Pronoun options?

[vacantVisionary]

I never demanded anything. I asked for it, and then offered to do it myself.

I'm still not sure I understand why "it's complicated" precludes accepting my offer to try and do it myself. If it really is more complicated than I can handle, then I'll tell you that when it doesn't work, and you'll have lost nothing. And if it's not, you'll get a free feature that'll encourage more people who aren't men to use Lackey. I'll comment anywhere I changed the code, so you can keep track of my changes in case they start causing problems. Unless there's some downside that I'm missing?

[Alastair]

I remember when D&D 3rd Edition came out and they went the route of switching between pronouns throughout the books. Personally I found that far more distracting than sticking to one or the other.

The pronoun option would be a nice thing to have in the future, but I don't think it should take priority over bug fixes and functional improvements to the program.

[Trevor]

I never demanded anything. I asked for it, and then offered to do it myself.

I'm still not sure I understand why "it's complicated" precludes accepting my offer to try and do it myself. If it really is more complicated than I can handle, then I'll tell you that when it doesn't work, and you'll have lost nothing. And if it's not, you'll get a free feature that'll encourage more people who aren't men to use Lackey. I'll comment anywhere I changed the code, so you can keep track of my changes in case they start causing problems. Unless there's some downside that I'm missing?

It would mean me giving a person I didn't know complete access to the code. In order to implement the change properly, you'd have to understand a ton of complicated things that are unique to lackey. You'd have to make a bunch of choices about how to handle things. And even if you were unrealistically adept and the best programmer in the world, it would still be a lot of trouble for me to simply understand all the changes you made so I can update things further. It really is more complicated than it might seem. I wish it were as simple as you writing one function in a black box, but that is not the case.

[cyberneticpony]

And if it's not, you'll get a free feature that'll encourage more people who aren't men to use Lackey.

It really won't, most people aren't so insecure that an incorrect pronoun upsets them.

[r0cknes]

Hey Trevor,

I find it greatly offensive that you have not made a free program that is completely compatible with my every need in life! How dare you spend another second on improving a key function of this program, before fixing this very obviously tertiary subjective feature. I am just joking of course.

Hey vacantVisionary,

Would you rather have a couch with nice pillows and a broken frame, or a firm well constructed couch with pillows that are a tad too hard. You may argue that you want both! Well, me too but Trevor is only human and he is trying to get the frame right. Adding these "fluffy pillows" can come later. Seriously, the people who write on the Oxford Dictionary blogs can't agree on this topic of gender neutral pronouns. You can't honestly expect Trevor to drop everything to add this feature. He has so much more he could work on like Android software... 

Lastly, You claimed that you did not demand, but when Trevor said he agreed with you and that he will get to it eventually, you immediately took a defensive position and started arguing your point. If that is not demanding I don't know what is.

[DTor]

He/his/him as the only pronoun option in Lackey bothers me. I think all the arguments I would make have already been made here, so I don't really have anything to add. I just want to confirm that yes, there are people who feel alienated by this design choice. Yes, I would rather have this than any other feature or bug fix. Trevor, it looks like you've had this on your to-do list for more than five years now: http://www.lackeyccg.com/forum/index.php?topic=149.msg1217#msg1217
You seem to have chosen to prioritize adding fun features that excite people over changing things that makes people feel uncomfortable, unwanted, or alienated. Maybe that's not accurate? I like using Lackey, but I don't really follow its development, so I'm not sure what other changes you've made in the past five years. I guess what I'm getting at is, I hope you've thought this through.

[3XXXDDD]

And even if I did allow a gender option, I am fairly certain that few would know about the option or want/care to use it. And another fact is that females are indeed the minority with playing online games. So the number of people who would use this option would be a small subset of a small subset. Don't get me wrong. I would love to encourage more women to be playing card games online, but I don't think pronoun choice would really do anything towards that goal.

This post was before the articles/surveys I'm referencing so I can't hold it against you too much but this is basically a myth: http://www.pcgamer.com/researchers-find-that-female-pc-gamers-outnumber-males/  (I think men tend to be more vocal about it and women don't, so it skews perception) and before anyone starts that "Casuaaaaaaaaal" gatekeeping bullshit, that was also addressed in the data I believe.

(I'm also tipping my informal vote for "they", I can understand potential coding issues using more than one pronoun).