Seems harmless to include; a lot of platforms are already doing this. If you don’t care, you don’t have to participate. The “other” option encompasses your choice. Seeing pronouns doesn’t hurt you if you aren’t allergic to empathy.
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Is being misgendered really such a big deal? Is it that difficult to just correct someone? Don’t think I’ve ever been misgendered but my name IRL often get’s misheard for a girls name, and when it does, idrc. Kinda funny tbh. I don’t understand how genders express anything. Personalities express feelings via communication. Gender has nothing to do with imo. Besides, wokeness is dying anyway now (I hope). Go woke, go broke and all that.
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I would love something like this. It’s not political, I’m not trying to send a deep or convoluted message.
I, despite being a girl, typically used male-presenting avatars. It’s just the style I like. I have had to switch away from that because I would rather not be misgendered than use a specific style.
Adding all my responses in one post because of slow-mode:
Roblox is inherently a social platform. Part of being social is making your identity clear.
Correcting a lot of people becomes very unwieldy, very quickly, Also, some people might use gender neutral avatars (robots, aliens, etc.) or prefer ones that don’t explicitly match their identity (like me)
I totally agree with this sentiment, the only thing it lacks is an in-game implementation. That too could be messy but regardless it has potential to help a lot of people.
This is a flawed point since profiles are an out-of-game interaction. Mobile and console players cannot even view a profile without exiting the game, and computer players are unlikely to do so.
Hahaha.
For many people, it isn’t a single occurrence, like what I say above.
I am transgender, so my brain is wired to respond negatively to that.
This is also an issue.
Another logical solution that would probably be less controversial.
Overall, I think the sentiment is positive, but achieving it through alternate means might make it less controversial to add. I would highly benefit from this and I’m sure many others would.
The key here is:
Adding something like this massively helps those who need it and changes nothing about the experience of people who don’t.
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@Hooksmith thank you for the slowmode, glad you haven’t shut down the conversation entirely
as for the request:
this is not a “political” feature request. let’s not make this a political conversation.
my opinion is that it seems like a fine change, i can’t see any reason why not to. many other platforms include the same feature, like Discord or TikTok.
not sure why users are commenting on the fact that “children play roblox”, this seems completely inconsequential to a feature request regarding a minor change to the profile page.
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Expressing one’s identity and existing are not political.
This feature request would be helpful to inform misguided and hurtful statements like this
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The only prominent theme present here is that
- I don’t want to add a pronoun in my bio (which would do the exact same thing).
- Being misgendered is a problem; however, I do little to solve it or contribute a solution by using an avatar that does not describe my gender.
I believe adding an entire feature for pronouns, in a platform that realistically mostly children play in, the latter which likely does not care if they’re a “they/them,” “she/her,” “he/him,” etc., they probably just made an account to play with their friend, and they probably do not care enough to set it up, being that they’re just accessing links their other friend may be giving them to play whatever.
This is, in my opinion, something that does not require a new feature at all and should be solved by the user themselves either changing their avatar or adding pronouns to their bios, and if you refuse to change the avatar, you shouldn’t force Roblox to add an entire new feature, with all it goes, which would take away from more important features that are much more important to focus on than adding a pronoun feature.
This takes me back to the time a Polish indie developer was shamed about not adding same-sex marriage into his game, in which you were meant to leave a legacy. He didn’t change his stance because, simply put, and said by him, it would make him rewrite part of the game to use a feature that would provide no value in his case, since realistically, you cannot have a “legacy” in the form of children with same-sex marriage; it is outlandish we are out here trying to force ideas that, whilst not political, may come as such (in the case of the Polish developer, the idea is highly political by the other side, as they literally called him a 1940 German soldat, which is bizarre).
In today’s day and age, it’s not really seen as bad to not like the opposite gender/sex, and I do agree that they should have the same rights and all, but I still stand in my opinion that this feature will not prove useful in the slightest, and that its nature is, I’d say, political, if not more, simply because one cannot make an avatar that describes their IRL gender that they identify with and try to make it a problem for others, namely ROBLOX, to try and implement a feature that is by design supposed to go into the biography, because that’s who and what you are and should describe you in a brief manner.
This whole text may seem a bit noncongruent, since I wrote it as the ideas came; feel free to provide any insight if you disagree; however, my stance will not change. This feature would be a waste of space, time, and resources, which would otherwise be much better used to improve the engine, but instead here we are discussing whether adding entire new data fields and other things into the user data is a good idea; just use the already available stuff; do not reinvent the wheel.
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This suggestion is perfectly valid and would be a great addition to the platform. Allowing users to express themselves on a platform dedicated to self-expression is neither political nor carries any negatives.
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I do not think they should add this. It would be a waste of precious time for the ROBLOX employees and it has no major use, just put your pronouns in your about this does not need a special place.
