MSC4247: User Pronouns #4247
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| # MSC4247: User Pronouns | ||||||
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| Many users of Matrix put pronouns in display names. However, that causes screen | ||||||
| clutter. This proposal defines a standardized pronouns field on top of | ||||||
| [MSC4133](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/4133). | ||||||
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| ## Proposal | ||||||
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| Profiles may have an optional `m.pronouns` field as an | ||||||
| array. These fields can be fetched through the | ||||||
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| [profile API endpoints](https://spec.matrix.org/unstable/client-server-api/#profiles). | ||||||
| Clients should use these instead of they/them where possible. All fields | ||||||
| within `m.pronouns` are optional, exluding `"language"` and `"summary"`. | ||||||
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Suggested change
(since there is only one more field, it might be better to reverse the wording of this sentence and say that all are required except grammatical gender) |
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| ### Example | ||||||
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| ```json | ||||||
| { | ||||||
| "avatar_url": "…", "displayname": "…", | ||||||
| "m.pronouns": [ | ||||||
| { | ||||||
| "grammatical_gender": "inanimate", | ||||||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. What grammatical genders are available? I think they need to be enumerated. I don't know what grammatical gender "they/them" would be, for example. I also think they need to be prefixed ( There was a problem hiding this comment. Some languages distinguish between "animate" and "inanimate" so @everypizza1 may want to consider whether it's important to consider bot accounts as "inanimate" or whether we just anthropomorphise every user, but from brief research into a few African, Asian, and European languages, I think this should cover most of them: {
"m.pronouns": [
{
"grammatical_pattern": "masculine",
"forms": {
"en": {
"subject": "he",
"object": "him",
"possessive_determiner": "his",
"possessive_pronoun": "his",
"reflexive": "himself",
"dependent": "him"
}
},
"display": { "en": "he/him" }
},
{
"grammatical_pattern": "feminine",
"forms": {
"en": {
"subject": "she",
"object": "her",
"possessive_determiner": "her",
"possessive_pronoun": "hers",
"reflexive": "herself",
"dependent": "her"
}
},
"display": { "en": "she/her" }
},
{
"grammatical_pattern": "neuter",
"forms": {
"en": {
"subject": "it",
"object": "it",
"possessive_determiner": "its",
"possessive_pronoun": "its",
"reflexive": "itself",
"dependent": "it"
}
},
"display": { "en": "it/its" }
},
{
"grammatical_pattern": "common",
"forms": {
"sv": {
"subject": "hen",
"object": "hen",
"possessive_determiner": "hens",
"possessive_pronoun": "hens",
"reflexive": "sig",
"dependent": "hen"
}
},
"display": { "sv": "hen/hens" }
},
{
"grammatical_pattern": "plural",
"forms": {
"en": {
"subject": "they",
"object": "them",
"possessive_determiner": "their",
"possessive_pronoun": "theirs",
"reflexive": "themself",
"dependent": "them"
}
},
"display": { "en": "they/them" }
},
{
"grammatical_pattern": "epicene",
"forms": {
"en": {
"subject": "ze",
"object": "zir",
"possessive_determiner": "zir",
"possessive_pronoun": "zirs",
"reflexive": "zirself",
"dependent": "zir"
}
},
"display": { "en": "ze/zir" }
},
{
"grammatical_pattern": "none",
"forms": {
"fi": {
"subject": "hän",
"object": "häntä",
"possessive_determiner": "hänen",
"possessive_pronoun": "hänen",
"reflexive": "itsensä",
"dependent": "hänen"
}
},
"display": { "fi": "hän/häntä" }
}
]
}There are extra forms not covered here, e.g. some languages have "noble" versions, but this MSC might want to just state an assumption that a chat protocol does not necessarily need or want to record the nobility level of the user 🙂 There was a problem hiding this comment.
It's not just bot accounts that would have that - some users also use inanimate pronouns. The extended classes of pronouns will probably end up being removed, because most users will just want the summary and grammatical gender. |
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| "language": "en", | ||||||
| "summary": "it/its" | ||||||
| }, | ||||||
| { | ||||||
| "grammatical_gender": "feminine" | ||||||
| "language": "en", | ||||||
| "summary": "she/her" | ||||||
| } | ||||||
| ] | ||||||
| } | ||||||
| ``` | ||||||
| The example uses it/its pronouns followed by she/her pronouns, both in English. | ||||||
| The array is ordered by preference, `language` should be a | ||||||
| [BCP-47](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/bcp/bcp47.txt) language code, and | ||||||
| clients should render the `summary` for the pronouns. Clients SHOULD use the | ||||||
| `grammatical_gender` if possible in state events. For example, "Alice changed | ||||||
| her avatar" for `feminine` or "Alex changed its avatar" for `inanimate`. | ||||||
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| ## Potential issues | ||||||
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| Some users may not want to publish pronouns to others, although that is out of | ||||||
| scope for this MSC. Some users may also complain about "woke", although | ||||||
| pronouns are a basic part of langauge. | ||||||
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| ## Security issues | ||||||
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| None. | ||||||
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| ## Unstable prefix | ||||||
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| Clients and servers wishing to implement this early may use | ||||||
| `io.fsky.nyx.pronouns`. | ||||||
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Implementation requirements:
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Conduwuit already supports this by supporting arbitrary fields in #4133 so I'd assume this MSC only requires a client implementation that can read/write the field?
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With tulir/gomuks#574, Gomuks supports rendering pronouns (setting them is not implemented in the UI yet, but is supported on the backend).