Gender designation your user profile

Yes, it's important as it helps depict an assumed personality, and as we are people communicating with people as opposed to machines it does matter. I guess in this day an age, we perhaps we should have male, female or other. I don't think it matters if a man puts female, or a woman puts male... if that is the persona they want to use it's fine by me..  there is also some evidence that shows increased annoymisation or personal detachment on social media can lead to increased false representation, cyber bullying and trolling, which for a community such as this I suggest would  be not a good thing, I understand Richard Dane is kept busy enough at is.. using his trained councillor expertise to good effect.....

Simon  

Agreed, sorry to say cyber bullying is a matter that has to be considered. It also raises the question why do we use (hide identity) with avatars,  why not a real photo,  or maybe better nothing,

I am  just a number ............  Number Six 

Wow, if we consider it "important as it helps depict anassumed personality...." what are we dealing with ?

For the most part, we have no idea who or what people on a forum are like. We have never met most people. We construct our own interpretation of a Forum Personality based on the nature and content of posts over a period of time.

If knowing whether a person is male or female is important, (I don't) then perhaps knowing their age group, income group, occupation, political persuasion, race, country of origin, faith group, etc are just as important.

Keep things simple. Form your own opinion based on what people write.

Just so you all know... in reality I'm a dog...

Mike-B posted:

Agreed, sorry to say cyber bullying is a matter that has to be considered. It also raises the question why do we use (hide identity) with avatars,  why not a real photo,  or maybe better nothing,

I am  just a number ............  Number Six 

Mike, whether you like it or not, you have a forum personality. Whether it matches your live personality we don't know. I rather suspect it does - well balanced, interesting, informative and helpful, with a keen sense of humour.

Number 6 ? I don't see too many of those when I role a dice................a bit of a rareity !

.............as for Number 3 !.......................

..........and Number 11 is even worse !!..........

............      Don I had not realised the connection with Number Six.  I had in mind 'The Prisoner'

  I am not a number, I am a free man 

Don, possibly.. I don't think the judgement of what people write is based on their assumed or otherwise personality, but it can help people relate to people and define a context of what is written. Therefore location, age, gender, bio, avatar all help to build a personality.. whether real or assumed.. Social media and interactivity is a fascinating area and one that seems to have growing interesting behavioural research.. even my daughter is researching this in part in her final year undergraduate project... I wish her well with it.

However to Joe's point if people are upset or intimidated by listing real or assumed gender, then not disclosed might be equally valid... and I guess if genuinely problematic it could be removed. Is there much evidence of this though?

Talking to Richard, it's fascinating to hear how he manages this forum and what of his professional people councilling skills he uses in doing so , and it's the personal context of what is written that can, when not understood or appreciated, sometimes cause dispute, offence and mis understandings, by drawing too much from what is immediately written. Anything that can help context iand reduce the pseudonymisation has got to be a good thing in my opinion, we are not all cyber analysts, but if gender becomes a stumbling block or inhibitor  for many then yes it should be looked at whether it's appropriate.. 

Simon

Edit Mike being a Prisoner fan I was a little upset  when I lost my No 6, but who is No2 ????? 

I had assumed that the forum facilitated members revealing as much or as little of themselves as the wish. And there is quite a variety of revelation on here. Must admit I hadn't ever contemplated that someone might choose to offer false information like gender.  I know that there are occasions when feelings run high and some posts get too personal (the cyclists v motorists topic springs to mind) but on the whole I find the exchanges on here to be delightfully very well-mannered and  I can't think why someone would wish to adopt a gender designation that wasn't the true one. 

Mike-B posted:

Agreed, sorry to say cyber bullying is a matter that has to be considered. It also raises the question why do we use (hide identity) with avatars,  why not a real photo,  or maybe better nothing,

I am  just a number ............  Number Six 

You mean to say you haven't really got those feline features, Mike. I'm sooooooo disappointed.

Eloise posted:

Just so you all know... in reality I'm a dog...

Man's best friend, Eloise.   

MDS posted:

I had assumed that the forum facilitated members revealing as much or as little of themselves as the wish. And there is quite a variety of revelation on here. Must admit I hadn't ever contemplated that someone might choose to offer false information like gender.  I know that there are occasions when feelings run high and some posts get too personal (the cyclists v motorists topic springs to mind) but on the whole I find the exchanges on here to be delightfully very well-mannered and  I can't think why someone would wish to adopt a gender designation that wasn't the true one. 

