I am certain there are people that will roll their eyes and fling a torrent of abuse at me and state that this isn't a problem worth solving. I am also aware that this has been raised previously but it would seem that it wasn't deemed worthy of addressing.

God(father)

Made (Man)

Wise (Guy)

Can we please allow our female player base, or players who identify as female or even just people who wish to role play as female on a particular run to have a rank that is representative of their gender on their profile. It is literally the simplest request that has some pretty profound implications.

Deliberately choosing to exclude a gender from a video game (even a role playing one) has negative effects on the player base and serves to reinforce negative gender stereotypes. Women have had an immense impact on the MR community, let us not forget that the first two ever God"fathers" lacked a Y Chromosome (Anita and Scotland). 

If we create an environment that is more encouraging and representative research indicates that we are more likely to attract these underrepresented groups and we are also more likely to retain them. 

I'd encourage anyone thinking this isn't worth addressing (including any administrators) to please do some research on the subject before having a strong opinion.

Recommended Resources:

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men - Caroline Criado Perez

Brotopia - Emily Chang

MSU - Gender and Racial Stereotypes in Popular Video Games

Let's do a better job of being an inclusive community.

They used to make Godmother but never made man and wise guy

uhhhhhhhh what the fuck lol

This would be a +1 or me. I am not a coder so I do not know what it would entail. All I'd say is to perhaps have it coded to a box people can check when creating a character to permanently tie the decision to that character rather than anything people can toggle on/off post-character creation. I'm sure this is a change that may not be able to be done due to time/money constraints so I won't argue that point of it. I'm no coder and cannot discuss the ins and outs of what it would take to do.

All I will say is that anyone with a 'realism' argument should leave it at the door as they come in to the discussion. My CL is a Chimpanzee who is also a Gimp. We have many other instances of unrealistic names currently and throughout the history of this game. We threw realism out the window quite a while ago. Also, many people already refer to female characters who reach Godfather as Godmother. So that whole argument just doesn't really matter in this conversation. 

100%. 

Godmother and Made Woman at absolute minimum.

In my family and circle, "the guys" is a term that has included(at various times), my sisters, my wife, and various female friends, so I personally see that one as less of an issue. That said, I remain male, so I know that I'm somewhat less then an expert on the subject.

I'll take it a step farther(and probably two step more complex), and suggest that male/female/other should be options at character creation, with Made and Godparent ranks(wise folks too if the overall opinion says) automatically being correctly gendered based on that decision.

With a little consideration to practicality, I might suggest that this go into the new version bin, rather then trying to update the current one. While it's less optimal to put it off, from a purely practical matter, time and money spent into this set of code delays the upcoming set.

Well if you want to stay within the realms of the 1930’s mafia world, which we do, you would be hard pressed to find a single female mafia member. Correct me if I am wrong as I’m only assuming based on the typical female role in those times.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_St._Clair - 1

I completely agree Philli-stein. I think I'd be happy to just know it was something added to the list for later on/the new version. I don't expect it to be an immediate change at all. 

I also feel like this is just a nice change. I don't think it needs to go to extremes that make it an overload of coding/changes. I know some may disagree, but just a change to include Male and Female would be a nice change to see. No need for us to have any GimpFather's running around. 

This is where Izzy snaps his fingers, yells "POOF", and all the coding is completed.  

Poof, Izzy, Poof!  :)

So based on the conversation I had with Izzy briefly on IRC the official position is that Izzy "Does not have the resources at the moment" and that if It was something I felt strongly about and funded it he would "have no problem putting it in".

I stated that I felt it was a problem that this wasn't even seen as a problem that was worth addressing, it was at this point where I was told I was making a problem out of nothing and that I'm closed minded and I was never going to get change.

I thought it best to leave the matter there.

Based on his estimates the time investment to address this matter is between 50 - 200 Hours.

I am not a software engineer (though I have been in the Industry for 5 years) and I'm skeptical but I'm also not foolish enough to argue with him on his own code base which I've never laid eyes on. I hadn't actually intended to respond further on this as I could see it was wasted breath with the final decision maker, until I thought I would look through and quickly check out when this had been flagged previously.

https://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/45604#20269479 - March 2019

https://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/907868#143566514 - November 2016

https://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/430187#80199360 - July 2014

https://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/377359#112172213 - December 2012

https://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/164643#22673116 - June 2011

https://mafiareturns.com/comm/thread/84017#8763410 - February 2010

So the statement that there are no resources available right now, should probably be read as "At no point in the last decade have I or any of the other coders/owners/administrators who have worked on the game felt this was a worthwhile change". You don't get to go back and change your mind cause that's not how life works but the tens of thousands of dollars you have spent on advertising would have likely been slightly more successful if we had a more inclusive environment. 

There have been literally countless changes to the game in the last decade, this clearly has never mattered enough to be taken seriously, and it should have been.

There have been literally countless changes to the game in the last decade, this clearly has never mattered enough to be taken seriously, and it should have been.

Why should it? I'm all for changes that add to the game, increase playability, but there is no point in making a change for the sake of a change. This is a 1930s RPG. Even if the time were updated to the 50's or 60's the terms you suggest wouldn't exist. The Army doesn't have Captainettes or Majoresses, and it doesn't stop women from joining up.

It might be a nice change to honour the many female GF's we've had in the past, but that's about the height of it. But more than that, where do we draw the line? What about people who don't identify as male or female, or gender fluid people who identify as both, should we not make changes to make them feel more comfortable as well?

Ultimately this is a Role playing game, so role play it. Put it in your profile. Call yourself Godfather, Godmother, Scousefather, Rockfather, Dogfather, and insist people address you as such. Kill those that don't. 

I think you are being a bit disingenuous to Izzy. He only ever makes changes to the game that have substantial support from the user base or are very easy to do (Changing 1 or 2 lines of code), and the simple matter is that none of those 6 posts you have dredged up from the past has ever garnered much support, even from female players. If it really meant that much to you, you'd have taken Izzy up on his offer and paid for his time yourself, but that wasn't good enough, you had made a demand for something and you expected everyone to kowtow to your demand and jump to it. Grow up and wise up.

Wow, someone from Scumpole’s, I mean Scousepole’s family being an asshole? Big shocker there.

Just throwing it out there, I would hate to have my ranks gendered.  

You're not the only one OctopusHearts. It's not something I've ever thought of being necessary or that I personally wanted for any of my characters.

What you're asking for does not exist. How about we just conclude to the fact that females where a set of balls when in times of need. 

-1

There wasn't even a rank of Godfather till The movie the Godfather. 

Goes to show much you all don't know about Mafia.