# Gender does not display anymore when hovering over the user's avatar



## Peterdg

In a recent thread there was some confusion because a female forero was addressed as being a man. Not that it led to any uncomfortable situation (at least, I don't think so), but someone made the remark that the gender of a user was not visible anymore when hovering over the user's avatar and if that were available, it could have prevented the mistake. You can still see the gender of a user (if he/she has selected it in his/her profile) if you browse to the user's profile, so the information  is still available but it is not readily available anymore from the forums.

I think this function disappeared pretty recently (just a personal impression). 

My question is: would it be possible to reinstate this function?


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## mkellogg

I see. I've added the male/female "bathroom icons" to the info when you hover over the username. Let me know if you notice any problems.


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## Paulfromitaly

mkellogg said:


> I see. I've added the male/female "bathroom icons" to the info when you hover over the username. Let me know if you notice any problems.


Those icons look identical to me..
Perhaps these look better?

♂ ♀


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## Nanon

@mkellogg , I see the female icon for Peter, Paul... and you .
 And for me too, as expected .


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## bearded

Paulfromitaly said:


> Perhaps these look better?
> ♂ ♀


They would indeed be much clearer.


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## Peterdg

As it is right now, I don't see any difference either between male and female.


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## mkellogg

Ah, found the problem. Look again now!


Paulfromitaly said:


> ♂ ♀


I didn't like those. They are too gray. I couldn't get them to be bold and I used to be confused between the two of them. The other option was the "restroom" symbols. That got me thinking that the Mars ♂ and Venus ♀ symbols are never used for restrooms, probably because enough other people get confused. Hopefully, they are obvious now.


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## Peterdg

I can now see a difference, although you almost need a magnifier glass to see it.

I also like the icons proposed by Paul better. Now, it just looks like a little puppet and if you don't know why it is there, it is not obvious at all that it shows the gender of the user.

Before it just said "male" or "female" in plain letters. That's at least clear.


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## Paulfromitaly

They look different now, but only if I look very carefully. I think it's hard to tell the difference, especially on mobile phones.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Who cares (about the user's age, either)? If they want to post these data, they will; if they don't, they won't. Writing 'Male'/'Female'* (and their age*) in their native language if they choose to do so, as Peterg says, is simplest, I think.
*After all, this information is optional, not obligatory.


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## Graciela J

mkellogg said:


> That got me thinking that the Mars ♂ and Venus ♀ symbols are never used for restrooms, probably because enough other people get confused.



Or perhaps because not everybody knows their meaning.


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## machadinho

mkellogg said:


> I didn't like those. They are too gray.


Those symbols you're discussing (♂ ♀) are Unicode characters, not icons. So how they are rendered in terms of color and shape depends on what system you are using. They look black and white as any other character on my laptop but blue and pink on my phone. And _that_ is an issue.

Screenshot:


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## tunaafi

The symbols look OK to me now.


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## velisarius

Why should it be necessary to reveal our gender if we don't want it revealed?

Ah, I see that anyone who didn't reveal their gender on their profile is still unrevealed. I like it when they keep us guessing.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Anyway, I've lost track -- how many genders are there now, offcially?


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## velisarius

On WRF it appears to be only two. I'm not sure like the little dress on the female icon; I haven't worn a dress for a good many years, - too old, too arthritic.


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## Nanon

I would say three: female, male, and void


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## bearded

Welcome to the forum, sneazzy95



sneazzy95 said:


> I would personally go for : Female, Male, & Other


What should the icon for ''other'' look like?


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## machadinho

We should probably drop the icons and allow users to describe in words what they are if they want to.


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## Aliph

@ mkellog I am on a tablet and fortunately I see one of the three options: male, female, no information. I have to click on the “about” button. That’s ok for me. You can add “other” if somebody  feels left out.
I do not like bathroom icons.


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## Olaszinhok

sneazzy95 said:


> I would personally go for : Female, Male, & Other


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## Aliph

Now the icons for female and male are visible also on a tablet. But they are so hard to distinguish.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

"Male", "Female", and "None Of Your Business"?  

Bur I see that while we are correctly using the adjectives 'male' and 'female', we still prudishly say 'gender' (a grammatical term for which the corresponding adjectives are 'masculine' and 'feminine') instead of 'sex' (a biological term).


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## Peterdg

ain'ttranslationfun? said:


> we still prudishly say 'gender'


I'm saying "gender" because that is what the option in the WR profile section says.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Yes, it was just an observation on the nomenclature used.


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