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Gender specific display text for User namespace
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Description

Author: danny.leinad

Description:
When you update MW code with gender switch in user preferences (bug 13040), please namespace aliases "Wikipedystka" and "Dyskusja_wikipedystki" (bug 10064) relate to female option.


Version: 1.17.x
Severity: enhancement

Details

Reference
bz17160

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Medium.Nov 21 2014, 10:27 PM
bzimport set Reference to bz17160.
bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).

danny.leinad wrote:

Hello!

Is there any progress with this issue? It's very sad that women are discriminated against and do not have a namespace corresponding to the set of gender in Special:Preferences.

The problem concerns not only the Polish language, but also other Slavic languages.

(In reply to comment #0)

When you update MW code with gender switch in user preferences (bug 13040),
please namespace aliases "Wikipedystka" and "Dyskusja_wikipedystki" (bug 10064)
relate to female option.

I don't understand this request. Could you be more clear about what you want? The aliases you mention already exist.

danny.leinad wrote:

I don't understand this request. Could you be more clear about what you want?
The aliases you mention already exist.

Yes, aliases exist, but are not visible as regular namespace.

When woman set in [[Special:Preferences]] gender "female", the name of namespace should have feminine form.

For example in Polish Wikipedia:

  • Male/Unspecified is [[Wikipedysta:]] ([[User:]]) and [[Dyskusja wikipedysty:]] ([[User_talk:]])
  • and Female should be [[Wikipedystka:]] and [[Dyskusja wikipedystki:]]

danny.leinad wrote:

Ok, maybe I'll try to clarify...

The proper gender form of namespace should be visible on pages [[User:]] and [[User_talk:]] (in URL, tab and <h1> header).

But both gender forms should be treated by software as the same namespace (for example on [[Special:AllPages]] - http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Specjalna:Wszystkie+strony&from=&to=&namespace=2).

The MediaWiki software currently does not support this. A namespace can only have one primary name (Wikipedysta in this case), one canonical name (always the English name, so User in this case) and any number of aliases (in this case, only Wikipedystka).

Having the feminine variant of "User" show up on female users' user pages is not just a configuration switch that can be flipped, it needs to be coded into MediaWiki first. Repurposing this bug for that.

  • Bug 26927 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

IIRC Niklas has in the past made a hack for this at twn or might have even committed it.

  1. Solution used in the Language Converter to convert namespace names to different variants may be useful. (Make the primary one English, Wikipedysta and Wikipedystka aliases, and change it on display)
  1. I guess Wikipedysta or Wikipedystka means Wikipedian. Should a word with a meaning of "User" be used?

Is there a gender-neutral word for "User"?

But yes, a word meaning "User" would be better, I think. You can work towards that change on TranslateWiki.

danny.leinad wrote:

(In reply to comment #8)

  1. I guess Wikipedysta or Wikipedystka means Wikipedian. Should a word with a

meaning of "User" be used?

Yes, "Wikipedysta" and "Wikipedystka" are a names for users of Wikipedia.

Default names for MediaWiki installation should be "Użytkownik" (male) and "Użytkowniczka" (female).

danny.leinad wrote:

(In reply to comment #9)

Is there a gender-neutral word for "User"?

In Polish - no (and probably the same sitution in other Slavic languages).

We use the masculine form as a gender-neutral, *only* if we do not have in mind a specific person. But if I know that I speak with a woman, then I use the feminine form - if someone uses the masculine form it is very rude.

(In reply to comment #11)

(In reply to comment #9)

Is there a gender-neutral word for "User"?

In Polish - no (and probably the same sitution in other Slavic languages).

We use the masculine form as a gender-neutral, *only* if we do not have in mind
a specific person. But if I know that I speak with a woman, then I use the
feminine form - if someone uses the masculine form it is very rude.

The same applies for Portuguese. See for example this discussion:
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Esplanada/propostas/Altera%C3%A7%C3%A3o_nos_nomes_dos_dom%C3%ADnios_de_discuss%C3%A3o_(10dez2010)

Not only there are different words used for masculine/feminine, but also, for different variants of Portuguese, e.g. pt-PT and pt-BR.

Currently, the pt-BR/masculine word "Usuário" is used, but this situation is far from ideal, since it is not adequate for pt-PT, pt-AO, pt-... users and for female users neither.

I've been working a new patch on my free time. The remaining issues are mostly about efficiency.

Somewhat tested patch is at http://translatewiki.net/sandwiki/gender.txt . It works fine for me, but I would like to have it tested in a language that really uses those.

