this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
57 points (98.3% liked)

hexbear

10494 readers
1 users here now

Hexbear Meta Community

Posts should be a a Proposal (idea for changing the site), Feedback (regarding non-technical aspects of the site, for technical please use https://hexbear.net/c/feedback), or Appeals (regarding admin/moderator actions).

Discussion regarding these will be within comments under the post, appeals and feedback that is resolve may be removed as well as duplicate posts.

The following behavior will result in mod action:

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

There is currently a 2 pronoun limit. I have talked with a some people over the months who have wished to have more than that.

As far as I am concerned, simply removing the line and going back to just an 80 char limit (which depending on the length of the pronoun sets limits you to a max of about 10/11) is good (and I would happily work on the ui to add more dropdowns if needed). But if that doesn't work lets figure out what else we can do.

all 38 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] lilypad@hexbear.net 19 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yes! Strong support for this!

::: spoiler Id also love to see different pronouns for different comms and local vs federated (i.e one pronoun set when commenting on a hexbear post vs a foreign post) but im guessing that would take a major overhaul to server side code and dont expect it to be implemented.

[–] Keld@hexbear.net 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

As an almost embarassingly cis person, I am curious. Is this a matter of language, i.e. using Spanish pronouns in a Spanish speaking comm, or is it a matter of identifying differently in different contexts, or not showing your trans status to "outsiders" (outside instances)?

[–] lilypad@hexbear.net 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

So, for me its about A) identifying differently in different spaces, and B) a matter of trusting people.

For the former, i might identify as woman in one space, but an creature in another, and "gender is bullshit" in yet another.

For the latter, take the example of it/its pronouns. Ive had them applied to me in a durogatory manner, which hurt and i didnt like. But from someone i trust, someone who i know gets it at least a little bit, those same pronouns bring joy. Broadly speaking, i would love to be "it/its, pup/pups, she/her (and maybe more)" in the trans mega, "she/her, it/its" on bearsite in general, and just "she/her" to outsiders or people who i dont feel i can trust. People will weaponize e.g. pup/pups pronouns against someone as an attack, and i dont trust non-bearsite people to not do that, and i dont trust the moderators of non-bearsite to view that behavior as unacceptable.

[–] Keld@hexbear.net 4 points 1 month ago

That all makes sense, thanks for telling me.

[–] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Personally I'm okay with some pronouns if you're cool

It's kinda an inside joke in the trans community that you "unlock" a second set of pronouns when you get to know one of us.

[–] Belly_Beanis@hexbear.net 7 points 1 month ago

second set of pronouns

knows how to double jump

🤔🤔🤔

[–] Keld@hexbear.net 4 points 1 month ago

Interesting

[–] Edie@hexbear.net 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think I said it before, but I once dreamed of different pronouns on comms.

[–] lilypad@hexbear.net 6 points 1 month ago

That would be so cool!

[–] SchillMenaker@hexbear.net 18 points 1 month ago

Unlimited pronouns on the first world

[–] Cat_Daddy@hexbear.net 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

How did you manage it? Or are those just part of your username?

[–] Edie@hexbear.net 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I did it back when the limit wasn't in place (in fact I was the reason it was patched)

[–] Cat_Daddy@hexbear.net 10 points 1 month ago
[–] 0x2640@hexbear.net 11 points 1 month ago

yes, do that

[–] LeninWeave@hexbear.net 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

+1, why not allow people to enter their own pronouns? It seems better than trying to capture every single possibility in a list.

Considering the recent Platner arguments some people are making, maybe we should also add "hit/ler" as an option.

[–] kristina@hexbear.net 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

+1, why not allow people to enter their own pronouns? It seems better than trying to capture every single possibility in a list.

at one point this was floated along with changeable names and it seemed we'd have issues with reactionaries doing bad things quickly, it seems like @marcie@lemmy.ml ends up banning a ton of people on lemmy.ml for many reasons sometimes names

[–] marcie@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago

Many such cases

[–] Disaster_of_Passion@hexbear.net 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

agree, increasing (or just totally eliminating) the limit would be rad

[–] RedWizard@hexbear.net 8 points 1 month ago

Instead of the two drop downs what if it was the same multi selection box like from the language selection? Then on interaction, it concats each selection into the display name field. That's all that's happening with the two drop downs currently. Then you can have one list that you shift select in order to select multiple pronouns.

[–] Chana@hexbear.net 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Increasing the limit is technically much better than allowing a certain number of chars. Allows for future proofing, styling, and taking up less screen space becomes a UI implementation problem rather than a database one (for example, just showing the first 2-3 and then allowing an expander to show more).

So here's a vote for a high (8+?) pronouns allowance. And maybe a way to ensure the first two are prioritized for any UI decisions.

[–] Edie@hexbear.net 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The way pronouns are handled is a bit of a hack, it's all just a string (using the display_name feature), and so the things you propose are difficult

[–] Chana@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Hmm. Is it more than a database migration to make a many-to-one pronouns-to-user relation and some mid layer query cleanup?

[–] Edie@hexbear.net 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Maybe you could highjack somewhere and construct the display_name rather than just storing it and sending it, but... not sure how good of an idea that is.

The display_name is all of what is displayed (including the username)

[–] Chana@hexbear.net 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That makes sense to me!

If it's helpful I could volunteer to work on this. I have made contributions to Lemmy on the past and been in the matrix but for infosec reasons am using new aliases.

[–] Edie@hexbear.net 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Well if you can get something upstream that would work as pronouns (either specifically, or just like tags or something) that would be cool.

As said, the way hexbear treats it is special and is mostly just hijacking the display_name feature. If you want to understand: in save_settings line 108 (currently) sets the display_name before it is saved, and that function (hexbear_validate_pronouns) it uses is at the bottom of the file, said fn then uses the hexbear_find_pronouns function in utils.rs

[–] Chana@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ah, makes sense. Makes me think I might need to brush up on ActivityPub again first, which I remember being very painful to learn

[–] PorkrollPosadist@hexbear.net 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There is nothing in ActivityPub specifically regarding pronouns. They are treated as one type of optional metadata or another depending on the implementation. Mastodon users take an ad-hoc approach of setting a "pronouns" tag (which receives no special treatment in the software, but people can see it when looking at a user profile). Hexbear appends it to the display name. It would be interesting to get something like this standardized, but at the moment it is entirely ad-hoc as far as ActivityPub goes. You will find no official documentation (though you might find some discussions out there).

[–] kristina@hexbear.net 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

@CARCOSA@hexbear.net who we gotta hook Edie up to to get this rolling

[–] CARCOSA@hexbear.net 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I sent Edie info to the backend folks

[–] ChaosMaterialist@hexbear.net 6 points 1 month ago

:yes-hahaha-yes-l:

:sicko-hexbear:

[–] sodium_nitride@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago

forget pro, love's goin in the hall of fame

[–] Banned@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago

Removed by mod

[–] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 4 points 1 month ago

increase the limit to 20, larger numbers are impractical to choose from randomly.

[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 2 points 1 month ago

FLUXX but for pronouns

Draw 4 pronouns, play 3 of them