Thanks for the examples from French and I'm sure that our experienced translators will have in mind specific best practice guides to turn to. I like your illustration of "un/une adminstra-teur-trice" to show the challenges. The use of "singular they" remains uncomfortable for many English readers, but it has become a recommended standard for journalists writing in English.[1]
Once the principle of gender neutrality is agreed, I just don't know what our next steps will turn out to be for non-English versions. However I am much encouraged by the positive views on Commons, and I'm hopeful we can, and should, find a way to set a better example for our fellow projects in our aim to feel welcoming for all contributors. :-) Links 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they Thanks Fae Wikimedia LGBT+ On 6 April 2017 at 12:30, Antoine Musso <[email protected]> wrote: > Le 05/04/2017 à 12:52, Fæ a écrit : >> I'm taking that further by >> proposing that we stick to a neutral gender for all our policies and >> help pages. In practice this means that policies avoid using "he or >> she" and stick to "they" or avoid using a pronoun at all. > > As a non native English speaker the use of a plural form definitely > confuses me or at best. The example takes a sentence from Commons:FAQ > which roughly looks like: > > A photographer has to be given credit when his or her picture is used. > > With the proposal to instead: > > A photographer has to be given credit when their picture is used. > > Why isn't "picture" plural as well? If using masculine as a neutral > pronoum is the issue, just stop using the pronoum entirely. Eg one can > instead write: > > A photographer has to be given credit when the picture is used. > > > That is going to be quite a challenge when ported to other languages. > For 'A photographer', the english indefinite article is gender less. > > In french that would be either 'un' (masculine) or 'une' (feminine). > What some are advocating is using: > > Un/une photographe > > If the noun varies as well, that becomes messy. Here for 'administrateur': > > Un/une adminstra-teur-trice > > That is not solvable in french and all other latin based languages most > probably have the same issue (blame Rome!). > > > -- > Antoine "hashar" Musso -- [email protected] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
