<p>Hi, Asanomi Kuroki.
</p><p>There is certainly no need to feel guilty at all, and I am actually glad that you decided to bring this issue up so we could settle this once and for all.
</p><p>I have reviewed the sources you referenced, and they have made me understand your point of view much better: It is certainly easier to just use "they" to refer to a third-person singular subject versus "he or she" since it just sounds far too clunky. I also understand that certain people would like to use "they" in respect to the growing, popular modern notion of one's own gender diverging from the standard or typical binary genders, and really this is such a messy issue to even touch since there are no proper guidelines to English language. Rather, there are just a bunch of scholarly committees who may unevenly decide the changes or revisions to their accepted list of rules and exceptions, but ultimately, language is not based on groups of scholars voting on guidelines. It is instead based on current culture and society which is, of course, constantly changing. Thus, it would make sense to use "they" since culture and society is going to that direction.
</p><p>However, while I do understand these points, and I admittingly do use "they" to an extent in casual conversation, I still stand with the use of "he/she" or "he or she" on this Wikia for two reasons:
</p><p>1) Formality: Our Wiki tries its best to be formal with wording as we would like to be seen as a somewhat decent and professional appearance. Although we can be inconsistent on certain pages, we try our best to do so. We are also aware that sometimes our rules may also be inconistent, but we also try our best to enforce them and make them as specific and thorough as possible.
</p><p>2) Implication: The implication I am referring to here is ourselves and the Wikia. Please keep in mind that anything I talk about in this paragraph is not specifically referring to the change in "his/her" to "they". Rather, it is about the users themselves: I am not totally sure if you remember the
'Acnes or Freckles Debate' that took place in Yamaguchi's Talk page, you will know that some users (mostly unregistered I would like to point out) tend to take small matters and magnify it into a gigantic issue. Unfortunetly and shamefully due to my lack of experience and lack of confidence in my administrative abilities, I caved into the users demands and decided to settle the issue with popular vote. However, this debate mostly encompassed users that barely contributed or made a difference in the Wiki so unregistered user-specific Wiki productivity was not actually affected. Rather, this whole problem just turned out to be frustrating for a few of the administrators and a few of the users who had actually done work on the Wikia. So after the debate, the scores were tallied, and freckles had won. However even after the ordeal was formally settled, users still made changes to the page that violated the conclusion of the debate which led to an embarrassing lock on the page which has still not been removed to this day. So the point that I am getting at here is that users who focus on such tiny problems and do not even contribute to the Wikia's productivity in any aspect will always make problems for the Wiki, and if we continue to yield to their demands, our Wikia will give the appearance that we do not have rules or even a backbone. This Wikia was built (or rather revised) on the work of several, small users to fullfill the dream and hopes that perhaps one day we will become a greater Wikia that can be truly one to respect. If our Wikia yields to such items, then our prideful team will falter, and that dream may become distorted. Change is certainly good, but this change that stifles the growth of the Wikia and reduces it to dull argument will steer ourselves away from our set sights and back into our unripe roots.
</p><p>Now finally, I can get to the concluding revisions (apologies for this lengthy post!):
</p><p>So after this review of the matter and conclusion of reasoning, I decided to also offer some revisions or changes to what I would like to do that do use the "he/she" rule but I still feel may be in some good congurence to both of our thoughts.
</p><p>Revisions:
</p><p>1) I<span style="font-weight:normal;"> now realize that our rules may conflict with some of the culture and history of the English language as we would like to try to remain very basic in language while maintaing formalness. Thus, I think we should revise our rules on the Wikia to have our very own set of rules that do not completely go off the tracks of standard (which actually could also be debated about as well if we go deeper) English language but rather set specifics like this so that we will not have a back-and-forth editing problem. </span>
</p><p><span style="font-weight:normal;">2) I agree with what you mean by my use of "grammatically correct" after thinking about this topic some more. English is flexible with society, and it can always be debated. Thus, I will try to remember to always write, "proper English" or something that references our Manual of Style instead of "grammatically correct."</span>
</p><p>However, I too would like to hear some other opinions on this matter so none of these revisions will be implemented, of course, unless I hear from the other majority of users.
</p><p>If I missed something and did not cover it in my post, please feel free to tell me, and if you still disagree, that is totally fine! I am very glad, once again, that you brought up this topic. I do not very much like to "fight" with users over such trivial matters like this, and I do whole-heartedly agree that we do have bigger issues to conquer. Thank-you though. I am looking forward to both yours and other users responses.
</p><p>Sincerely,
</p><p>Chan
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