It's personal

[azurelunatic]

My profound thanks to whoever was wearing the sanity hat tonight, and it's a distinct improvement on the previous 10 years as well! ♥


(Context for those who missed it: the embattled "unspecified" gender choice on LJ got re-labeled via the translation system to "It's personal", and then someone who was wearing the sanity hat re-re-labeled it to "unspecified/other", but not before news exploded.)

Comments

[angelikitten]

Is it okay if I link to this to let people know?

(I went to a wedding and missed all of this, so I haven't been able to post anything yet XD)

[azurelunatic]

Sure, as long as you don't cite me as an Official Source (that's frowned on, and I don't actually know the backstory of how it all happened, just some putting together of pieces from publicly accessible information), and there are also some people down in the comments here who know from the translation system, and they're saying that the change may take a good while to show up, as there is significant cached information between different LJ servers (so clearing your own cache won't help) and translation strings are a part of that.

[pauamma]

I wish they'd make up their minds on *something*. *wanders off to reupdate his translation*

[kennahijja]

Actually, I'd much like both the 'other' and 'it's personal' categories - because even if it's not other, it's bloody well personal...

[azurelunatic]

I agree that it would be great to have those as separate options. Unfortunately, there are still only the three, and the person who took it upon themselves to change it managed to change it from something that somewhat awkwardly and uncomfortably covered anyone who didn't set "male" or "female" for whatever reason, and changed it to only cover the people who were not sharing because that piece of information was personal to them, excluding everyone who had picked that setting for other reasons. Let's hear it for Team Not Thinking Things Through All The Way In The Name Of Making Things Better Who Then Gets Huffy When Called On It.

[celtic_maenad]

part of my disgust with the "oh look, my gender now says 'it's personal'" issue is that in a response to a query at the time of the previous kerfluffle, the LJ team said "At this time, the code you reference is not live on the site, and will not become so in the future." I read that as saying that the change wouldn't happen at all. And yet (at least for a short while) it did.
Maybe it was a programming mistake, but I thought that's what beta servers are for - to *catch* that kind of mistake before they go live. *headshake* I'm more & more glad for Dreamwidth each week. :}

[pauamma]

I think they were referring to the "answering is mandatory" code?

[celtic_maenad]

Ah. Okay. I can see that interpretation. Still, I am tired and more than tired of the (to my eyes) poor decision making process over there.

[azurelunatic]

Yeah, that sounds like they were referring to the specific patch that was being complained about to make answering mandatory with male and female as the choices.

If I were going to be a rules-lawyer about it, I would point out that the phrasing in question does not preclude another patch serving the same purpose.

There is another patch checked into changelog that appears to make picking one of the *three* options mandatory at the time of account creation, vs. having unspecified as the default and leaving it that way, so if one is going to have one's gender unspecified to LJ, one would have to consciously pick this.

Is it possible the re-re-label only affected *part* of LJ?

[elke_tanzer]

Because my journal's profile there is currently showing "It's personal".

Re: Is it possible the re-re-label only affected *part* of LJ?

[sophie]

As is mine. And it's not an en_LJ/en_GB thing, since they both show it.

I guess it might be memcached, since I don't see any re-re-re-labelling - in which case it'll take a little bit of time for the change to take effect, but it'll do so automatically soon enough.

[edit: BTW, I assume you mean your Edit Profile screen is showing it, not your actual profile? That's what I was meaning in this comment, but I just wanted to check.]

Re: Is it possible the re-re-label only affected *part* of LJ?

[elke_tanzer]

Yep... I am looking at the Edit Profile screen.

Thanks for the additional info.

Re: Is it possible the re-re-label only affected *part* of LJ?

[janinedog]

Yeah, I'm guessing it's memcache...I actually still see the version of "It's personal" that has the smartquote apostrophe, which according to the translation diff was changed before this most recent change. So we're actually two versions back (or, well, I am). We'll see if it changes in the next day or so.

Re: Is it possible the re-re-label only affected *part* of LJ?

[exor674]

process cache, actually. But yes. Dang caching!

(the translate interface deletes the key from memcache, but not from the process cache)

Re: Is it possible the re-re-label only affected *part* of LJ?

[janinedog]

That seems like a bug...maybe someone will fix it at some point. :)

Re: Is it possible the re-re-label only affected *part* of LJ?

[exor674]

How do you expect to notify a very large group of Apaches? ( yeah, there are ways, but... ) { and the 'very large' isn't an issue on *DW* but... you get my point }

As I understand it, the ml strings are process cached to reduce memcache roundtrips on things that are used * a lot*, so having to check memcache for a flag to see if we should use the ml strings would just be stupid.

Re: Is it possible the re-re-label only affected *part* of LJ?

[azurelunatic]

Depending on the ways, would it make sense to have the "ways" take effect every time something is put out with a "require translation update" level thing?

[norabombay]

Woot. I'm glad that got more or less fixed.

[fairestcat]

Add me to the list of people who still aren't seeing a change.

