Re: Neutral language in W3C specifications

> On Jul 22, 2020, at 4:03 AM, Denis Ah-Kang <denis@w3.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Leonie,
> 
> Thank you for your feedback. Sure, we can also add these
> pronouns to the list of terms to detect.
> Do you have a preference or suggestion as to what our guidance
> to the editors should be in those cases?

Use case documents are often written with stories that describe specific people (e.g., Sally, John, etc.) (see [1], for example). In generally, I think it’s good that stories can relate to individuals, but in these cases removing personal pronouns, or always using a neutral “they” might interfere with the flow of the narative. Has this been considered as part of the style guide? Is there any specific advice on writing use cases documents in a gender-neutral way?

Gregg

[1] https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-use-cases/ <https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-use-cases/>

> Denis
> 
> 
> On 7/22/20 1:21 PM, Léonie Watson wrote:
>> Denis, this is a really positive step, thank you to you and the team.
>> One suggestion - is it possible for PubRules to check for gender specific pronouns (he/she, him/her etc.) too?
>> They are rare in specifications, but do sometimes feature as part of use cases or examples.
>> Léonie.
>> On 22/07/2020 09:40, Denis Ah-Kang wrote:
>>> Dear editors and chairs,
>>> 
>>> In order to offer the best environment possible to its
>>> community, W3C is supporting the push for a more inclusive and
>>> neutral language, especially in our specifications.
>>> 
>>> In the upcoming weeks, pubrules [1] will show a warning if
>>> terms like "master", "slave", "grandfather", "sanity" or
>>> "dummy" are detected in a specification and this will also
>>> be reflected in the Manual of style [2] with a list of
>>> alternatives.
>>> Note, since it may take time for the editors to change the
>>> branch name "master" to something else, we will not flag the
>>> URLs containing that word in the first place.
>>> 
>>> Going forward, we will audit all the specification repositories
>>> and open issues if they contain problematic terms.
>>> 
>>> Let me know if you have any comments/suggestions.
>>> 
>>> Denis
>>> W3C Systems team
>>> 
>>> [1] https://www.w3.org/pubrules/
>>> [2] https://w3c.github.io/manual-of-style/
>>> 
>