(In reply to comment #14)

Somewhat tested patch is at http://translatewiki.net/sandwiki/gender.txt .

Minor suggestion: the structure you suggest for the $namespaceGenderAliases array looks kind of ugly to me. Something like

$namespaceGenderAliases = array(

NS_USER => array( 'male' => 'Male_user', 'female' => 'Female_user' ),

);

would make more sense to me.

Also, you might want to skip the GenderCache::needed() "shortcut" and just call $wgContLang->needsGenderDistinction() from LinkBatch directly. That way you should be able to avoid loading GenderCache.php at all for wikis that don't need it.

The rest of it looks pretty good to me, though.

danny.leinad wrote:

(In reply to comment #16)

See r82029

Yay! This is wonderful suprise :))

I have some observations/questions:

  • I tried add $namespaceGenderAliases via LocalSettings.php, but it is not work - only works via MessagesPl.php.
  • Are you planning to allow add default names in $namespaceGenderAliases via platform translatewiki or I should request in new bug?
  • Gender form is visible only in <h1> and URL, but not in tab. In my opinion if $namespaceGenderAliases is enabled, there should exist MediaWiki messages for tab with proper gender form.

(In reply to comment #17)

I have some observations/questions:

  • I tried add $namespaceGenderAliases via LocalSettings.php, but it is not work
  • only works via MessagesPl.php.

Yes, it is like any other variable in MessagesXx.php

  • Are you planning to allow add default names in $namespaceGenderAliases via

platform translatewiki or I should request in new bug?

Currently there is no way to add them directly in twn. Should be done either in bugzilla or through Support on twn. Sorry I didn't actually read the first comment in this bug.

  • Gender form is visible only in <h1> and URL, but not in tab. In my opinion if

$namespaceGenderAliases is enabled, there should exist MediaWiki messages for
tab with proper gender form.

Was it you or someone else which suggested the workaround {{GENDER:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|...}}. Anyway, could you open a separate bug for it so that I don't forget it.

danny.leinad wrote:

(In reply to comment #18)

(In reply to comment #17)

I have some observations/questions:

  • I tried add $namespaceGenderAliases via LocalSettings.php, but it is not work
  • only works via MessagesPl.php.

Yes, it is like any other variable in MessagesXx.php

Sorry, but I'm not sure... $namespaceGenderAliases will be not possible to set in LocalSettings.php? I thought will be the same as $wgExtraNamespaces. For example:

In default MediaWiki instalaltion there is (http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/phase3/languages/messages/MessagesPl.php?view=markup):
$namespaceNames = array(

NS_USER             => 'Użytkownik',

);

but in own installation is possible to set own name (http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php):
'wgExtraNamespaces' => array(

'plwiki' => array( 
    NS_USER => 'Wikipedysta',
),

),

  • Gender form is visible only in <h1> and URL, but not in tab. In my opinion if

$namespaceGenderAliases is enabled, there should exist MediaWiki messages for
tab with proper gender form.

Was it you or someone else which suggested the workaround
{{GENDER:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|...}}. Anyway, could you open a separate bug for it
so that I don't forget it.

Ok, done bug27387.

For WMF it can be specified in WikimediaMessages extension, for other installs another extension is needed.

I know this is old, but the idea of using GENDER (from the viewing user) to change the title of a namespace where every user is neutral ! Or may be this will just apply when the "User:" prefix is used before an existing registered user (whose gender is known). But frequently we can't refer to ''any'' user just by its name (in some parameter) to guess which gender should apply. But may be MediaWiki, when it sees a "User:Name" may change itself the gender in the namespace found in link or when viewing the user page (or one of its subpages) according to user's preference.
In all cases, the gender forms for the "User:" namespace must be aliases on the target wiki, and this can cause problems on multilingual wikis if all gender forms in all languages must be used (the case of multilingual wikis in Wikimedia are for example Commons and Meta, but these also have a "default language" which is English and does not need any gnder form (so no need to create aliases).

This is only a problem on wikis localized for specific versions: there, they must be tuned with the aliases for their translated "User:" namespace, and all aliases must be valid.

So in a French wiki, we would have "Utilisateur:" (masculine, or neutral for bots and users that don't want to specify their actual gender in their preference) and "Utilisatrice:" (feminine) recognized as valid aliases of "User:", but "Usuario" from Portuguese would not be valid. But MediaWiki would have to be modified to select itself the gender-correct form of the namespace to display in links and in the title when viewing user pages (or subpages), according to the gender of that user (and not the gender of the visiting user).