Edit: (also I think this might be a joke or rage bait)
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I totally agree with this - focus on the actually important features instead of focusing on an HTML element that barely anyone will notice 
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I like how you suggested a multi-choice of 4 options, rather than the choose-your-own that many platforms have. Since this implementation wouldn’t negatively impact UX, I think it’s a reasonable feature to have.
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Starting with creditability, I wrote a research paper on Gender in Video Games, understanding how sociologists understand the overlap: Gender in Video Games.pdf (106.4 KB)
With said knowledge, I’d like to explain why this feature has good intentions but could be bad for most users. Note that research in the field can be expanded to include LGBTQ+. It’s also my assumption that those in said community would be treated worse than women as I’ll go into below.
Video games are usually anonymous, and people often use them as an escape. This feature can lessen that, for possibly better or worse. Expanding that angle, there’s a stigma associated with being a female gamer, and thus, most females in the space seek and enjoy that anonymous system. That is to avoid harassment and overly sexual comments from others online:
Women often are “opting out of multiplayer [video games]”; this made those women
“more comfortable but reinforced the gender hierarchy” (Buyukozturk, p. 9). When women do
play multiplayer games, they make an effort to “hide their gender” by using “gender-neutral or
masculine aliases, avoiding voice chats, and selecting male avatars” (Buyukozturk, p.10). While
this “enabled women to skirt men’s harassment, it also prevented them from gaining status as
women gamers, leaving the gender hierarchy unchallenged” (Buyukozturk, p. 10).
The quote above shows why this feature, from one angle, isn’t beneficial. It could reinforce bad behavior inflicted on women. There’s also the trolling argument, but I guess this feature could also be used to pretend to be not a woman, and thus skirt men’s harassment possibly more effectively.
I’ve also asked some people I know in the LGBTQ+ space. The consensus seems to be to make it optional and that it’s not too serious as it’s Roblox. Thus, the below is great:
While some feel as though getting misgendered doesn’t matter and they move on with life, a friend of mine said it “feels like a punch to the metaphorical gut.” (note there are other factors behind the scenes I won’t be sharing due to privacy reasons). They said though that’s IRL, and not in video games. Referring to a character rather than the person behind the screen is a good way to look at it.
Focusing on the LGBTQ+ community, I assume they face even more harassment based on their gender than women, due to people viewing the community vastly differently. That said, research should be conducted to figure this out.
I’m both for and against this feature. As a game developer, I feel a responsibility to better the industry as a whole. Nobody should be scared to play video games because they might be harassed for their gender. Thanks.
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I think this would work best if shown in-game on the little popup that appears when you click on someone in the leaderboard, additionally itd be a good change to make the whisper shortcut via clicking on someones name in chat bring up the same menu.
I think pronouns could also be shown in the esc menu, as the player cards there are quite big so there’d be plenty of room.
In that case can’t you just cheat and change it?
The problem with misgendering is likely just due to defaults. I am more likely to use he with a person i am unfamiliar with, even if they are clearly a girl by their avatar. This changes as I get to know a person more.
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is this not just the purpose of the description on the profile?
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- There’s such thing called bios, no?
- Using pronouns features will likely attract hateful people more than doing good.
Pronouns are meant to describe a subject/object. If you’re not talking to that person, it won’t matter as long as the point gets across.
Pronouns are also a language thing. It vaguely determines you and can vary by language and culture.
If this is the case, Roblox should also be adding traits to be displayed on the leaderboards since it’s oriented around language and describing one through the language of abstraction. You might say, “well, we have bio for that!! That is unnecessary.” Though, isn’t that what it’s supposed to be?
Just use bios; we don’t need any more cluttering mess.
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always love how these kind of posts are warzones, are the mods asleep? (didn’t notice the 4h slowmode oops)
Personally, I dont see the point, just use the bio.
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This is unnecessary. People are just going to use this for trolling. Also another thing to bring up is some people are going to purposely say the wrong gender to get people mad (don’t say they won’t cause here we are).
I am sorry this happened, but I think this is just a waste of ui room and resources And again it’s mostly going to be used for trolling.
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Well but is it something to have an entire dedicated feature made for it? Why not just tell that you are a trans or something.
How so?
Doesn’t everyone do that? Trying to shorten up names?
It will.
i suggest adding statuses back. They would appear just like how this “feature” would, that is below the players username. This way, people can show their pronouns and have some other stuff.
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This is awesome I need pronouns on my profile as well
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This is more of a QOL thing for a small portion of the playerbase, this won’t be a priority for roblox nor will it have a meaningful impact on the platform enough for them to want to add it ( the investors won’t care ). Wether roblox is safe for kids or not, the playerbase is still mostly children < 13 who won’t know or care about pronouns.
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