf 15y agoOccam's razor.
- masterzora 15y agoHanlon seems more appropriate here.
- bonch 15y agoWho cares? This is actually considered tech news?
- jigs_up 15y agoBob added you to his list Bob added you to his or her list
- colinprince 15y agoBob's list now has you on it