Changes to Contact Methods and Gender Dropdown on Profiles

[AonEne he/him]

Hey guys! I'm bringing some news about a few of the profile fields, which we'll be updating at 2am MST Friday. The site will be down for a short while as these changes are made. 

First, the Contact Methods - previously Website URL, AIM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber, and Skype - are being updated to things that are more relevant to users today: Discord, YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram. 

There are more social media websites we could add, but in the hopes of not letting it get out of hand, we're keeping it to some that are most popular and active in the fandom. We also could keep Website URL, but decided to let that one go because so many bots use it - there will still be bots, but hopefully this will allow them one less avenue of spam and anyone with a real website can link it in their About Me. 

This update will wipe any current text in those fields, so if you want to save anything you have there, now's the time to do so. 

The second update is that the Gender dropdown will be switching to a Pronouns field - this will mean that instead of selecting from a limited list, you will be able to add something more personalized. What you type there will then show up under your profile picture on posts (or next to your name on mobile). 

We changed from Gender to Pronouns because pronouns are what's relevant on a practical level - if you look at someone's profile to see what their gender is, it's because you want to know what to call them or how to think of them in your head - so this gets right at that. 

If your selected gender is Male, this field will be automatically filled in with he/him, and if it's Female, she/her. If you haven't selected anything or selected Other or Not Telling, it will be left blank. Whether it's auto-filled or not, you will be able to change or delete what's there at any time. 

As always, let us know here if you have any questions or feedback, or if these updates are not working or have an error. 

[BlueWildRye he/him]

Sounds good!

[Lunamor she/her]

Farewell, mysterious acronyms 

[Ookla she/her]

Quote

If you want to hear more from me, visit me on my blogs! They should be in the 'Contact Methods' field, but if you don't see them there, then perhaps they've been stolen by pixies. 

^From my "About Me" field.

So my blog links are being stolen by pixies? 

[AonEne he/him]

2 minutes ago, Ookla said:

^From my "About Me" field.

So my blog links are being stolen by pixies? 

No comment. 

*shoves a pixie under the rug* 

[Ookla she/her]

Just now, AonEne said:

No comment. 

*shoves a pixie under the rug* 

You know, I'm tempted to just let my blogs be disappeared for a week or two so we can all laugh about the clever fey folk sneaking around on the Shard.

[RoyalBeeMage he/him]

18 minutes ago, Ookla said:

You know, I'm tempted to just let my blogs be disappeared for a week or two so we can all laugh about the clever fey folk sneaking around on the Shard.

shh. ignore the fey sharders!

[Through The Living Glass She/They]

Oh, cool!

I don't think I zoned out too much while reading this, so I probably understand what's happening. 

[Treamayne]

9 hours ago, AonEne said:

If you haven't selected anything or selected Other or Not Telling, it will be left blank.

Korean Pronouns FTW.

Spoiler

Korean pronouns are genderless and based on positional relevance instead:

• E (long E sound) This person or thing near the speaker (person saying the pronoun)
• Ku (soft U sound like put - ʊ) That person or thing near the listener (person hearing the pronoun)
• Jaw (soft aw sound like law - ɔː) That person or thing distant from both the speaker and listener

 

Edited June 6, 2024 by Treamayne

[NerdyAarakocra They/Them]

3 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Korean Pronouns FTW.

  Hide contents

Korean pronouns are genderless and based on positional relevance instead:

• E (long E sound) This person or thing near the speaker (person saying the pronoun)
• Ku (soft U sound like put - ʊ) That person or thing near the listener (person hearing the pronoun)
• Jaw (soft aw sound like law - ɔː) That person or thing distant from both the speaker and listener

 

Hawaii had nonbinary pronouns before they were cool.

I'm a little sad to see all the dated contact info go away, but I can see why they're being stolen by the pixies changed. The pronouns dropdown will be a definite improvement.

