Subject: [VCARDDAV] GENDER

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:03:51 +0200

Ok,

here's a super-late question about GENDER 
(<http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-vcarddav-vcardrev-22#section-6.2.7>):

    Special notes:  The components correspond, in sequence, to the sex
       (biological), and gender identity.  Each component is optional.

       Sex component:  A single letter.  M stands for "male", F stands
          for "female", O stands for "other", N stands for "none or not
          applicable", U stands for "unknown".

       Gender identity component:  Free-form text.

    ABNF:

                    GENDER-param = "VALUE=text" / any-param
                    GENDER-value = sex [";" text]

                    sex = "" / "M" / "F" / "O" / "N" / "U"

    Examples:

      GENDER:M
      GENDER:F
      GENDER:M;Fellow
      GENDER:F;grrrl
      GENDER:O;intersex
      GENDER:;it's complicated

...why is the first component optional? Is absence of that component not 
equivalent to "N" ("none or not applicable") or "U" ("unknown")?

Best regards, Julian

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From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 10:14:49 -0400

> equivalent to "N" ("none or not applicable") or "U" ("unknown")?

We wanted to maximise the flexibility for people for whom this
information is sensitive.  Unspecified, for some people, is not the
same as "n/a" or "unknown".

Barry

---

From: Simon Perreault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2011 06:54:50 -0400

> same as "n/a" or "unknown".

Right. For example,

GENDER:foo;bar

would be exactly equivalent to

GENDER:foo
GENDER:;bar

if the GENDER property could be specified multiple times.

We could have split that property in two with exactly the same semantics.

Simon
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