On 18 July 2012 11:56, Carcharoth <[email protected]> wrote:

> And I don't think the cases where it is
> unclear or a matter of privacy (a vanishingly small number) should
> preclude the obvious cases being done. It doesn't seem quite right
> that the potential for arguments over edge cases and how to handle
> them sensitively, would preclude being able to search by gender.

Well, OK. As far as I can see, the standard infobox for people does
not include a field M/F. Within [[Category:Actors]], where the
WikiProject specifies use of an infobox, it seems that the gendered
occupation "actress" is still widely used. I had assumed this was
obsolescent, as "poetess" and "authoress" are now obsolete. It would
be an improvement to use "actor" throughout and make M/F either an
field in the infobox, or a category,  or both.

I just think we should contemplate what is going on here. A couple of
points are:

* information in infoboxes and categories is subject to WP:V like
everything else, though stuff is often enough sneaked in (nnot good);
and
*the "German" style of categorisation, per previous discussion here,
has both advantages and disadvantages.

In the light of Wikidata, an infobox route whereby V for infobox
entries is applied "centrally" now looks good. Native speakers tend to
be able to read gender from forenames (not in all cases, though). We
should have a well-considered case for flagging it to non-native
speakers.

Charles

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