I’d like to suggest the addition of a personal pronouns field.
Each user could choose whether or not to share their personal pronouns in this field on their Account page. If shared, they would appear next to the username in the timeline. See our Micro Camp hub in Vito for an example of what I mean, design-wise.
For more on the importance of sharing personal pronouns and inclusivity, see MyPronouns.org.
Another excellent idea.
Yes! I’m putting it on the list.
I’m checking in on the status of this one too … I’m still very interested in incorporating this into Micro.blog soon.
Thanks, this is long overdue. The first step is just to have a field under Account for it, as you said, and then we can work out how to display it in the various profile pages. For your blog, it would be available to themes and plug-ins to include wherever makes sense.
Is this proposal still in the pipeline?
This keeps dropping off our radar because there has been so much else to keep up with. Also, whenever I sit down to implement it I go back to being conflicted about the best way to handle it so that it is a seamless part of the experience across apps, since people can already put the pronouns in their “about me” text as is common other social networks that don’t have a dedicated field.
To back up a step, I’d be curious to look at any other apps that have a dedicated field. I’m not actually aware of any right now. Mastodon doesn’t have this either but they do have a generic list of “metadata” fields that could be used for the same purpose in an extensible way.
Would like to add some input on this - I like GitHub’s (screenshot below) for its pure simplicity but also the custom text option included in the dropdown allows me to display my unique combo with a roomy character limit to boot. Looks nice displayed under the profile name as well.
Specifically speaking about social apps, Instagram also allows pronoun selection (at least in some regions), but they use a tag-based system with limits and whatnot. Frankly it’s overwrought IMO. A redeeming quality is they allow limiting display of pronouns to people you follow personally to avoid harassment/discovery.
Would be happy to post more screenshots if they’re of any use once I have permissions to do so (still a new user).
Another social app, cohost, uses a plain text field:
While Facebook uses a select menu with preset options:
Like @kappanjoe mentioned, Instagram uses a tag-like system:
And TikTok’s interface is similar to Instagram’s:
Great examples, thanks y’all!
I will try to respond to this comment, plus your reply on the timeline. You know I respect your work and love Micro.blog, so hopefully, my feedback is taken in the right spirit.
My response was motivated because of Micro.blog’s explicit push to be more inclusive. We had a couple of Zoom conversations and several email exchanges about potential ways to achieve this. But unfortunately, not much concrete progress has been made (we see what you do vs. what you say you will do).
You mentioned that Bluesky integration is easier than making space for pronouns. Well, we never implied that fostering inclusiveness is easy, and if that’s the metric, then I’m afraid plenty of things will never happen, no matter the intent. I understand that Micro.blog is a small team hence it’s even more important to know what the priorities are.
Likewise, with the Twitter cross-posting discussion from a few weeks ago. My takeaway was that Micro.blog is willing to spend hundreds of dollars to support a platform that most people on Micro.blog have quit on principle. So it begs the question of what principles does Micro.blog as an organization have? The pronouns aspect is especially important given the attack on trans people lately, especially in the state where Micro.blog is based. This is no longer about politics. Given the examples that people have posted above, it’s not that much of a technical challenge as much as it is a question of priorities.
My takeaway from this discussion is that open-web standards are perhaps more important than equity, inclusion, and diversity on Micro.blog. That is fine, but then let’s not pretend otherwise.
Thanks @pratik. Just to clarify what I meant by “easy” features, I mentioned that because it’s part of how we’re able to build and prioritize new things. For better or worse, there is not a global priority list that we work on in an exact order. Sometimes “less important but still good” features can be released before the “more important” features are ready.
Please let’s try to avoid bringing Texas politics into this. 
I think that risks blowing this up into a more divisive issue than it really is.
My current thinking this week is to have a field that just appends pronouns to the “about me” text when viewed in other apps. That avoids my earlier concern of updating everything and changing the native app’s layout. But I want to keep looking for inspiration in other apps before we decide for sure.
There is also a long discussion here in the Mastodon issues about adding a pronouns field or just using the metadata fields.
We’ve discussed this more and work is underway. There will be a simple text field on the account page. Each app will get its own spot for this with the web rolling out first.
