31–40 of 63 posts
Bear in mind that in some languages this problem doesn't exist. In Polish for example, all female names end with an "a". There is not a single exception from that rule, so if you see a name ending with an "a" it is always a female name.
The "probability" return value appears to be a straight average; it returns 1 for "Peter", which is almost guaranteed to be incorrect - all it takes is a single female Peter, anywhere on the planet. A better approach, in the absence of more complex models, would be to use Laplace's sunrise formula.
You're kidding right? Guessing gender for a "show hacker news" with a .io domain is a clear case of "done is better than perfect."
Another strategy is to use gender-neutral terms until you find out the gender, as asking directly might be considered rude in some cultures.
Please just don't. There is no point antagonising people by guessing information about them wrongly - particularly if it's something they've become sensitised to by it occurring frequently. If you need to know someone's gender (and largely, you don't), then ask them.
The "probability" return value appears to be a straight average; it returns 1 for "Peter", which is almost guaranteed to be incorrect - all it takes is a single female Peter, anywhere on the planet. A better approach, in the absence of more complex models, would be to use Laplace's sunrise formula.
She isn't the only one either, there are hundreds of them that took their name from a Catholic saint.
For Icelandic names, it's easy to identify the gender by looking at the last name. For example Bjarni Benediktsson is definitely male while Katrín Jakobsdóttir is definitely female. Another strategy is to use gender-neutral terms until you find out the gender, as asking directly might be considered rude in some cultures.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> wrt to "binary gender identity" complaints, are we all college freshmen here? We aren't, which is exactly why it's a problem.
Nobody is saying a form can't have "other", etc. as an option. Just that someone's MVP that guesses gender is allowed to do that without political-correctness police. I fail to see how this API needs to accommodate transpeople in its 0.1 release.
I fail to see how this API needs to accommodate transpeople in its 0.1 release.
Speaking to the fluidity of human gender, "Other" is the majority of the spectrum and defaulting to binary is just as naïve as defaulting to ASCII as expected input in an application/API written in 2013.
Restricting yourself that early in the release cycle (and I'm still dubious of the merits of this project), doesn't bode well for its future.
Edit: I just read your comment history and, if I'm not mistaken, you're already biased. Or would you care to elaborate what you wrote here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6451454
Please just don't. There is no point antagonising people by guessing information about them wrongly - particularly if it's something they've become sensitised to by it occurring frequently. If you need to know someone's gender (and largely, you don't), then ask them.
It also assumes two distinct genders which is a fallacy.
I'm sure this is interesting from a statistical point of view, but does the tech scene really need yet more reinforcement of a binary view of gender?
You want an enlightened view of the complexity of sensitively handling transgender people, non-binary genders and other gender and sexual minorities? This is Hacker News. Such enlightened thought is frowned on by our new brogrammer overlords. Here's your beer.
Do you simply add some extra genders? Male-to-female transexual, female-to-male transexual, intersex? No matter how many categories you add, you'll always annoy someone for missing them out. Does 'genderqueer' and 'genderfluid' count as the same category, or different ones?
Maybe just add a free text form for people to input their gender? But then it's impossible to normalise if you want to do any analysis.
Maybe we should just be enlightened and ignore gender altogether? But sometimes knowing your user's gender is really important, and it seems weird to discard this data because some people don't fit. Maybe the best compromise is simply to have 3 categories - male/female/other - though even then you'll get complaints. "Who are you calling 'other'?"
Anyone have any other thoughts?
PS: I seem to see way more people in tech complaining about brogrammers than actual brogrammers.