a true neutral term for "user" in french in software and on User Page
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	Scriptance
	Apr 4 2021, 8:04 PM

Description

when picking "il/elle" he/she" the software use "utilisateur" (=masculine form)
the User Page is named "utilisateur" and the term to create link is "utilisateur"
it should be possible to have automatically (in fact: integrated in the software) a true neutral form
actually we had to make it manually, and it's difficult (to avoid issues, for my case, a more experimented user did it for me)
but there's still the line:

to create a link, use "utilisateur:"

but it should be a true neutral form.

I'd be glad you change the software to give for "il/elle" a true neutral form
a true neutral form can be:

utilisataire
utilisateurice
utilisateur·trice
wikipédiste
wikipédian

Related Objects

Mentioned Here: T61643: Provide further options than only binary gender

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Scriptance created this task.Apr 4 2021, 8:04 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptApr 4 2021, 8:04 PM

Hi @Scriptance, thanks for taking the time to report this and welcome to Wikimedia Phabricator!

Regarding the pronoun, going to for example https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spécial:Préférences#mw-prefsection-personal , it says Il/elle modifie des pages du wiki (Le logiciel utilisera quand c’est possible des mots de genre neutre pour vous mentionner). This translation is defined in https://translatewiki.net/wiki/MediaWiki:Gender-notknown/fr and could be changed by French translators on the translatewiki.net website.

Regarding changing the word "utilisateur", this would require changing translations in several (many) strings. Terms like "wikipédiste" or "wikipédian" would only refer to a single website and would not work for example on French Wiktionary (this could be done by local overwriting in French Wikipedia though, if wanted by the French Wikipedia community).
French translators are welcome to use gender neutral language to make French strings more welcoming for everyone.
These two things would be nothing to solve in the code. The translations of strings would have to be changed, and those translations are done on the translatewiki.net website. You could create an account there. For more information, see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Translatewiki.net

Now regarding the term included in URLs / links such as https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Scriptance , this would require changes in MediaWiki code itself, in the file https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/source/mediawiki/browse/master/languages/messages/MessagesFr.php , which defines stuff such as

NS_USER             => 'Utilisateur',
NS_USER_TALK        => 'Discussion_utilisateur',
'Discussion_Utilisateur' => NS_USER_TALK,

This likely would require some community consensus first which translation to use. Please see and follow https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requesting_wiki_configuration_changes for more information. Thanks a lot!

@Aklapper Thanks a lot to! Great and clear explainations.

Edit, I see there's no 3rd option (like NB, enby, non-binary, neutral,, "other" ) in the lines code ( {{citation|$namespaceGenderAliases = [

		NS_USER => [ 'male' => 'Utilisateur', 'female' => 'Utilisatrice' ],
		NS_USER_TALK => [ 'male' => 'Discussion_utilisateur', 'female' => 'Discussion_utilisatrice' ],

]; }} but it should be have one. Add this wouldn't be the easiest way? (after consultation+ consensus). Thanks a lot.

For implementing a third option, see comments such as T61643#601119

In Portuguese, the default namespace name is "Usuário(a)", with the gendered options being "Usuário" and "Usuária". Something similar can be done for French.

For those interested, it seems discussion takes place in https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipédia:Sondage/Renommage_de_l'espace_Utilisateur

Psychoslave subscribed.Aug 27 2021, 10:12 AM

a true neutral term for "user" in french in software and on User PageOpen, Stalled, Needs TriagePublicActions

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a true neutral term for "user" in french in software and on User Page
Open, Stalled, Needs TriagePublic
Actions