Mastodawn

Isla_Wren Aug 8, 2023

Instance being deleted 15th Sept 2025!

If you've got 5 minutes to spare, could I interest you in a short survey about titles? Everyone of any age, gender or location is invited, and it's open until at least Monday 14th August 2023.

Take the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScyFT9lt5FwRH78NZmQIwbs7W952ZaGtH1srEi_6UApXzTgvA/viewform

See some data on participation and demographics here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iNgj0j9F1kOFbgrKLxVqQJ6vw09oLTW1ZIxeRFAp674/edit

Thank you!

A quick survey about titles

Hello! Thanks for being here. This is a survey for literally anyone to fill in, every response from everyone is helpful. If you speak English, you're in. This survey has nine questions over four pages, and depending on your answers you might not need to see every page. It's pretty fast and easy, it should only take you a couple of minutes. It doesn't ask for any identifying information such as your email address. You'll find information about how to see the results and how to help promote after you submit the survey. It'll run for one week, ending at noon UK time on Monday 14th August 2023 at the soonest. (It may stay open longer. If you are still able to fill out the survey and click submit, your responses will be counted.) Thank you very much for your consideration! Cassian gendercensus.com Fediverse (Mastodon) Tumblr Patreon

Google Docs

Instance being deleted 15th Sept 2025!Aug 7, 2023

We just hit 1,000 responses. :D Very nice!

Instance being deleted 15th Sept 2025!Aug 8, 2023

There have now been almost 2,000 responses, and I've just made a public participation spreadsheet, which also includes some demographic data and a couple of interesting graphs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iNgj0j9F1kOFbgrKLxVqQJ6vw09oLTW1ZIxeRFAp674/edit

Take the survey here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScyFT9lt5FwRH78NZmQIwbs7W952ZaGtH1srEi_6UApXzTgvA/viewform

Titles survey participation (public) - Google Drive

Instance being deleted 15th Sept 2025!Aug 9, 2023

Just woke up to over 3,000 responses!

Take the #survey here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScyFT9lt5FwRH78NZmQIwbs7W952ZaGtH1srEi_6UApXzTgvA/viewform

Public participation spreadsheet that updates itself: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iNgj0j9F1kOFbgrKLxVqQJ6vw09oLTW1ZIxeRFAp674/edit

A quick survey about titles

Hello! Thanks for being here. This is a survey for literally anyone to fill in, every response from everyone is helpful. If you speak English, you're in. This survey has nine questions over four pages, and depending on your answers you might not need to see every page. It's pretty fast and easy, it should only take you a couple of minutes. It doesn't ask for any identifying information such as your email address. You'll find information about how to see the results and how to help promote after you submit the survey. It'll run for one week, ending at noon UK time on Monday 14th August 2023 at the soonest. (It may stay open longer. If you are still able to fill out the survey and click submit, your responses will be counted.) Thank you very much for your consideration! Cassian gendercensus.com Fediverse (Mastodon) Tumblr Patreon

Google Docs

Instance being deleted 15th Sept 2025!Aug 10, 2023

Now at almost 4,000 responses. :O

Take the #survey here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScyFT9lt5FwRH78NZmQIwbs7W952ZaGtH1srEi_6UApXzTgvA/viewform Open to all, regardless of gender or location, and it'll take less than 5 minutes.

Self-updating public participation spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iNgj0j9F1kOFbgrKLxVqQJ6vw09oLTW1ZIxeRFAp674/edit

A quick survey about titles

Hello! Thanks for being here. This is a survey for literally anyone to fill in, every response from everyone is helpful. If you speak English, you're in. This survey has nine questions over four pages, and depending on your answers you might not need to see every page. It's pretty fast and easy, it should only take you a couple of minutes. It doesn't ask for any identifying information such as your email address. You'll find information about how to see the results and how to help promote after you submit the survey. It'll run for one week, ending at noon UK time on Monday 14th August 2023 at the soonest. (It may stay open longer. If you are still able to fill out the survey and click submit, your responses will be counted.) Thank you very much for your consideration! Cassian gendercensus.com Fediverse (Mastodon) Tumblr Patreon

Google Docs

Simon Hewison Aug 7, 2023

@gendercensus an obvious solution is just not to ask for a title in the first place. If you don't need it, if the computer isn't going to process that data or parse it, don't even bother to ask. The less data you collect, the easier things like GDPR gets.
Likewise, even asking for a first name and last name is problematic, since some cultures don't have that concept.

ijo Stella Aug 7, 2023

@zymurgic @gendercensus literally just make a single text input field labeled "How should we address you?", maybe a second one labeled "How should we refer to you with other people?" if thats necessary. free text, anything goes. should be a lot easier on the implementation side too

