

Google+ can now hide your gender "in response to user feedback" - bdr
https://plus.google.com/106792630639449031994/posts/5kt9TpEb77m

======
jdp23
Google is clearly listening to user feedback on Plus. This is at least the
third change so far in where I've seen Google folks engage in the initial
discussions, describe their reasoning for why it was initially implemented the
way it was, and (after a few days) come back with changes. Very impressive.

There's a transcript at
[https://plus.google.com/106912596786226524817/posts/KCUbRMKQ...](https://plus.google.com/106912596786226524817/posts/KCUbRMKQ7VP)

~~~
amichail
To enhance privacy further, I hope they will provide a way for people to use
an artificial animated face and voice in hangouts:

[https://plus.google.com/102027212307619239744/posts/4iV2fcm2...](https://plus.google.com/102027212307619239744/posts/4iV2fcm2oKt)

~~~
gokhan
With this change, how do you prevent anonymous trolls in hangouts?

~~~
wccrawford
Don't invite them in the first place? If your hangout is public, you'll get
trolls. There are plenty of ways of faking a camera feed.

------
pkulak
Wow. The people spoke and Google re-wrote all the gender specific language in
their product to listen.

~~~
callahad
As far as I can tell, Google hadn't (yet?) implemented gender-specific
language. E.g. <http://i.imgur.com/1B5rT.png>

~~~
jdp23
Actually they had. From the video:

"One of the major things we use gender information for on Google+ is for
picking gender pronouns - her, his, theirs - when we refer to you. Google is
committed to building products that people all over the world use, and in some
languages gender is much more deeply part of how sentences are formed than in
say, English. Having gender information helps to make Google+ more
conversational. If you decide to make your gender private on Google+, we'll to
use gender-neutral language to describe you whenever someone else encounters
gender-related information about you but doesn't have permission to see your
gender. For example, instead of saying 'Greg added you to his circles' or
'Frances added you to her circles', we'll say 'Greg added you to their
circles' or 'Frances added you to their circles'. Yes, I know this is
grammatically questionable. You don't need to message me about it. We value
helping people control their privacy as being much more important than being
grammatically perfectly."

~~~
hammock
Ctrl-H Find and Replace doesn't seem all that hard.

~~~
jarek
Not all languages will be as simple as s/his/their/ and s/her/their/.

~~~
sheffield
But in English it is. It's acceptable to develop faster for certain (popular)
languages.

~~~
jarek
Absolutely, but I would be surprised if they didn't have some code in the
production version right now to support doubtlessly upcoming translated
versions - perhaps not a full blown declension engine, but it seems unlikely
they'd go English only at the start and retrofit everything later. The code
might not be optimized to just let them do a simple find/replace for English.

~~~
sheffield
The problem of translation should not affect the writing of the original text.

~~~
jarek
For all you know, the "original text" is a mix of "foo bar" and lolspeak.

------
redthrowaway
I wonder what it feels like to be Randall Munroe and have this kind of
influence over the web.

~~~
atomicdog
I wonder what it feels like to be Randall Munroe and have sycophantic fanboys
for a poorly drawn stick-figure webcomic that was briefly funny a couple of
years ago.

~~~
gaius
IMHO the more troubling trend is Randall's perpetuation of the "all men stupid
and evil, all women good and pure" delusion that has infected everything from
the classroom to the workplace to the media.

------
cel
This is good. Now they just need to allow people to use pseudonyms. (maybe.)
[https://plus.google.com/116347431032639424492/posts/Px3uaKZe...](https://plus.google.com/116347431032639424492/posts/Px3uaKZer7D)

~~~
icebraining
You can use pseudonyms, they just need to sound like real names. I'm pretty
sure that Google doesn't ask for an ID card.

If this was the actual policy - and not just the side effect of their
inability to control them - I think it would be reasonable.

------
andrewcooke
no you can't. not yet. at least, i can't.

~~~
mike-cardwell
I can't either. It's stuck on "Anyone on the web".

EDIT: "Starting later this week"

------
nealb
This is nice, but I'd love to see some more important features opened up
instead- things like huddle on mobile web and working video playback in the
Android app would be great.

------
BonoboBoner
Nice to see them react so fast, but I dont get the point about the feature.

Are people really gonna switch a button that lets them hide their gender,
something that can usually be easily found out by looking at the user's
firstname and/or profile picture?

~~~
owenmarshall
Gender isn't just about how you look & what your name is. It's a much more
personal construct. Google+ is respecting that, and should be commended.

------
jigs_up
Bob added you to his list

Bob added you to his or her list

~~~
colinprince
Bob's list now has you on it

------
cies
the gender thing was prominent when signing up for g+, that i think they might
have anticipated this fix + "we do listen"-media-spin on forehand.

~~~
jerf
Occam's razor.

~~~
masterzora
Hanlon seems more appropriate here.

------
Zakuzaa
Google is cool again. Yay!

------
nhangen
Of all the things people want to fight about, it's gender?

~~~
akkartik
Not really fight; it was just weird that of all the fields that could be
mandatory they chose gender.

~~~
joejohnson
I think a possible explanation for this is that they use gender-specific
pronouns in other parts of the site: "he said this...", "she +1'd this...",
etc.

So, I think they needed to re-word more than just the profile section with
gender-neutral pronouns. I don't think this is a trivial task, and maybe
that's why it will take until the end of the week.

~~~
masterzora
Can you point me at a specific place they use gender-specific pronouns? I've
been looking for them since day one and I don't remember seeing any anywhere
on G+. Is it only a non-English thing, or is it some strange situation I've
not seen yet, or have I just missed something obvious?

