Detecting an avatars gender

H alli,

Is it possible to detect an avatar's gender via a script? I've searched through the posts and docs and can't seem to find anything. Did I miss it? Thanks in advance.

Gunter

You are asking for the impossible.

last time this was asked there was a feature vote, and i learned way too much about transsexuals

so its pretty safe to say its not gonna happen

yeah was a controversal discussion but I still think we need this information in the system and it must be stored somewhere, so why not make it readable from a script; I still think we need female, male and something in between


Regards Shyan

What do you want to do with this information?

Some VR systems have arbitrary "genders", programmed by users, and used the information in speech generation, automatic language translation, and so on. But SL doesn't have programmable chat like that.

It can be useful to know the gender for generating text about the avatar wearing an attachment. Look at Xcite stuff for instance: You have to tell it your gender, otherwise it will refer to you as "they" instead of "he"or "she".

That is even the case with Xcite clits and penisses, oddly enough

A note on the controversial bit of the discussion: It is silly to want to divide the whole population into "male"and "female". If you try you will find there is a group that does fit "neither" or "both" boxes. But that is a controversy that goes way beyond SL.
I would advise anyone implementing anything to do with male/female to leave the option of "unspecified" available.

Oh I can think of a lot of situations where this information can be useful, starting from giving a male AV on a lucky chair not a gift designed for a female AV, ending in the case White mentioned. Or thinking of a fitting room in a shop, you can send di
The possibility to gather this information would be great, the usage of it could be endless; I think a lot of new cool stuff would show up, if this function would exist.

I agree to White we maybe need more than 2 genders, but that is another discussion, because at the moment there are only 2 genders you can choose from in SL.

Another topic that is in you list "automatic language translation" is also a function, that I would like to see in SL. Setting your native language in SL would be a great enhancement, so that you receive the English notecard and not the German one, if you set it to English. At the moment you receive both There are even more situation, I can think about wheer this would be a nice feature!

Regards,
Shyan

While I agree that it's not a good idea to overstereotype and overcategorize, SL does have different av types for male and female -- you get different choices in "edit apperance" depending on whether you're using a male or female form. Assuming we also had neuter as a choice, it would be nice if scripts could get this information (or else a checkbox in "preferences" for simple things like using the best pronoun for *most cases*.

I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people using the female body wouldn't mind being referred to as "her", and the vast majority of people using the male body wouldn't mind being referred to as "him". However, generalizations shouldn't be applied to whether a female form would prefer a traditionally feminine position in a couples' pose.

I wonder whether neuter types would prefer "it" or "they", but that's beside the point!

For giving a prize, I would recommend offering a choice rather than making assumptions.

I did see one piece of furniture that used an interesting method for gender assignment in a couples' pose (a seat for two). The first one to sit was assumed to be feminine. Now, that's just good manners! But in general, it's best to simply allow people to choose their role without regard for their appearance or any other aspect of their avatar.

So, IMHO, such a feature would be useful, but it would be abused by a lot of object designers. (I don't mind letting the marketplace resolve that problem, though.) In any case, I bet it's unlikely to appear because of users' resistance to stereotyping (as we saw in the other thread mentioned above).

Wow I didn't think this would such a controversial topic. I just wanted that information so I could use the correct pronouns like "him/her" or "he/she" in my scripts greeting and or responses. I just figured that this information would be available and thought I was missing the correct function to extract it. I guess I'll just rephrase what I wanted my script to say.

Btw, If there were more genders available or "unspecified" I wouldn't have a problem with that and would account for those cases in the script.

Thanks again.

I don't wish to open a can of worms, forgive me for those that may take offence, as none is intended.
Why more than 2 genders?
If a lesbian wants to look like a guy, click Male in preferences.
If a Gay guy wants to look femenine, click Female in preferences.
If a guy wants to have a bead, hairy legs but wear frocks... female clothes wont refuse to be worn just because he has Male selected. Same for females wanting to wear top hat and tails.
There is a great deal of controls available to hone an avatar to make it look almost anyway you like... along with accessories, clothing etc... Much greater variety than in RL, so where would the 'other' 2 genders fit within that concept?
I know a few guys you use female avatars.. I don't understand it.. but it's what they want that counts, as long as its not meant to harm someone.

