I made the field into a list based on feedback.

Needs a new option in lib/tests/maintainers.nix for eval to work :)

What's the use case for this? If we don't have tools that address maintainers by pronoun, then we shouldn't add it to maintainers.nix (since it's just another bit of info that can get outdated).

Also, from a GDPR perspective, it's probably a good idea to minimize the amount of PII stored in the nixpkgs repo.

It’s for manually looking up the pronouns of maintainers before addressing them on Github, not intended for tooling.

Use case that prompted this: I wanted to nominate @FRidh for an RFC maintainership but was unsure of how to address them.

it's just another bit of info that can get outdated

it's probably a good idea to minimize the amount of PII stored in the nixpkgs repo.

This is voluntary though, right? Anyone who wants their pronouns not to be known can omit them, and if someone's pronouns change they can update them.

Consent can be withdrawn (right to be forgotten and all that). Ideally maintainers-list.nix would be stored outside of the nixpkgs repo so we don't have to worry about that. But in the meantime it's better to only have essential information in that file.

it's better to only have essential information in that file

pronouns seem to me to be equally essential to "real name"

if not more essential, as you can talk about a person using their github information just fine, but talking about a person without knowing their pronouns is rather cumbersome

Full name and github username are also non-essential information; are there any tools that make use of your full name, and you can look up a github username from the user ID, so why do we have that information in there?

Consent can be withdrawn (right to be forgotten and all that).

If I were to say, GDPR the nixpkgs repository to remove any references to my name, you would already have to forcefully rewrite history. Adding pronouns to that is not going to materially change the risk profile.

Removing the full name would certainly be a good idea since we're indeed not using it. But this file pre-dates the GDPR by many years...

In any case that's a slippery slope argument. Just because we already have some PII doesn't mean we have to make the problem bigger, especially when there is no compelling need.

Personally I would suggest people putting their preferred pronouns in their github profile. There they can add, edit and revoke this information without it being stored distributedly everywhere.

As much as I'd love to have pronouns for maintainers, I think @edolstra makes a valid point. Git repos can't reasonably comply with GDPR for name and email, even though that's totally personal information. By introducing pronouns into the git history we just add more personal information which can't ever be deleted.

What you are proposing here is keeping an irrevocable permanent history of people’s pronouns. It makes anybody would want to do bad things with it one small script away from a list of which Nixpkgs contributors are trans. Even looking at the history of name changes (which we probably also shouldn’t store) wouldn’t be nearly as reliable a source. While it might be tempting to say that participating in this would be optional, it would be establishing a de facto standard location for this information, that might make people feel compelled to participate or accept having the wrong pronoun used. Compounding this is the fact that the people who will be most comfortable using this field are the people who have never changed their pronouns. If they decide to in future, they now have to choose between permanently marking themselves as somebody who changed or deleted their pronouns (which is dangerous) or leaving the wrong pronouns up. Because of this, I think that over time this list would probably result in even more people being referred to by the wrong pronouns, because of outdated entries that are dangerous to correct.

This idea is extremely dangerous. If somebody wants to publish their pronouns, they can already do that on their website or GitHub profile, without having to include that information in a large public dataset with history tracking.

This idea is extremely dangerous. If somebody wants to publish their pronouns, they can already do that on their website or GitHub profile, without having to include that information in a large public dataset with history tracking.

I didn’t think of it that way, that makes a lot of sense to me. Let’s not put more information than necessary then, and ask people to check the Github profiles of maintainers, or use they/them if they don’t know (maybe the maintainer would rather leave it unclear).

Can this be closed, then?

@alyssais I added a commit that removes the field, quoting your reply anonymously. If you are okay with that of course.

A second commit adds a note concerning GDPR.

I would like to add a note somewhere, encouraging maintainers to put their pronouns in their Github profile if they want people to use them, but unsure where this would fit.

I added a commit that removes the field, quoting your reply anonymously. If you are okay with that of course.

Well, it probably doesn’t make much sense to include a commit that adds a pronoun field, and another that immediately drops it. So probably you should just drop those commits.

A second commit adds a note concerning GDPR.

Technically I believe GDPR has an exception for data that would be difficult-to-impossible to remove, which I have seen theorised could include git. (IANAL.) I think bringing the law into it is probably unnecessary anyway.

I think a note that just says that we should be wary about storing personal information in Nixpkgs, and be mindful that git makes it easy to see changes in data, and near-impossible to ever remove it, would cover it just as well without risking tempting people into armchair lawyering.

I would like to add a note somewhere, encouraging maintainers to put their pronouns in their Github profile if they want people to use them, but unsure where this would fit.

I think it would be better to encourage people to look at GitHub profiles and websites if they’re not sure of people’s pronouns. I think that shifts the burden to the people using the pronouns without proscribing how people should publish them, which they might not want to do in any particular way for any number of legitimate reasons. This could go in the contributor documentation.

Well, it probably doesn’t make much sense to include a commit that adds a pronoun field, and another that immediately drops it. So probably you should just drop those commits.

It’s useful for the commit history, since github issues are going to be lost sooner or later.

It’s useful for the commit history, since github issues are going to be lost sooner or later.

By that argument all proposed changes should go into the git history. I think it’s presence in the git history would imply that at some point it happened.

By that argument all proposed changes should go into the git history. I think it’s presence in the git history would imply that at some point it happened.

That’s reductio ad absurdum, but we can squash of course.

This looks good to me if the PR title is adjusted as well

What you are proposing here is keeping an irrevocable permanent history of people’s pronouns. It makes anybody would want to do bad things with it one small script away from a list of which Nixpkgs contributors are trans. Even looking at the history of name changes (which we probably also shouldn’t store) wouldn’t be nearly as reliable a source. While it might be tempting to say that participating in this would be optional, it would be establishing a de facto standard location for this information, that might make people feel compelled to participate or accept having the wrong pronoun used. Compounding this is the fact that the people who will be most comfortable using this field are the people who have never changed their pronouns. If they decide to in future, they now have to choose between permanently marking themselves as somebody who changed or deleted their pronouns (which is dangerous) or leaving the wrong pronouns up. Because of this, I think that over time this list would probably result in even more people being referred to by the wrong pronouns, because of outdated entries that are dangerous to correct.

This idea is extremely dangerous. If somebody wants to publish their pronouns, they can already do that on their website or GitHub profile, without having to include that information in a large public dataset with history tracking.

Indeed, I was thinking the exact same thing, and because of those exact reasons I would never publish this information into the nixpkgs repository. That thing would be as annoying as a gender marker on a birth certificate 🤣

Thanks for raising this compelling point very quickly @alyssais 👍

So if there is no further input, I’m gonna merge the half-line change ;)

Thanks @Profpatsch