https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=171970
Bug ID: 171970
Summary: The name “User Data” is inaccurate and forces a gender
in many translations; please rename to
“Identity”/“Profile”
Product: LibreOffice
Version: Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All
OS: All
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Severity: normal
Priority: medium
Component: LibreOffice
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
1. Gender neutrality
In many Romance languages (like Spanish, French, or Italian) and Slavic
languages, the word for "User" is grammatically gendered, usually defaulting to
the masculine («Usuario», « Utilisateur », «Пользователь»).
Translating “User Data” forces the UI to choose a gendered noun, which can feel
exclusionary, because some people (deliberately or not) conflate grammatical
gender with personal gender (hashtag sexism 🙄). A way to solve that is changing
that to a noun that refers to the *concept* rather than the *person*.
“Identity” («Identidad», « Identité », «Identità») bypasses the need to gender
the human behind the screen, which makes the UI more universal.
2. Psychological Ownership vs. Utility
“User Data” suggests the person is a subject being tracked. “Identity” is more
humanistic and suggests agency and self-expression; implies the
options/preferences belong to your digital self.
3. Precision and scope
Renaming to “Identity” better defines what these settings actually do.
“User Data” has been used since StarOffice times, but in the meantime this term
has gained more broad connotations, especially due to the rise of
privacy-invasive software. Does “User Data” include my device? Is it used for
analytics and tracking?
Also, technically, in Star/Open/LibreOffice, “user data” includes personal
templates and settings as well. When that’s exposed in the UI and help, we talk
about that being part of a “profile”, which is a precise term that can be
further used in those cases that don’t merit talking about “identity”. “User
Data” conflates both and is vague and confusing.
4. Alignment to existing localizations
LibreOffice’s French translations have, for years already, transformed this to
« Données d’identité »:
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/translate/libo_ui-master/cuimessages/fr/?checksum=dc40fa4f74388a6d,
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/translate/libo_ui-master/sfx2messages/fr/?checksum=88f800aef94ef013,
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/translate/libo_help-master/textsharedoptionen/fr/?checksum=65e3a825e4d42793,
https://translations.documentfoundation.org/translate/libo_help-master/textsharedautopi/fr/?checksum=91a56a5490c332bd
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the bug.
