Gender switcher in localised documentation

[randomguy-2650]

Discussed in a review comment in #12497 when deciding if gendering is necessary in localised Astro documentation.

randomguy-2650

Herzlichen Glückwunsch! Du bist jetzt Astro-Entwickler:in! 🎉

Could be like this? But it also has to be applied to the rest of the Astro and Starlight docs, so not sure.

It can also occasionally get really long in sentences that use lots of masculine forms.

trueberryless

I think we should stick to our plan of including a banner or aside somewhere in the German docs (most likely index page) with info that we decided not to gender everywhere to enhance readability. So everyone is always included. I think that is okay, isn’t it?

randomguy-2650

This switcher may not make sense at all, but maybe there could be a dropdown in the navbar to choose male, female or non-binary forms, and a component is implemented to switch between them, kinda like this?

<GenderSwitcher>
    <span slot="male">Entwickler</span>
    <span slot="female">Entwicklerin</span>
    <span slot="non-binary">Entwickler:in</span>
</GenderSwitcher>

But this system might be overcomplicated and unnecessary, so a banner could work as an alternative.

If this makes sense, this can also be implemented in other languages like French that also gender if necessary.

trueberryless

That’s actually an awesome idea, however, let’s maybe bring this either up as an issue or in Talking and Doc’ing or just both. Cause I think it should be consistent in all languages. Would you ([at]randomguy-2650) mind creating a dedicated issue for this? I think the example is pretty good already to get the point, we would just need to think about where to put it (header, ToC, what on mobile devices?) and if it is necessary (for what languages would it be needed?). Maybe a Discord poll would be helpful for that. Also would be nice if the switch then just shows in languages that need it. I didn't think much about implementation at this point so it could be somewhat difficult 🤔

But all in all, definitely seems like a dedicated issue to me 👍

louisescher

I totally agree, this actually sounds amazing. I’ll definitely bring this up with the other maintainers and on T&D!

randomguy-2650

That’s actually an awesome idea, however, let's maybe bring this either up as an issue or in Talking and Doc'ing or just both. Cause I think it should be consistent in all languages. Would you ([at]randomguy-2650) mind creating a dedicated issue for this? I think the example is pretty good already to get the point, we would just need to think about where to put it (header, ToC, what on mobile devices?) and if it is necessary (for what languages would it be needed?). Maybe a Discord poll would be helpful for that. Also would be nice if the switch then just shows in languages that need it. I didn’t think much about implementation at this point so it could be somewhat difficult 🤔

But all in all, definitely seems like a dedicated issue to me 👍

It would make sense to put it in the navbar next to the language and colour scheme selectors and at the bottom of that navigation menu on mobile.

But I’m not sure if it really makes sense to integrate this directly into Starlight, it might fit better as an add-on or a component like the customised tabs in the sidebar of Astro’s Docs.

[sarah11918]

Just commenting to say that I don't think we'd be interested in implementing a gender switcher. I can't really see anyone using it? And it's a lot to maintain and makes authoring difficult.

I also don't think (though, admittedly I'm not German!) that any kind of banner/notification is required. There must be some kind of academic standards for publishing that exists that you can choose from. Imagine that you were publishing a book in print. How would it be written?

[randomguy-2650]

Many radio channels a such basically use the masculine form, but I have seen incisive forms being used more often recently.

And this maybe is quite a bit interesting…

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_star

This is maybe why I brought up this topic on Discord anyways, and the solutions always have pros and cons, so…

[sarah11918]

Yeah, it's worth mentioning! And sorry I didn't mention that in my first post. It's considerate of y'all to consider the inclusivity! But building and authoring components isn't something we want to maintain. (We were this close to deleting all the outdated German translations because no one had been working on this language in well over a year! Don't make the maintenance any more difficult! 😅 )

This should be treated like written/published info, and I'm happy for y'all to decide which standard to use for your language! It can be old and stuffy, or it can be something more modern, but it should above all be readable. So, I'd say choose something that wouldn't be "surprising" or "offputting" to native German speakers. I know in English, we often go back and forth using differently-gendered names for examples, but in a language like French, typically the plurals will default to masculine etc. And, no one is "surprised" when things default to masculine in those languages. I'd say everyone should play it that way appropriate for their language, too.