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 parse this and use these instead of they/them where possible. | ||
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| ### Example | ||
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| ```json | ||
| { | ||
| "avatar_url": "…", "displayname": "…", | ||
| "m.pronouns": [ | ||
| { | ||
| "subject": "it", | ||
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| "object": "it", | ||
| "possessive_determiner": "its", | ||
| "possessive_pronoun": "its", | ||
| "reflexive": "itself", | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. I'm not sure if these fields are a good idea, since they seem to be specific to English and probably aren't compatible with any other language. Also, I'd guess most implementations will simply use It might be better to just have the freeform field. Maybe also an enum (non-freeform string) for preferred grammatical gender, although even that could get complicated. Is there any prior art or research into user-definable pronouns that support internationalization? If the fields are kept as-is, each of them needs to be defined separately, it's not enough to have them in the example. Keeping the fields may also require an implementation actually using them to show they're useful. There was a problem hiding this comment. Thinking more about the enum: it should at least have values
On the implementation side: pronoun information is generally only needed for rendering state events like profile changes ("X changed his/her/their name"), but those state events don't include this profile info. Fetching the full profile for each profile change state event seems like a bad idea. In any case, a freeform field should exist to display when viewing someones profile. If the other fields can't be used effectively, then it may be best to narrow this down to only have the freeform field and nothing else. There was a problem hiding this comment. I think we may want to throw out |
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| "language": "en", | ||
| "summary": "it/its" | ||
| }, | ||
| { | ||
| "subject": "she", | ||
| "object": "her", | ||
| "possessive_determiner": "her", | ||
| "possessive_pronoun": "hers", | ||
| "reflexive": "herself", | ||
| "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 language code, and | ||
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There was a problem hiding this comment. Would ISO 639 language codes work? There was a problem hiding this comment. I think BCP-47 uses ISO 639, but also allows optional subtags for specifying regions (so both There was a problem hiding this comment. I'll switch to BCP-47 then, so there's more flexibility. |
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| clients should render the `summary` for the pronouns. Clients may offer | ||
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| pre-defined sets of common pronouns like she/her, they/them, he/him, it/its, | ||
| etc. | ||
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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?