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
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