Subject: [VCARDDAV] Gender coding (was I-D Action:draft-ietf-vcarddav-vcardrev-07.txt)

From: Sly Gryphon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:58:48 +1000

In section 7.2.9 for the GENDER property, I recommend the coding from
ISO 5218:2004, "Codes for the representation of human sexes" be used to
represent gender, rather than the [English-] language-specific codes.

Rationale for change: Follow a recognised international standard for the
coding of the element, and avoid language-biased encoding.

Appropriate changes to the draft could be the following:

Type purpose: To specify the gender of the object the vCard represents,
encoded as a value from [SEX] (ISO 5218:2004).
Type value: A single integer value.
Type special notes: The attribute should have a single digit, with 0 =
Not known, 1 = Male, 2 = Female, or 9 = Not applicable. Any unexpected
values should be considered equivalent to 0.
ABNF:
                   param = "VALUE=text" / any-param
                   value = "0" / "1" / "2" / "9" / iana-token / x-name
Examples:  SEX:2

The normative reference of the codes (to understand the coding) should
be added (note that section 3 of the standard states the preferred
designation for use of the standard is "SEX"):
[SEX]    ISO 5218:2004, "Codes for the representation of human sexes".

Note that ISO 5218 is free, publically available standard from ISO,
available at
http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/index.html.
(The standard was first published in 1977)

You could also consider changing the property name to SEX (instead of
GENDER) -- vCard tends to prefer short property names.

Sly (Stephen) Gryphon

---

From: Simon Perreault <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:37:57 -0400

> represent gender, rather than the [English-] language-specific codes.

And here I was thinking it was from French! ;)

> coding of the element, and avoid language-biased encoding.

I like.

> GENDER) -- vCard tends to prefer short property names.

I have no opinion on this.

Unless people object, I will make this change.

Simon
-- 
STUN/TURN server    --> http://numb.viagenie.ca
Interplanetary news --> http://reeves.viagenie.ca
vCard 4.0           --> http://www.vcarddav.org

---

From: Markus Lorenz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:04:00 +0200

> And here I was thinking it was from French! ;)

Didn't know there is a ISO standard for "representation of human sexes".
 I would like to see this used in the vcard 4.0 specification.

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:06:19 -0600

>> coding of the element, and avoid language-biased encoding.

Works for me.

> I have no opinion on this.

There is great deal of controversy about the terms "sex" and "gender" in
fields such as sociology and I don't think that we're qualified to make
judgments about the terms. For example, the World Health Organization
defines the terms as follows:

- - "Sex” refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that
define men and women.

- - “Gender” refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors,
activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate
for men and women.

- -- http://www.who.int/gender/whatisgender/en/index.html

The Wikipedia page about ISO 5218:2004 states that the standard
specifies that its use may be referred to by the designator "SEX", so
perhaps it is appropriate to use that rather than "GENDER".

So no objections here, just realize that I'm sure someone will object to
using the one term and not the other. :)

Peter

- --
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

---

From: "Javier Godoy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:50:32 -0300

> using the one term and not the other. :)

I think we agreed it was intended to represent "gender" instead of "sex", when 
we discussed about the values for this property (thread: "Some issues of draft 
04 and 05", 2008-11-04) .

Anyway, this decision should be mentioned in the purpose description of 
section 7.2.9, in order to avoid people misunderstanding the semantics of this 
propery.

Regards

Javier

---

From: Cyrus Daboo <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:52:21 -0700

Hi Simon,

> Unless people object, I will make this change.

Unfortunately, whether we like it or not, the word "SEX" is often a trigger 
for a filter to reject or bump the spam score on an email message. Given 
that vCards are sent as "text" attachments in email and can be scanned as 
such, I would be cautious about making this change as it could result in 
the inability to send vCards via email.

It may be worth trying to send email with a vCard having "SEX" and seeing 
whether it causes a problem. I suspect a lot of people on this list have 
email filtering active on their accounts so perhaps an initial test sent to 
this list would be a good test. Send two messages with the same vCard - one 
using GENDER the other SEX. Then recipients can check whether both got 
through and what the relative "spam scores" were on each.

-- 
Cyrus Daboo

---

From: Andy Mabbett <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:22:45 +0100

In message <[email-masked]>, Simon Perreault 
<[email-masked]> writes

>Unless people object, I will make this change.

For the record, I'm in favour of sex.

;-)

-- 
Andy Mabbett

---

From: Simon Perreault <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:41:05 -0400

Cyrus Daboo wrote, on 2009-06-10 12:52:
> Unfortunately, whether we like it or not, the word "SEX" is often a
> trigger for a filter to reject or bump the spam score on an email
> message. Given that vCards are sent as "text" attachments in email and
> can be scanned as such, I would be cautious about making this change as
> it could result in the inability to send vCards via email.
> 
> It may be worth trying to send email with a vCard having "SEX" and
> seeing whether it causes a problem. I suspect a lot of people on this
> list have email filtering active on their accounts so perhaps an initial
> test sent to this list would be a good test. Send two messages with the
> same vCard - one using GENDER the other SEX. Then recipients can check
> whether both got through and what the relative "spam scores" were on each.

For what it's worth, this email did not trigger anything in SpamAssassin 3.1.4.

Simon

---

From: Mike Douglass <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:03:48 -0400

Our email guy says that in fact the obvious words are unlikely to cause
mail to be rejected simpoly because spammers avoid using them.

The spam scores I got were nearly identical for messages with and
without SEX

-- 

Mike Douglass                           [email-masked]
Senior Systems Programmer
Communication & Collaboration Technologies      518 276 6780(voice) 2809
(fax)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180