On the Rejection of Gender-neutral Language

General Discussion
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In reference to this discussion:

I would like to express my disappointment with the way the @staff has handled the matter of gender-neutral language.

I am deeply unsettled that a hasty decision was made based on a single, unqualified and offensive comment. The adoption of gender-neutral language is not merely a passing trend, but a reflection of social responsibility. Unfortunately, such efforts frequently encounter resistance — often from politically conservative circles that cling to a notion of “proper” language while rejecting diversity, not only in speech but also in society as a whole.

Nevertheless, like many others, I strive to build bridges, to foster understanding, and to make language more inclusive. I am well aware that such efforts do not always meet with approval. But those who seek change must expect headwinds — and need strong, dependable allies. I had hoped to have found such allies within your team.

The fact that you have so abruptly reversed your position, and are basing that reversal on a single, defamatory contribution, raises doubts for me about the sincerity of your commitment.

I will be taking a break from my work on translations and will reflect on whether and how I wish to continue contributing in future. Ilja had already expressed the view that AI translations were sufficient, so should I not return, it will likely be of little consequence to you.

I will continue to support you financially. However, I will also be citing this incident as a cautionary example of how not to respond to constructive engagement — in both personal and professional settings.

What pains me most is not just the decision itself, but the speed and rationale with which it was made. Commitment deserves more than a knee-jerk reaction to vocal opposition. It calls for respect, resolve, and an awareness of the responsibility that comes with projects sustained by a diverse community. The decision to abandon inclusive language sends a clear message — not just to me, but to everyone striving to make our (digital) world more open and equitable. You are, of course, free to change course. But those who do so should also be aware of the consequences — especially the quiet, long-term ones. Trust is built on reliability. And reliability reveals itself not in consensus, but in moments of conflict.

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@Steini the reason we rolled this back is mostly that we didn’t appreciate that the German translations had made this change in the first place, as unfortunately none of us reviewing translation contributions speak the language. And this is pretty significant change that in my opinion should be clearly discussed first to make sure the core Webmin maintainers are onboard with it, which I don’t think really happened.

This is partially my fault for not checking translations more closely, but I do stand by my decision to roll it back until we have consensus. This is standard practice in software engineering - if something is debatable, rollback first and then figure out what the right path forwards is. Consensus has to happen before changes are submitted, not afterwards. If this was discussed somewhere in the Virtualmin or Webmin forums, please let me know - I may have missed it!

If you can make a good up-front case that this language is generally accepted and is going to make more users happy than it will make other users unhappy, then sure let’s go for it! But I’d need to see that evidence … like for example does the media in Germany use this gender-neutral format? Some quick googling shows that there are several different options : How to Use Gender-Neutral Language in German & French | by Annika Wappelhorst | Language Lab | Medium

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We moved to gender-neutral language in English almost universally ages ago, and that is our preference.

None of us natively speak German or live in a German-speaking place, but I would strongly prefer gender-neutral language wherever appropriate and understandable by native speakers.

In my experience, anyone using the term “woke” in the way the person who opened that issue did is probably a reactionary and best ignored, though.

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Anyway, I don’t know why that was rolled back based on the rant of a drive-by crank on the internet. We’re discussing it.

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Jesus, I just finished reading the thread, I don’t know why it didn’t end with the transmisogynist language. That user should be permanently banned, not invited to make plans for Webmin’s future. (And, they would be banned here. I’ll leave it to Jamie to decide what to do about it on the Webmin github, but I won’t have anything to do with a person like that.)

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None of us support the way things were discussed in that original GitHub thread. That person is clearly a homophobe, anti-LGBTQ, and simply a disrespectful and ungrateful fella.

I’m fully open to adding an optional gender-neutral translation for German or any other language. We shouldn’t do anything that fuels division or hate—and any decision that takes a side here will do exactly that, except giving all sides what they want, and which is totally doable in this case.

English isn’t a good comparison, because languages like German, Russian, Greek, and many others have grammatical gender and are way more complex than English.

If we’re going to make it optional, now’s the best time. It’ll be easy to undo the recent changes and move them into a separate neutral translation. The speed of the initial change had nothing to do with taking sides—it was just as Jamie said, and also because we were about to release a new version of Webmin that day, which is now slightly postponed.

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I’m the opposite, its bad enough I have to relearn things like blacklist /whitelist in spam assassin because someone takes offence to a word. Words are just words get over it, and if you have to race around looking for outrage then you lead a very sad and sorry life.