When I look in the edit profile page, my gender options are still Male, Female and It's personal

[azurelunatic]

Dre and Janine know from the translation interface, and apparently this is hella cached on LJ's side: http://azurelunatic.dreamwidth.org/6362655.html?thread=11527711#cmt11527711

[brownbetty]

Please take my “Oh LJ, you waffling assholes” as read, and:

Neat! I didn't know you could get language diffs like that! Is there a search-building interface, or do you have to know exactly what you want and how to get there?

[azurelunatic]

I know that there's a search thing somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure where or how to find anything in it. One of my compatriots sent me the link in IM last night. (There was a group including LJ volunteers, DW volunteers, cross-site people, and other affiliated interested parties up collectively facepalming last night.)

[azurelunatic]

(I've screened this comment of my own, and its thread, because it contains my tactless assumptions and discussion building on those.)

[trobadora]

and then someone who was wearing the sanity hat re-re-labeled it to "unspecified/other"

Oh, good. Phew.

FYI: No change yet

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

As of 11:44am Eastern time, my gender still reads, "It's personal" -- and I have written to complain.

Re: FYI: No change yet

[azurelunatic]

Janine and Dre, who are both pretty familiar with the inner workings of LJ and LJ-based sites (Janine is a former LJ employee and the wife of one of the Dreamwidth owners, and Dre is a Dreamwidth developer, previously an LJ volunteer) say that this is due to the translation strings being cached on LJ's end to reduce load.

[sushimustwrite.livejournal.com]

I like how someone added a period to "It's personal" before changing it back. Hooray grammar!

[azurelunatic]

They also changed the apostrophe from a "smart" one to a plain one.

[mlady-rebecca.livejournal.com]

Do you know if LJ has plans to display gender, or is it just a behind-the-scenes thing?

[azurelunatic]

I haven't the foggiest. The only other thing that I recall seeing about gender recently (like, not in December) was something in Changelog that looks like it's changing how gender selection is handled on account setup.

Currently, I believe that the default is the unspecified option (whatever it's being called today) and one selects male or female, or leaves it default.

The patch I saw looks like it would have a blank default, and require someone to choose between the three options (male, female, and whatever they're calling unspecified today), so someone would have to put some small amount of thought into it.

[mlady-rebecca.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a blank default is the safe bet considering how many possible interpretations there are for the third option.

I had forgotten I had even picked something for gender, given it wasn't displaying anywhere obvious.

[lady-angelina.livejournal.com]

Definitely a step in the right direction. yes. ^__^ It seems a little backpedally, but like you said, better than what's been there for the past decade.

[azurelunatic]

Given that I suspect that this was done by one person with means, motive, and opportunity, I think backpedalling frantically is exactly the right thing to do here.

[dwell.livejournal.com]

no comment on the circumstances surrounding the change.

i just wanted to bow down to you for your even-keeled and so very helpful comments in the news post, even though it was a change that personally *was/is* offensive to you! i couldn't have handled it nearly as well as you did and i'm sure you really helped temper as much outrage as was possible!

*sigh*. hope your weekend was much better than all of this.

bt

[zarhooie.livejournal.com]

Azz is wonderfully composed in all things, except where they concern chickens.

(PS: bt, thank you for your continued use of the Sanity Stick.)

[azurelunatic]

Heh. I did that mostly by keeping the less-than-helpful ones to other venues, and zarhooie has discovered that she actually holds veto power for any "brilliant ideas" of mine that are actually likely to result in me getting overall more cranky and winding up in the sort of yelling tower of stress that she will have to pull me down from.

Also I've had years of Enduring suggestions. Though I admit that there was a moment or two when I was yelling FOR THE LOVE OF BLINKIE, JD, YOU HAVE THE PRIV, PUT IT BACK PUT IT BACK PUT IT BACK in a side channel.

Then after I realized that it had been not just put back, but improved upon, my evening became remarkably better, it became less about WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK and more about making sure that people were acquainted with how the translation system actually works (http://qdb.zhzh.org/dw/73, http://www.livejournal.com/directory.bml?int_like=%24lj::will_not_work_without_steam_radiator&opt_pagesize=100&start_search=1), and I still had time to make a grocery run before Trader Joe's closed.

Still got to do a suggestions run, though, and take care of all the things that I discovered in setting the first half of 2006 to historical.

[azurelunatic]

Change 4 seems to have happened sometime overnight, and involved de-capitalizing the 'o' in 'other'; cosmetic change, that.

The real WTF is the Russian translation: I am baffled, profoundly baffled, by why whoever got into the Russian translation is doing it in English. http://www.livejournal.com/translate/diff.bml?lang=ru&it=1:6084&change=5

My profile is back to c'thia now.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

As of 2 AM GMT on 2/2/2010, "It's personal." is still up.

Not okay.

[azurelunatic]

Ack.

By this time, if you're still seeing that, it's probably time to make an inquiry with support, where someone who knows more about this than me can take a look. More than 48 hours for a change that's been made to take effect is worrisome.

I'm currently seeing "Unspecified/other" on my own profile, and gameboyguy13 reported the same an hour or two before I did.