Pup Biru

they’ll mug ya for a ciggie all right!

okay but like there are actual ways of doing gendered spaces in australia… or at least victoria

here in melbourne we have the laird - a gay bar that is a male only space. and australia-wide we have female only gyms. they have an exemptions to the equal opportunity act and are allowed to deny entry based on gender. you have to apply to the state for them

ignoring what you actually think about those examples specially, imo they’d have a pretty good case to get exemptions should they apply for them since it’s art… it’s more a case (imo) of not doing their paperwork and getting the correct permissions… boring? sure… necessary? definitely

though with those exemptions you must strictly adhere to your own gender requirements otherwise you’ll lose it

either… some apps have just started to do single factor login with just email, profile options can be optional, if there are required fields or terms of service to agree to then that can come after email validation

i think these days the best practice for mobile apps re retention (other than sso or passkey) is to just ask for an email, then from the validate link continue with register

reason being that more steps to register means more ways people are likely to drop out of the flow, and this is basically about as short as it can be

when the user has validated their email, then they’re more invested so they are more likely to complete

that also fits nicely with what we’re talking about with good security

the old logo still exists. this is a new mascot intended to increase user connection to the browser by providing a friendly anthropomorphised front for actions taken by the firefox team, browser, and congratulating users on taking actions. in furtherance of this idea, kit is represented by ambiguous pronouns when written about in order to avoid unnecessary gendering, and allow the user to imply their own gender as they like

that line is from the branding guidelines for kit

whilst it is legitimate, it misrepresents the purpose of both kit and branding guidelines: kit is a feature meant to invoke feelings; not a character having made a decision about its gender

we don’t care about the kits genders but mozilla cares about it being ambiguous because kit is a character meant to increase feelings of personal connection with the user by being able to be interpreted however the user likes (female, male, or non-binary)

in both the intro blog post and the branding guidelines mozilla does bring up the new (complimentary; not replacement) mascots pronouns as explicitly non-binary

the firefox is explicitly (in the case of mozilla firefox) neither fox nor red panda

https://brand.mozilla.com/d/5UkPdpbtt8LS/visual-elements#/-/mascot-1

Our mascot is a Firefox — not a fox, not a red panda. It’s not a real-life animal, it’s Firefox’s own unique creature.

it even: the original source of the non-binary claim is an anti-woke blog post about them removing the old mascot and replacing it with a non-binary mascot, when in fact mozilla had a logo rather than full expression of a mascot, and now they’re a fully formed branding representation of the firefox which includes non-gendered pronouns (as a feature of the characters function; not as an explicit choice about gender representation)

but that was again not about removing the dino as much as as it was about differentiating mozilla from firefox by taking the mozilla identity from firefox because mozilla is more than firefox and behaves differently to firefox, and giving firefox its own identity which is more friendly

they do make explicit mention of non-gendered pronouns in their branding guidelines for kit. the intro blog post is an expression of those guidelines

but every announcement by mozilla makes it clear that kit isn’t about taking a stance on gender: it’s simply explicitly about not taking a stance on gender

it’s not even that… kit doesn’t have a gender identity: kit expresses ambiguity in gender so that the user can decide for themselves no matter who the user is. kit is a feature; not a character having made a decision about their gender… and their non-gendered pronouns are simply part of that feature

but it’s not a PR move… their blog post lays out the reasoning: kit is intended to exist in the browser to make users feel good about using the browser. it’s a friendly “congratulations for interacting” and “we’re doing something for your benefit” (as an anthropomorphic representation of that behaviour) character, and a feature of it as an engineered feature is that the user can apply any gender they like. kit hasn’t made a choice to be non-binary; mozilla has made a choice to make kit specifically ambiguous both in aesthetic when drawn and pronouns when written about

that’s exactly it: in context, kit is a feature intended to be interpreted by the user; not a representation of a sentient character having made a conscious choice to be non-binary simply because of mozilla’s chosen pronouns and lack of gender expression

they do though via stating its pronouns - even including it, repeatedly referring to it even in their intro blog post as “they”

but that’s because it’s a feature to increase the feeling friendliness of the browser by establishing personal connection via the application of any (or non-) gender by the user no matter their preference rather than intended as a portrayal of a sentient character having made a decision for themselves

which is from a notoriously “pro-conservative” twitter account, so safe is highly debatable given that the “conservative” label is often applied to provably false arguments

look i agree the x post is culture war shit, but mozilla does mention the gender of their mascot in their branding resources… but imo this is less of an explicit recognition about the mascot being non-binary and more a function of the mascot being able to be interpreted by humans however they like, and “it” being the term they seem to use simply to increase ambiguity and feelings of personal connection to the mascot for the most people

imo even in socialist societies brands need some protection because it’s possible to have higher quality or “differently moral” products still where people can choose the cost trade-offs of the products they use which means one product shouldn’t be able to use the investment/differentiation of another product in brand (and to a point ux research as this disincentivises usability and feeling over brochureware and copying investment in non-tangibles) to pretend to be the different product

mozilla can be legitimately pro-foss-software in its mission and not include pro-foss-everything in furtherance of that single goal

even then though mozilla provides downloads of their kit assets

heck even marketing - to a point - is necessary to foss software… linux probably wouldn’t have taken off without the investments of microsoft and apple in making consumer hardware both usable (relative to early computers) and marketable

which is from a notoriously “pro-conservative” twitter account, so safe is highly debatable given that the “conservative” label is often applied to provably false arguments

replied to the wrong comment