Socialight : Presumptive Gender Settings

This site must have been designed by Republicans.

socialight.com

To take full advantage of Flickr, you should use a JavaScript-enabled browser and
install the latest version of the Macromedia Flash Player.

Comments

allaboutgeorge says:

Seconded.
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

antigone78 says:

hahhaha Nice.
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

innonate says:

awww. i agree we need more flexible gender categories (or none)... but the socialight people are good people -- just so everyone knows!
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

factoryjoe says:

So you're saying they're *not* Republicans? I'm sure they're good peeps -- why don't you put me in touch with them? ;)
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

factoryjoe says:

Somewhat better approach (Red Room):

Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

Is it a required setting?

I don't think most transgender people I know would be insulted by this (which is the only category of people I can think of who would be affected, please let me know if I'm missing something). Once they've started presenting as their chosen sex, they prefer to simply be identified as male rather than M2F or trans-male or any of the other complicated terminology.

Or perhaps a couple of male and female sliders would be more appropriate? None of us are completely one sex or the other, you know. =]

EDIT: Just saw the updated comment with a screenshot of Red Room after I'd already hit submit.
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

riddle_ says:

Sophistechate + 1

Political correctness can be blinding. But I’d argue wheter or not to use informal terms, like boy or girl.
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

scott hintz says:

Gender slider -- now that's a sign of modern times!
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

factoryjoe says:

Other examples:

Pownce:

Digg:

iminta:

My biggest question is why they need to know gender? If you ask me, if you gave me a pronoun to improve the UI of the site, that's different:

"Should we refer to you as a "him", "her", or "its"?"
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

m kasahara says:

ha
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

disrupsean says:

Now Chris, why are you presuming that they're referring to gender?

They could be asking about the user's sex. ;)
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

Sophistechate says:

Social networks are supposed to engage users with each other, and we all know that a considerable number of people are more interested in engaging with someone they can potentially mate with. Gender is definitely important. =]

When I first signed up for Pownce, I was amused by the large selection of gender choices (and personalities) I could associate myself with. It would get cheesy and overwhelming if every site took that approach, though.

Creating a gender slider sounds fun, though. Male on one end, female on the other, and creative names in between to give a description of how male or female you are.

I'm desperately searching wikipedia for a description of the gender research I'm talking about , help an 85% girl out if you have a url!
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

me.at.work says:

I don't think "bird" is a very nice option! I am offended that the option is even there on behalf of broads, chicks, and dames everywhere!
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

michaelsharon says:

Hi! I'm one of the developers of Socialight. Thanks for all the gender considerate comments. I do have to say that I don't think any of us is a Republican right now, but I haven't quizzed the office dog yet, and things could change at any moment...

Our gender (er.. sex) chooser contains 3 options: 1) Boy 2) Girl 3) Nothing. This is completely optional and if you don't choose a gender, we don't display anything - it's up to the user to actively select it after they sign up. I agree that this might not be immediately apparent from the UI.

I used "boy" and "girl" as fun alternatives to the boooring "male" and "female" options that were all the rage on other sites. Now, after reading this thread, we're going to implement a gender slider post-haste. After all, these days it's more of a continuum, rather than a binary, lifelong choice.
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

riddle_ says:

Haha, comment of the month :)
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

clagnut says:

It's worth reiterating Chris's point of asking the question "Should we call you 'he' or 'she'?" if interface copy is the only reason for asking the question.
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

squareintheteeth says:

I don't presume to know what odds & ends the "gender" info you're collecting gets used for on your site, but it might be worth considering if "sex" might not be a better term for the class of information the option represents. Gender is more representative of psychology; sex of biology.

These may be things Socialight has already addressed, but it's always a good idea to use terms in vague areas like these in a straightforward, uniform way.
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

sjaylett says:

Gender vs sex is a very difficult distinction, by the way - as far as I know there is no generally accepted set of definitions and distinctions. Since social networks are to do with social interactions, you could label the choice "Please treat me as", "Please address me as", or similar. That should both make it clear how the information is going to be used, and avoid having to use 'gender' or 'sex', which is bound to upset someone (probably someone fairly mainstream, but there do seem to be quite a lot of them...).

Chris's point about "what should we call you" is I think less helpful, because while it satisfies the *interface* requirement (interaction between user and site), it isn't quite as clear whether it will give guidance to other users.

Whatever it's labelled, it should be at least one slider. (Two probably better than one as it copes with androgeny and intersexuality. How you cope with bigender is left as an exercise for the interface designer ;-)
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

Christopher Fahey says:

Knowing the gender mix of a product's user base is important for marketing and advertising purposes, something we interface designers and social media critics often forget. Just sayin'.
Posted 15 months ago. ( permalink )

Would you like to comment?

[?]

	factoryjoe's photostream
		17,926 uploads

Additional Information

Some rights reserved Anyone can see this photo

Taken on May 8, 2008

8 people call this photo a favorite

Viewed 667 times

Add to your map

Yay location removed

...

(Some formats are OK.)

Or, remove it from the map.

Go to the map

You	Sign in \| Create Your Free Account
Explore	Places \| Last 7 Days \| This Month \| Popular Tags \| The Commons \| Creative Commons \| Search
Help	Community Guidelines \| The Help Forum \| FAQ \| Sitemap \| Help by Email

Socialight : Presumptive Gender Settings

Comments

allaboutgeorge says:

antigone78 says:

innonate says:

factoryjoe says:

factoryjoe says:

Sophistechate says:

riddle_ says:

scott hintz says:

factoryjoe says:

m kasahara says:

disrupsean says:

Sophistechate says:

me.at.work says:

michaelsharon says:

riddle_ says:

clagnut says:

squareintheteeth says:

sjaylett says:

Christopher Fahey says:

Would you like to comment?

factoryjoe's photostream

Tags

Additional Information