Mike indeed, good post.. it hadn't crossed my mind until I read Joe's post.. but I guess everyone is different .. and perhaps this comes across as a male dominated forum and so some might be inhibited by that...

i think most discussions are well mannered, yes emotions can run high in the padded cell, the Brexit threads also come to mind, but at least the cell is padded so most should not get too hurt, and one can always leave the cell and ignore it if one  wishes.

MDS posted:

You mean to say you haven't really got those feline features, Mike. I'm sooooooo disappointed. 

'fraid not Mike,  & I should add that those beautiful feline features are all female.   She gave me more pleasure & excitement in the four hours we spent together than any other young lady I have ever met.  I should add that Mrs-B was equally impressed.

All human life is here ... and some others too

It all depends on whether Naim use this forum for Information Management / Data Science purposes ( maybe not in the way that tech companies like Facebook / Google do, by selling the data to advertisers ) and so the more information on us, our profiles and our comments, the more extrapolation for current and future products they could use based on the creation of grouped personas?  

Barking

I wish people would put where they are from - mainly because I find it very interesting in the system pics (one of my fave threads) to see what living arrangements from around the world can look like.

However, I can see the need/desire for anonymity in that regard as well...we only recently had a theft thread on this forum, so sometimes less is better.

As already mentioned many of us may be wary about revealing anything that might lead potential burglars to our often quite expensive hifi stuff (often combined with other expensive hobbies like photography, or partners having expensive diversions like jewellery.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Don, possibly.. I don't think the judgement of what people write is based on their assumed or otherwise personality, but it can help people relate to people and define a context of what is written. Therefore location, age, gender, bio, avatar all help to build a personality.. whether real or assumed.. Social media and interactivity is a fascinating area and one that seems to have growing interesting behavioural research.. even my daughter is researching this in part in her final year undergraduate project... I wish her well with it.

However to Joe's point if people are upset or intimidated by listing real or assumed gender, then not disclosed might be equally valid... and I guess if genuinely problematic it could be removed. Is there much evidence of this though?

Talking to Richard, it's fascinating to hear how he manages this forum and what of his professional people councilling skills he uses in doing so , and it's the personal context of what is written that can, when not understood or appreciated, sometimes cause dispute, offence and mis understandings, by drawing too much from what is immediately written. Anything that can help context iand reduce the pseudonymisation has got to be a good thing in my opinion, we are not all cyber analysts, but if gender becomes a stumbling block or inhibitor  for many then yes it should be looked at whether it's appropriate.. 

Simon

Edit Mike being a Prisoner fan I was a little upset  when I lost my No 6, but who is No2 ????? 

Richard !

There is a reasonable representation of female hifi fans on the Facebook groups and it is nice too see a different perspective, just as it is when there is a good variety of age groups involved.  

Don Atkinson posted:

Mike-B posted:

Agreed, sorry to say cyber bullying is a matter that has to be considered. It also raises the question why do we use (hide identity) with avatars,  why not a real photo,  or maybe better nothing,

I am  just a number ............  Number Six 

Mike, whether you like it or not, you have a forum personality. Whether it matches your live personality we don't know. I rather suspect it does - well balanced, interesting, informative and helpful, with a keen sense of humour.

Number 6 ? I don't see too many of those when I role a dice................a bit of a rareity !

.............as for Number 3 !.......................

..........and Number 11 is even worse !!..........

 

...........Oh dear, I knew this would happen............

It was  Number 11 when I posted above, it'snow  Number 10 you need to be watchful of..........

Apologies to Number 11 whoever that is when they next read this thread

MDS posted:

I had assumed that the forum facilitated members revealing as much or as little of themselves as the wish. And there is quite a variety of revelation on here. Must admit I hadn't ever contemplated that someone might choose to offer false information like gender.  I know that there are occasions when feelings run high and some posts get too personal (the cyclists v motorists topic springs to mind) but on the whole I find the exchanges on here to be delightfully very well-mannered and  I can't think why someone would wish to adopt a gender designation that wasn't the true one. 

Personally I'm quite happy to reveal myself, but that's another story and the injunction runs out soon anyway

We are all just a number.....although I've got very little idea of how or why the number we temporarily have changes....is it the more rubbish we come out with the lower ones number becomes? 

If numbering started at 1 with ther first homo sapiens (Adam? EVe?) then I wonder what number we'd be up to now?

107,602,707,791 according to Google

Innocent Bystander posted:

If numbering started at 1 with ther first homo sapiens (Adam? EVe?) then I wonder what number we'd be up to now?

Where's Carol Vorderman, when we need her !!!!