Edited June 6, 2024 by NerdyAarakocra

[Treamayne]

1 minute ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

I'm a little sad to see all the dated contact info go away

True, but I'd also be surprised if there were a dozen people besides me that actually had an ICQ account. . . 

Spoiler

ICQ was an instant messenger that allowed you to access other Instant messengers in the same interface - Connecting Yahoo IM (YIM), AOL IM (AIM), etc. all at once. . . 

 

[NerdyAarakocra They/Them]

3 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

True, but I'd also be surprised if there were a dozen people besides me that actually had an ICQ account. . . 

  Hide contents

ICQ was an instant messenger that allowed you to access other Instant messengers in the same interface - Connecting Yahoo IM (YIM), AOL IM (AIM), etc. all at once. . . 

 

Rest in peace, last vestige of the days where Silicon Valley Tech Bros were actually trusted.

[Mags she/they]

Ah, that's right! I remember you guys mentioning this change in the past. Overall I'm excited! I think it'll be really cool/ useful.

[Lego Mistborn he/him]

20 hours ago, AonEne said:

we'll be updating at 2am MST Friday. The site will be down for a short while as these changes are made

Unrelated, but how was that specific time decided on? Just curious for some behind the scenes.

[AonEne he/him]

34 minutes ago, Lego Mistborn said:

Unrelated, but how was that specific time decided on? Just curious for some behind the scenes.

Most active users in North/South America should be asleep then - it's always going to be daytime somewhere, but at least most people should be able to sleep through the site being down for a bit and not be disturbed. 

[Lego Mistborn he/him]

So most of the 17th Shard userbase is American? (Meaning N/S America, not U.S.)

I was curious what metrics you based things off of.

[Treamayne]

20 minutes ago, Lego Mistborn said:

Unrelated, but how was that specific time decided on? Just curious for some behind the scenes.

12 minutes ago, AonEne said:

Most active users in North America should be asleep then - it's always going to be daytime somewhere, but at least most people should be able to sleep through the site being down for a bit and not be disturbed. 

Here's an overview Comparison (Time.is), but to summarize:

Spoiler

• 01:00 PDT
• 02:00 MDT
• 03:00 CDT
• 04:00 EDT
• UTM/GMT 08:00
• BST 09:00
• CEST 10:00
• EEST 11:00
• AWST 16:00
• NZST 20:00

Just predicated on Global Internet usage, for any given time zone the majority of usage occurs late afternoon and evening. Granted this is not based on any metrics for this site specifically; but, in general, the most affected Time Zones with this timing would be those time zones East of Afghanistan and West of Hawaii. 

[AonEne he/him]

26 minutes ago, Lego Mistborn said:

So most of the 17th Shard userbase is American? (Meaning N/S America, not U.S.)

I was curious what metrics you based things off of.

I don't have access to member stats, but anecdotally it seems to be. 

[RoyalBeeMage he/him]

21 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Here's an overview Comparison (Time.is), but to summarize:

  Hide contents

• 01:00 PDT
• 02:00 MDT
• 03:00 CDT
• 04:00 EDT
• UTM/GMT 08:00
• BST 09:00
• CEST 10:00
• EEST 11:00
• AWST 16:00
• NZST 20:00

Just predicated on Global Internet usage, for any given time zone the majority of usage occurs late afternoon and evening. Granted this is not based on any metrics for this site specifically; but, in general, the most affected Time Zones with this timing would be those time zones East of Afghanistan and West of Hawaii. 

oh yay! i am affected! whoo!

[Through The Living Glass She/They]

Oh yay! I will be asleep then... hopefully! 

[AonEne he/him]

Changes made - everyone say thank you to Paleo for his admin and tech wizardry! 

[RoyalBeeMage he/him]

1 hour ago, AonEne said:

Changes made - everyone say thank you to Paleo for his admin and tech wizardry! 

Thank you Paleo

[Through The Living Glass She/They]

THANKS PALEOOOOOOO

[Scars of Hathsin he/him]

Thanks Paleo

[Aredor]

Thanks Paleo!