....for a very long time.

Training your pet in the gym, the description says:

"...it has 104 minutes left!"

I don't like that my pet is referred to as an 'it'. I don't think anyone likes that, to be perfectly honest. I know this is a pet site on the internet and these pets aren't exactly real outside of the digital world, but I am attached to my pets, especially Califia. Some people are also attached; you can see it in the work they put onto their pets' profiles. I'm not saying that you have to change them to he/she because that might take more work, but instead change the 'it' into 'they' and 'them', so that non-binary pets are also included.

I apologize if I do offend anyone with my suggestion, and/or if this isn't quite the place to put this suggestion.

I support changing it into the passive voice - 370 minutes are left in the session.

I think "it" is just the appropriate pronoun to go with "pet" ? It doesn't bother me but I could get behind it being changed to passive voice anyway.

Some people do have 'it' pets, but I agree with and support his Suggestion. Gender doesn't need to be here at all.

I never really bother reading that, so I'm pretty eh on it. But I do agree it'd sound better if it were altered in some way. The second "in" should be "for" as well. "This pet is in training for Speed!" Just sounds better. "This pet is in training for Speed! They have 397 minutes left!" Or change it completely. "This pet still has 397 minutes left in Speed training!"

I've always disliked seeing my Jolette referred to as an "it", this would be a welcome change.

Not a fan of having my pets referred to as "it", but I just figured this was easier than having the page detect the correct gender for each pet, so it never really bothered me.

I support changing the wording though. Could just show "Training: (stat). Time Left: (X minutes)." Clear, simple, and no issues with pronoun usage.

That's why I suggested to change it to third person 'they' and 'them' so non-binary gender pets are included. I could also get behind the passive voice as suggested by . I know it might not bother some people to have their pet referred to as an 'it', but as seen in this topic, others are mildly annoyed as well. :)

no, if you have an it pet, it's an it pet. It is not a they pet. They is a word that is being re-purposed in english to denote uncertainty or generalness and isn't used to mean something without gender at all.

Wouldn't "generalness" include genderless?

Yeah I'm for this change, mostly because "it" sounds so crude/clunky. I like 's suggestions.

I never paid enough attention to the text on that page for it to bother me, but I think it'd sound better with 's suggestion so support from me!

I say that because I do know people who identify as non-binary and prefer 'they' and 'them'. To call a non-binary person an 'it' is disrespectful to many of those people.

But if you think otherwise, that's fine, too. I only thought maybe you didn't understand what I meant or didn't read my post entirely. Thank you for helping me understand what you meant ^_^

I've seen pets referred to as "they" around the site in newer features, so I think this is just outdated/overlooked. It's a good general word. I'm all for "it" being changed to "they" in all the instances, I just think staff need said instances pointed out cause they tend to hide :P

no because we live in a gendered world and if I were to have some sapient described to me as they I'd still presume I'd need to know as a matter of politeness when referring to and talking to the pet. There's a difference to making statements about things in a general way in which no further information is available, another between making statements in a general way in which further information is known but not currently stated, and a specific statement. For some pets, it is the specific.

Training can be considered to be a general thing in which NPC Jim has hired some functionary beaurocrat (he doesn't have a page, so we don't know which of his pets would be helping, if he has any). Since we have to register each and every pet each and every time individually, is having trouble seeing it as 'some thing you just need to do' and is interpreting it as an individual interaction. This is odd, but reasonable. It is also reasonable to just think this is a turing procedure that has really nothing to do with anything except formalizing an sP transaction.

We are now correcting that bureaucrat. Either they (see what I did there?) go entirely passive like Suggested, or they get a gender parser written into their code that can tell if something is cog, or genderless, or m or f or asks each user once and then remembers to spit that string out each time.

NPC Jim's training works just the same no matter what so paying exact attention like that is weird IMO, even if some users interpret it personally. I think eliminating any reference to gender at all is the way to go.

[edit] We are not actually talking about people. We are talking about pets. Virtual pets. Imaginary virtual pets. :)

What if someone's pet is not 'a people' and doesn't consider themselves one? In this case, it is the specific. A RL genderless person is not allowed to assign a neutral gender to this pet and make it 'a people' if it doesn't want them to.

Why not change it to "your pet has XXX minutes left." or "PETNAME has XXX minutes left? both are accurate and to the point, and it removes the "it" and doesn't specify a gender at all.

People project onto their pets. So when I say I know non-binary people, they prefer those pronouns, and I assume the same would carry over to pets who are non-binary/genderfluid. I acknowledged that this is a seemingly trivial thing to some, as it isn't 'real life pets', but I am interacting with my pets and with all of you guys, which makes me feel more connected to my pets and real to me. I'm not saying that they are 'real' in the physical sense, but they are real here, on the internet, and real to you and me in that these pets exist on this site. Therefore, as they can have genders/non-genders, it is appropriate to call them by their preferred pronouns.

Would you call a cartoon animal (My Little Pony, Adventure Time, Regular Show, etc.) 'it' since they are in a similar category? We call Pinkie Pie 'she' and Jake 'he', so why not the same for pets?

Anyways, this isn't the place for a debate. I realize you may want to talk about this more, but we should stay on topic, which is suggesting my ideas. Agree to disagree and move on 😊

- I don't think I understand what you're arguing. You said yourself that "they" has been adopted to refer to a person (or a pet) without needing to reference their gender. The "generalness" of its use covers everything, including someone or something that is genderless.

Honestly if this is going to change, I'd rather skip the identifiers altogether and either use the pet's name or just say "### minutes remain". But I see no problem with using "they".

pets are interchangeably referred to as "it" and "they" across the site and tbh it's never really... been a thing i pay a lot of attention to? i don't think it really matters, it's just some generic text. i guess it could be changed, for example, from "This pet is in training in Speed! It has 17 minutes left!" to "This pet is in training in Speed and has 17 minutes left!" just so the line of text doesn't have to get longer.

This has always bothered me to be quite honest, and I welcome any sort of wording to that line of text.