I applaud Virtualmin for the turn around.

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The fact you don’t speak German Joe means you are not in the position to make a statement like this, everything in German has a gender, like most languages other then English.

If someone takes offence to a he/she translation they are only looking for outrage nothing more.

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Keep it simple, y’all! We’ll do our best to find the best solution that includes everyone!

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I completely agree with @Shirehosting changing my language so a few people can feel like they have had a victory is not good.

I only speak English so cannot comment with 100% clarity, but if I remember right, in German and French most things have a gender.

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I’ve moved all the gender-neutral German lines you put time and effort into to a separate .neutral files. Now I’ll look into adding a checkbox in the Webmin UI so users who want it can enable it—just like the “Include machine translations” option.

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Plenty of languages do, yet that doesn’t mean we should start taking sides or turning it into a power struggle. The best fights are the ones you win without having to fight.

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Alright, problem solved! We will just show a checkbox for those who is fine and wants to use gender neutral translations in Webmin, Usermin and Virtualmin.

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So therefore don’t comment, as I have English as a second language and a dying one as a primary language so therefore my primary language is not supported that could open a rat’s nest of errors if it was supported, the guy on github just seems to belong to a minority

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It has nothing to do with whether people take offense. It’s about being welcoming to everyone. Inclusive language is just a tiny little thing people can do to say to people, “you’re welcome here”. The person who opened the issue is clearly, overtly, a supremacist and misogynist. They’re the only kind of person I don’t want to say “you’re welcome here” to. That’s classic “paradox of tolerance” stuff.

We can have a sincere, non-political conversation, about how to handle being inclusive in various languages, but we can’t have that conversation with a misogynist. They are incapable of having a sincere, non-political, conversation about inclusion because they do not want to be inclusive and they demand everyone else agree with them.

There aren’t always simple technical solutions to human problems. I don’t know that adding more options is the right thing, but it may be necessary. But, I’d rather hear it from the folks who have been contributing German language translations. Maybe let them chime in before you go changing everything.

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And, the only person taking offense in this conversation, as far as I can tell, is the misogynist who insists Webmin must do what he says or he will leave and never use it again and say bad things about it. If you can’t see that everyone else is having a calm, polite, conversation, while the misogynist who started the conversation is melting down and hurling horrible bigotry unrelated to the topic, you should pause and assess why you’re giving them a pass, while saying anyone who politely suggests inclusive language is “offended”.

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If you’re referring to me in this comment, I don’t focus too much on how people say things—it’s not my concern, as I’m not their parent. And I definitely don’t give anyone a pass just because I keep the discussion going.

Yes, that guy was clearly rude and inappropriate, and apparently I don’t support that at all. Nevertheless he brought up a real issue, even if it was done in the most repulsive and inflammatory way—polls show that the vast majority of German speakers don’t like this form of written German—yet again, no one supported his attitude or agreed with things he said.

I usually try to take a proactive approach and avoid getting dragged into fights based on opinions or taking sides. What matters to me is doing the right thing for the project.

All that said, suddenly changing the language that’s been around for hundreds of years in a way 80% of speakers don’t accept could be considered offensive. But to me, ignoring the other 20% just because they’re not the majority isn’t right either.

So I listened to the complaint, looked into it, did the research, and made the decision based on what’s fair and practical—regardless of the tone or wording of the original message or whatever else.

@Steini, and thanks again for all your invaluable efforts to improve German translations!

The upcoming Webmin 2.400 and Usermin 2.300 will have an option to enable gender-neutral translations.

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I was responding to Shirehosting, who seemingly thinks inclusive language is about people being “offended”.

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But it is Joe, that’s why we are all now having this stupid conversation, because someone got offended.

I think its about time you took a holiday outside of the USA mate, you can not neuter a language that has been gender orientated for thousands of years because you think its offensive. For crying out loud Thai male and females finish every sentence with a gender Japan and China, Czech is the same, I can go on and on.

Like I said you are taking a English only view of this, and you are wrong and out of your depth here.

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Look at it this way Joe, he just like Steini are free to use the software as it stands or find something else to use. Why should this be a piece for discussion is beyond me.

You guys are now looking for a fix for a problem that DOES NOT exist.

Gender neutral language loose one guy, non gender neutral language loose one guy .. can you see the forest for the trees ??

stop wasting time with this move on, get back to what you do write software and leave the thought policing to the perpetually offended.