Request for adding more genders

[anewrecruit 0]

Please add more selectable genders in account setting, for example, I need to choose "non-binary" or at least a gender alternative than male/female, but there is no such a selection. The only one I see is "not telling" (or blank). 

[Tech Jedi Alex 1510]

The gender is a more or less unnecessary piece of information around here. Even if you wanted to provide your pronouns, no one would be able to see this preference when replying in a thread. It's not in the quick info dialog when hovering over the poster's name, and by default profiles are inaccessable to all, so no one would be able to see that info in the first place. You could use the Location field to enter those, it's visible directly under your name, but that'd be displayed with a Location label, see the example on the left under my name (and compare it with how I formatted it in the profile).

You must also be advised that this version on IP.Board comes from a different internet era altogether (~10 years ago, I believe), one that didn't have the custom of providing pronouns, or having a variety of genders to identify as.

So, you may treat Not telling simply as virtually equivalent to non-binary.

[flat4 91]

this is actually a post.......

Ich bin ein Berliner

[dIecbasC 39]

On 11/24/2025 at 8:34 AM, Tech Jedi Alex said:

So, you may treat Not telling simply as virtually equivalent to non-binary.

This logic isn't sound. 'Not telling' is not the same as identifying as non-binary. As unimportant as this might be to you and I, for some folks including the OP, this is an important differentiation and your statement risks trivialising what is an important data point for some.
 

[Tech Jedi Alex 1510]

18 hours ago, dIecbasC said:

This logic isn't sound. 'Not telling' is not the same as identifying as non-binary. As unimportant as this might be to you and I, for some folks including the OP, this is an important differentiation and your statement risks trivialising what is an important data point for some.

The logic becomes sound once you take into account everything else I wrote before that sentence, and I sincerely hope that everyone reads posts for the purpose of understanding the gist of them, not for the sake of rebuking every line written.

The gender is, and I reiterate, a more or less unimportant piece of information around here, here being the forums dedicated to AirVPN products and everything related to them or the wider area of topics related to VPNs. Plus, as written, this piece of info is invisible to the whole community when set. When the purpose of that info is for the user to be referred to correctly, it doesn't help that user here if it's not seen by anyone. So the choice of whether I set it to "Non-binary" or "Not telling" doesn't matter in the context of these forums if the outcome – no one will see it, anyway – is the same.

If we talked about a context outside of the current environment, then yes, of course, having more choices is a valid request. But as the software does not provide that option, Not telling seems to be the closest thing to Non-binary. The other choices are binary, after all.

[anewrecruit 0]

16 hours ago, Tech Jedi Alex said:

The logic becomes sound once you take into account everything else I wrote before that sentence, and I sincerely hope that everyone reads posts for the purpose of understanding the gist of them, not for the sake of rebuking every line written.

The gender is, and I reiterate, a more or less unimportant piece of information around here, here being the forums dedicated to AirVPN products and everything related to them or the wider area of topics related to VPNs. Plus, as written, this piece of info is invisible to the whole community when set. When the purpose of that info is for the user to be referred to correctly, it doesn't help that user here if it's not seen by anyone. So the choice of whether I set it to "Non-binary" or "Not telling" doesn't matter in the context of these forums if the outcome – no one will see it, anyway – is the same.

If we talked about a context outside of the current environment, then yes, of course, having more choices is a valid request. But as the software does not provide that option, Not telling seems to be the closest thing to Non-binary. The other choices are binary, after all.

Yes you are correct that this is a technical forum and the VPN problems are matter more. But if that so, why do they provide the choice and also the birthday one? If they provided them, please add alternative options, or just delete this system.

[Tech Jedi Alex 1510]

21 hours ago, anewrecruit said:

But if that so, why do they provide the choice and also the birthday one?

That's because the AirVPN team didn't write a forums software from scratch, they picked an existing software and adapted it to the special needs of their infrastructure. A gender field in users' profiles is not a special need, given that 98% of people around here don't bother changing profile settings, let alone edit their profile.
IP.Board is a "generic" forums software which can be used in many environments. In some of them contact info, birthdays and genders make sense. In some of them, including airvpn.org, they don't.