public sex

Off the top of my head: a script that, when it senses other avs nearby, llListens and llSays or llWhispers on some predefined channel. If the other avs have the same script, they will hear each other. Then after some handshaking for verification, they can IM information directly to the avs. Or they can exchange notecards.

I shouldn't have to declare myself undisclosed to a script that sorts people by gender. I shouldn't have to declare a damn thing.

I believe such a script should not exist, period.

It's using the code to enforce social norms (that not everyone requires or agrees with) and that's something that doesn't make sense when LL is doing triage on bugs already.

Why do you feel the need to out everybody for your own convenience? If you are not comfortable with us the way we are, then we don't need you around us and we certainly don't need to out ourselves for you. We don't need your approval. Some of us may think we do but really we don't.

People have implemented things like this, but they cause more lag and they're often "secrets"... a public attribute scheme (see my proposal) would cause less lag and would be more open and more easily understood.

You have an "about" box to put whatever you want, so right there is your information. A specific gender tag seems a bit much, as for the most part, the vast majority of SL (and I know this does not apply to most more serious users, but still) do not have this issue. Perhaps an overriding title, like on a forum, that gets displayed under your name on the profile page?

Another interesting way to expand this would be with a tagging system. The tags could identify who you are, give people a general idea of what you like, and allow for easy searching of other users.

Sorry if someone already said this, I didn't feel like completing reading the thread.

We've mentioned why the description area isn't good enough.
1) Not everyone puts their gender there
2) If you play as multiple characters with multiple genders, you have to edit it manually
3) Scripts can't read it

"Scripts can't read it" is precisely the way I like things, just as they are now.

For what possible reason would you need a script that sorts people by gender, declared or otherwise?

The social pressure to declare one's real life gender would be huge, and could possibly lead to additional griefing against females and transgendered people, so there is no benefit that I can see from such a script, but rather a great deal of potential harm. It also would lead to privacy loss and possible real-life dangers that can result from that.

All for what - it doesn't do anything to prove the person you're cybering is of the opposite sex. And many of us don't care.

Your arguments are all irrelevant. If someone doesn't want to put their gender somewhere, they shouldn't be forced to, plain and simple. And I certainly don't want to be sorted by gender anywhere, that'd make me rather angry. And on top of that, an "accurate" gender tag (that could accommodate gender specifications outside the realm of what Second Life supports) would not automatically update anyway, you'd need to set it manually.

I'd actually be really wary of scripts that could determine your gender. That could lead to horrifying consequences. Imagine all those newbies with like, fem-dar just hunting down everything female and hitting on it? No. God no.

I never said people would be forced to, it is just an option, people taht doesn't want to use it can just leave it set to "undisclosed", as for problems with "nonconvetional" gender alignments, that is what the custom option is there for

Have you ever wondered about all the people listed in the phone book as
"E S Smith, Box 149, City 12345-149"

In effect, no gender, no location

Has it ever occurred to you almost all of them are women?

Then there's

"Mr. and Mrs. John Jones, 149 Too Expensive for You Lane, Moneyville."
Mrs. Jones has a gender, but wants you to know that her husband is wealthy enough to own an alarm system, a .45, a Rottweiler, and the local sheriff.

What do these examples tell you?

That anonymity can be important to the safety of women.

Saying "undisclosed" is an option really isn't an option, because most people will give in to the social pressure to disclose their RL gender, even if they don't have to, even if they don't want to. This is a terribly unsafe situation in cyberspace.

It's not worth it.

On a larger level, this sort of thing comes up every time code bumps into social norms. Code is used in our daily lives constantly to rob us of privacy and choices. It's like the way the ads in my Yahoo freemail are constantly advertising age cream to me, or diets (with a closeup picture of someone's butt, blah!) because they know I'm female, and they can't be bothered to notice I've never clicked on the ads once. I can't even tell them what kind of advertising I'd like to see. I'm female, that settles it for them. This feels very discriminatory. On my other freemail account with no gender, the ads are all about restaurants and computers, and generally much less offensive than Miss Bikini Butt.

I don't want someone shaping the experience for me based on my gender, I want to have the full range of choices. It would be easy for someone to sort out "undisclosed" and lock them out. That's no option at all.

For me SL is still a haven from mass market advertising, mass market mentalities and the never-ending tendency to exclude women from anything really useful. I like the difference and don't want anything to ever affect it.

not about real life, I was refering to the gender of the person called by the SL name, the gender of the resi, not the gender of who owns that acount

This thread is probably a better place to discuss the technical suggestion, without the social issues (and without geeking out the social issues here).

Name: Wolfie Rankin
Sex: Yes Please!

Look, sometimes stuff can get a bit geeky.
If someone wants to know my sex, all they need to do is ask
[and probably put their glasses on].

Wolfie!

This is what the text area in the profile is for....

Plus its already confusing enough...