Simon Hewison Aug 8, 2023

@stella @gendercensus or just "Full name"
Titles are by their titles just a differentiator, from an era when women when married sometimes literally took the name of their husband, e.g Mrs John Thomas, which nowadays sounds so politically incorrect, it is ridiculous.
Let the person put anything they want in a Full Name field. If the computer needs to match it with other records in different formats, that is always going to be a fuzzy match rather than an exact match anyway.

ijo Stella Aug 8, 2023

@zymurgic @gendercensus thats what i suggested, except im going a step further and removing the concept of a "full name" too, rather going to practical usage. what should we call you, and what should we refer to you as. literally nothing else is ever important for computer programs unless you want to match it up to some government database in which case i wont use your program sorry

Victor Westerhuis Aug 9, 2023

@stella @zymurgic Obligatory link: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/

Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names | Kalzumeus Software

Classic essay about how software routinely bumbles human names.

Baggins Aug 7, 2023

@gendercensus Done

Instance being deleted 15th Sept 2025!Aug 7, 2023

@baggins Thank you! :)

pressed Aug 7, 2023

@gendercensus Hello, for the question "Where do you currently live most of the time?", is there no "the world wide web" option? Can't seem to find Taiwan either

Instance being deleted 15th Sept 2025!Aug 7, 2023

@ppressedd The country list I found that was the most accurate omits countries that are not independent or self-governing, and it said Taiwan was omitted for that reason, and I basically don't know enough about the politics side of it to know what to do about that! Do you live in Taiwan?

pressed Aug 8, 2023

@gendercensus Thanks for the elaboration! Yes, I currently live in Taiwan. However I don't think a lot of mastodonians live here, so it should be a minor issue for the survey.

(For a quick elaboration, and I'll try not to get political: The area most calls China is officially People's Republic of China, "PRC", and Taiwan is officially Republic of China, "ROC". Taiwan has its own government, its own army, law, and passport, and was in the UN.)

Instance being deleted 15th Sept 2025!Aug 8, 2023

@ppressedd Interesting. 🤔

I got my country list from here: https://www.worldometers.info/geography/how-many-countries-are-there-in-the-world/ Which says "Taiwan - the United Nations considers it represented by the People's Republic of China." But if it has its own government and law and passport, that sounds very distinct. What about currency, and language and culture? I think culture/society is the part I am most interested in!

How many countries are there in the world? (2023) - Total & List | Worldometer

pressed Aug 8, 2023

@gendercensus Glad you're interested and I'm not bothering you!

(1) Currency:
Taiwan uses NTD.
Most parts of PRC uses CNY a.k.a. RMB.
(PRC currency and timezone has an international name, and a domestic name)

For language &culture, it would help to know that the ROC government/party officially relocated to Taiwan (from "mainland" China) in 1949, which is 70+ years ago. Combined with the fact PRC is communist, the difference is amazing.

(2) Language:
Messy topic alert!

(i) The script:
Taiwan, and 2 areas in China (Hong Kong and Macau) uses Traditional Chinese script, wthe rest of modern China uses Simplifies Chinese script.
The following represents the same word, chicken, in the 2 scripts:
Traditional 雞
Simplified 鳮

(ii) Spoken language:
Taiwanese speaks Guoyu(Mandarin), Taiwanese (related to Southern Min/Hokkien), and Hakka.
As for China, well, you get Putonghua(Mandarin), and all other dialects.

(iii) Usage
It'a not unlike British English and American English, where one says lift, and the other says elevator. Sometimes we get what the other says, sometimes not. And there is a difference in preferred sentence pattern too.

(3) Culture
Censorship is still a thing in PRC, and the political environment affects the education so much. This is a broad topic, so just bear in mind that LGBTQ+ works (comics, web drama etc) are now banned in China.

P.S.: ROC was a founding member of UN. Per wikipedia, in 1971, years after losing the civili war to PRC, some members were going to recognise both countries, but things happened (mostly USSR being USSR, and Fall of Communism happened in 1980s), and so later ROC left the chat...I mean the UN.

Instance being deleted 15th Sept 2025!Aug 8, 2023

@ppressedd Thank you, this is all really interesting and you explain all the relevant stuff in a really clear and understandable way, I appreciate it! :) Based on all of this, I think it's probably appropriate for me to list Taiwan separately.

Much appreciated, thank you for taking the time and energy to tell me all about it!

pressed Aug 8, 2023

@gendercensus Glad to be of help!

And thank you too for caring, and taking your time to read the long toots!

mirabilos Aug 8, 2023

@gendercensus that’s plain wrong:

Everyone of any age, gender or location is invited

If you really wanted that, you’d use a tool that doesn’t excludes most minors and sells the personal data of people accessing the service.

Instance being deleted 15th Sept 2025!Aug 8, 2023

@[email protected] Jesus CHRIST why is Mastodon like this???? 😭

Edit: Oh you're not even *on* Mastodon, I don't know if that's better or worse... Why is the Fediverse like this 😭