Gender field

[Saorsa]

How do I opt not to show my gender? There is a "Not Specified" option in the Gender field of the Profile setup, but if I select that, then click Submit, I get an error message: "The field “Gender” must be completed."
I see people posting without M/F specified, so there must be a workaround! Any ideas?
Thank you!

[Lily]

go to user control panel -> look to the left side -> edit profile. I get it there.

[Bracken]

Hi. We've had this before. You can't opt not to show your gender. You are not the first to have asked, and for good reason, too. I haven't got a clue how to change it, and I'm not sure anybody else does. Any ideas, anybody?

5 mins later... I have a memory of being told that if you specify your gender when you first sign up, you can never change it, but if you choose 'not specified' that first time, you'll be ok. I don't know if that's right or not.

[Selene]

I'm pretty sure that what Bracken says is the way it used to be, but it doesn't seem to work that way now. I just created a test account and tried to not specify my gender--no luck. So I entered "female" and went into my profile to edit it--no luck there, either. Either way it tells me that gender must be specified. I even tried going into the test account through the admin panel and I can't even use my admin privileges to hide the gender. My guess is that those with genders unspecified created their accounts under a different incarnation of the software...although I may be missing something obvious that others have figured out. Perhaps if there is a way, someone will post the work-around here.

[Bracken]

Thanks, Selene.

[Saorsa]

Thank you Selene, Bracken and Lily for the detective work. Is there someone I can contact to help get this changed? The "Not Specified" option is there, just seems to be broken.

Aside from the privacy/security issues, I'm intrigued: does Druidry place an emphasis on static gender polarities? I'd have imagined not, and hope not, but I'm new around here ~ just reading the first Gwers.

eta: I've a very quick look on the phpBB site (https://www.phpbb.com) as that's what we seem to be running on - there's a few threads there on the gender field, but they all seem to be asking how to make it compulsory to view. I'll go back and dig some more if no-one comes forward.

[Selene]

Saorsa, unfortunately we do not have someone who can troubleshoot the software. This is something we've been trying to remedy but as yet have no one with the time and expertise to sort things out.

As far as static gender polarity, I'd say no, Druidry does not place an emphasis on that. But don't take my word for it -- post this question in Discuss Druidry where more people will see it and see what kind of discussion develops.

[Saorsa]

Ah, okay Selene. I don't currently know how the phpBB system/scripting works, but could probably wrap my head around it with some study, if/when you have someone on the inside to make it all go. In the meantime I will flip the gender field to it's opposite whenever I remember!

I'll post the polarities question as you suggest at some point, but first it's back to lurking for a bit. 'Til the next time...

[Kima]

Aside from the privacy/security issues, I'm intrigued: does Druidry place an emphasis on static gender polarities? I'd have imagined not, and hope not, but I'm new around here ~ just reading the first Gwers.

I think you can navigate the gender binary in druidry but it often annoys me. The consensus seems to be that there are male/female polarities although they are balanced differently among individuals. Personnally, I wish even those distinctions were more marginal in druidry, but you'll hear this very often.

[Explorer]

Aside from the privacy/security issues, I'm intrigued: does Druidry place an emphasis on static gender polarities? I'd have imagined not, and hope not, but I'm new around here ~ just reading the first Gwers.

I think you can navigate the gender binary in druidry but it often annoys me. The consensus seems to be that there are male/female polarities although they are balanced differently among individuals. Personnally, I wish even those distinctions were more marginal in druidry, but you'll hear this very often.

I don't think there is a fixed rule for that in druidry, we tend to take almost everything a bit lightly.
Personally I do value male/female polarities in druidry (and in life) in some cases. It's not always relevant, but sometimes it is very relevant me.
But I don't mind if others don't... as long as those others don't mind that I do .

[Merlyn]

Best I know, this and many message boards are HTML format, which by today's standards is antique technology. I would expcet that the right expert could add-in a bit of code offereing gender alternatives, or change the need to specify to an option. Alas the people who know this kind of code are few and far between.

[reilz81]

if memory serves theres a sql database that needs changing also but thats no hard task.