To the poster (gets back on topic before thread gets locked).... what would you think would potentially happen if this information was available and 'collectable'? DataBots would only report information, which at best is probably only 50% correct anyway (see above), and how would someone feel if recieved say a 'gay' item by mistake, or vice versa, would they perhaps find that insulting?

Ask them to explain public restroom urinal etiquette. If they can't, they are female.

I have been considering starting up an Open Source (or perhaps just a free) data storage protocol for storing personal data like this.

It would basically be an attachment which would store various data keys and the values associated with them. With some standards set for commonly used data, such as gender. Other scripts would then be able to request this data over a chat channel and react accordingly. The other scripts would also be able to store new data in the Data Bank if they wished.

Ideally the user would be able to specify privacy settings in regards to which items/scripts can access the data stored in the data bank.

Because the avatar gender setting is sometimes wrong.

For example, many "tiny" avatars use the female base shape. However, the tiny models usually don't have any gender distinctions, so whether the avatar is male or female is purely the role-play choice of the person using it.

In cases where this would be an issue, can't you just do a dialog to select your 'preferred' gender result? Someone might want to camp for a gift for a friend, or someone may prefer the item that's meant for a 'female' over the one for the 'male'.

I mean, I've seen this question posed before so I can understand that it's something that a few would find beneficial, but considering it's a video game (meaning the majority of your female AV's are played by guys anyway), I just can't find it as a major concern when you will always have the ability to allow the user to choose which option suits 'them' best in that particular circumstance rather than have it just shove something on you because you have one item checked off in your profile, or having to switch which is selected so you can get your desired result in a given situation.

Then again, I will never understand why so many spend so much time and money in pursuits IG where this kind of thing matters at all.

This is what I do in my HUD game. Early on in the game I show that they are listed as a male citizen, and "perhaps this is incorrect, would you like to change it to be female?" Then it stores the answer and uses it in pronouns throughout the rest of the game. If someone really wants to change later in the game, they can just tell me and I flip a bit in the database.

Because some creatures are asexual, which leaves us with at least 3: male, female, and neuter. The possibilities are endless, but there's no way to keep up with arbitrary genders.

Simplest reason:

Chairs.

Wouldn't it be a nice feature to have two possibilities when sitting in a chair, one for men, one for women. Yes, I know it could be done with a pop up menu or whatever, but I just think it'd be kind of cool.

It's not always about supressing someone's sexuality. Sometimes it's just about having an interesting feature for a piece of furniture.

Give the avatar a field that can be filled in with anything. Call it something like Type.

It can be male, female, animal, fox, alien, neko, robot, boy, girl, or whatever the person wants to put there.

Scripts can use it for whatever ...

What if the woman doesn't want to sit in the "dainty" pose, or the guy doesn't want to sit in the "macho" pose?

ugh it starts again ...

Well, yeah. The basic issue hasn't changed. Side A wants more scripting options. Side B wants more freedom in avatar design and personality. The two don't always see eye to eye.

While it's a possibility fraught with all sorts of annoying possibilities for abuse, the simple ability to be able to detect whether an avatar, who is buying human clothing and therefore must have at least a partially human avatar, has male or female feet, to be able to size accordingly, could simplify some shoe modifications.

I understand multiple gender theory, but that has no place in this discussion.

In second life, all avatars have the option to be male or female. Male and female are strings of bits on your account. They make the game work. If you want to be a neutered and spayed hermaphrodite robot bunny rabbit that's your business. It has nothing to do with the fact that you chose male or female for your avatar.

Not only would making this string of data available be good for the coders, but it would be useful for social scientists to have objects to scan certain areas that they set up. Of course, the string of data that shows your avatar to be male or female does not reflect the gender or sexuality of the player, but it is still interesting. For example, in a music festival scenario: People who choose female avatars are more likely to see band A before they see band B. Do people who choose female avatars tend to fly more than people who choose female avatars? Who spends more time in your mall, male or female avatars? Should you adjust your products accordingly?

See, it's a game. Your gender is a string of bits in a bigger string of bits. Your sexuality is completely up to you and is none of my business.

/me echoes

I believe the "Gendar" flag that needs to be set has been discussed both adaquatley with authority here

http://www.plywoodcomic.com/strip1.htm