Editing the title / gender selection of the user registration form

We would like to update the available selections of the user registration form for title / gender.
Or: We would like to add a field "gender" to our registration form.
Or: We would like to hide/deactivate one or more titles of the user registration form.
Or: We wonder why the system does not offer the title / salutation "Mrs." as an option. How can we add that?

How do we proceed?

(A German version of this article is available.)

We would recommend that you edit the list of titles / salutations according to your needs.

Please go to:
Overview => Settings => Settings for Users Registration and User Options => Manage Titles / Salutations
... to add new options.

Please note that you cannot delete the four/five standard definitions, as they are e.g. required for the import functions.
However, you can hide them, so they are not shown on the user registration page.

If you want to hide one or more titles / salutations, please select the entry you want to update and click on the button "Edit Salutation / Title".
In the section titled “Select the input forms where this code is available“ you are able to activate and deactivate titles / salutations by selecting the relevant checkbox (see image 1).

Please test your settings.

With the default setting of ConfTool Pro, only the salutations Mr., Ms., Dr. and Prof. are shown on the registration form. If you are using the French, Spanish, Italian or German localization of ConfTool Pro, the system will usually already provide female and male versions of the titles Dr. and Prof.
If you require a gender specific selection of the academic titles in English, we recommend hiding the default entries „Dr.“ and „Prof.“ and to add „Dr. (f)“, „Dr. (m)“, „Prof. (f)“ and „Prof. (m)“ to the list of available titles (see Image 2)

Please go to:
Overview => Settings => Settings for User Registration => Manage Titles / Salutations

Hide the default entries „Dr.“ and „Prof.“ as described above and then click on „Create New Salutation / Title“ to enter all required data for these four new entries (see image 3). Please contact us if you require our support; we can also add these four entries for you.

NB: For clients from German speaking countries we also offer a gender-neutral version of the whole language setup (using „BenutzerInnen“, „AutorInnen“, „GutachterInnen“ etc.).
Please contact us if you require this version.

Some websites dedicated to topics like "Business Communications & Etiquette" or "Business Letter Writing" still recommend the usage of "Mrs." when addressing a married woman and "Ms." when the marital status is unknown.
 
However, our advice is to stick with "Ms." instead of using "Mrs." (or Miss for unmarried women), as nowadays the marital status should no longer be of relevance and in order to treat women and men the same way.

Although we believe that it is more common to stick with "Ms." when you correspond with a woman, please avoid to use this salutation if the woman addressed has a academic title (e.g. Dr. or Prof.) and use their title like you do for their male counterparts.

Wikipedia has two entries covering this topic: English honorifics and Salutations.

Dr. Raymon Hickey, Professor for General Linguistics and Varieties of English at the University of Duisburg-Essen, provides some useful guidelines.

Finally, on "english-at-home.com" you find more information on Business Letter Writing: Mrs, Miss or Ms?.

If you want to add a gender-neutral title for people who do not want to indicate their gender, you can either enable the default definition “No Title” in titles / salutations. Alternatively, you can add the neologistic honorific “Mx.” to the list of titles / salutations. The British version “Mx” (without period) is already accepted by public institutions and businesses in the United Kingdom and used on documents like driver’s licenses or banking documents.
To enable the default definition “No Title”, please go to:

Overview => Settings => Settings for User Registration => Manage Titles / Salutations

… and then select and edit the entry “No Title”. Please select the checkboxes as shown in image 4 to make it available to all users.

To create the new entry “Mx.”, please copy the title “No Title”, use the settings as shown in image 5 and save it as new title / salutation.
Use the Button “Change Order of Titles” to modify the order of the list.

For more detailed information please consult Wikipedia entries Gender-neutral title and Mx (title).