Re: Neutral language in W3C specifications

The WoT WG had exactly this issue in an explainer video we are working on.   We recently updated our script to avoid being gender (or race) biased.   See:
ORIGINAL: https://github.com/w3c/wot-marketing/blob/master/material/wot_explainer_notes.md

FINAL: https://github.com/w3c/wot-marketing/blob/master/material/wot_explainer_script.md

Michael McCool

On 2020-07-29, 2:43 PM, "Léonie Watson" <lwatson@tetralogical.com> wrote:

    On 29/07/2020 17:53, Gregg Kellogg wrote:
    >> On Jul 22, 2020, at 4:03 AM, Denis Ah-Kang <denis@w3.org 
    >> <mailto: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?

    We're exploring this in the ID CG [2], and I hope we'll be able to 
    provide some guidance around this in due course. The rest of this email 
    is just my own point of view.

    I agree that it is helpful when user stories are personalised, if 
    they're not they really cease to become user stories.

    I think there are two things to consider:

    1. Is there a single user story or a collection?
    2. Does gender identification change the user story?

    In documents with many user stories, like the example at [1], then 
    balance is the important thing I think. The key is for people to be able 
    to relate to the user stories, so having a balance of gender identities 
    (and other characteristics) is likely to mean more people find the user 
    stories relevant.

    If there is just one user story then I think making it as inclusive as 
    it can be is important,  and choosing a gender neutral identity is 
    probably the way to do it.

    "Sally is a developer who uses SVG as part of her job..."

    Doesn't lose anything if it becomes:

    "Alex is a developer who uses SVG as part of their job..."

    There are times when the gender of the person in a user story is 
    important, but in the context of W3C I can't think of one that applies 
    to technical standards!


    Léonie.

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

    [2] https://github.com/w3c/idcg/issues/17


    > 
    >> 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/

    >>>>
    >>
    > 

    -- 
    Director @TetraLogical
    https://tetralogical.com

Received on Wednesday, 29 July 2020 19:00:39 UTC