Cookiemonsters

Imported from the pre-Redmine CookieMonsters TODO during the 2026-08-29 migration.

Original priority: P1 — Community experience and polish

• Expand member profiles with useful personal/community fields:
  • Languages spoken/preferred; allow multiple languages.
  • Country/region.
  • City/area (optional).
  • clarify the Location input fields so examples cannot be mistaken for already-saved personal data: when Country / Region-state / City are empty, show obvious placeholder/helper copy such as Add your country (e.g. Sweden), Add your region/state (e.g. Halland) and Add your city (e.g. Kungsbacka) rather than realistic values that look as though CookieMonsters has already filled them in;
  • placeholders/examples must remain visually distinct from entered values and must never be persisted as profile data until the member explicitly types/selects a real value; keep any optional/required status understandable without making the Location section feel form-heavy;
  • fix country flags in Location/Profile Preview: do not render a raw ISO code such as SE where the flag should be; Sweden should visibly render as 🇸🇪 Sweden, and equivalent country choices/previews should show the correct flag consistently;
  • use a reliable country-code-to-flag implementation across the country picker, saved Location display and Profile Preview; if native emoji rendering is inconsistent, prefer a bundled/controlled flag asset approach rather than falling back to plain SE, DE, etc.;
  • Date of birth for age calculation and 18+ eligibility.
  • Add Date of birth to account creation/registration as part of the normal onboarding flow so age eligibility is known from the beginning.
  • Birth date must be private by default and not shown publicly simply because it is stored.
  • fix the About you birth-date helper copy so it does not make the absolute/misleading claim “Your full birth date is never shown to other members.”;
  • use privacy-aware wording instead, e.g. “Your birth date stays private unless you explicitly choose to share age and/or birthday details in your privacy settings.”;
  • make the helper text accurately reflect the two separate controls: sharing age exposes the calculated age, while sharing birthday exposes month/day only; the raw full date field itself should still not be displayed as a public field unless we deliberately add such a setting later;
  • avoid language that implies zero information can ever be inferred when the member has explicitly chosen to share both age and birthday.
  • when the stored birth date shows that the member is at least 18, registration should offer a separate explicit Enable 18+ / NSFW content opt-in; it must never be preselected automatically just because the person is old enough.
  • members who are under 18 must not be shown an actionable 18+/NSFW opt-in and cannot enable the mode by manipulating the frontend.
  • if an eligible member does not enable 18+/NSFW during registration, keep the account in normal SFW mode and let them enable it later under Settings → User Settings → Content mode.
  • the same persisted account-level 18+/NSFW preference must drive the whole site: once age-eligible and opted in, the member can see all NSFW-specific areas and choices that their other permissions allow; when opted out, those areas/choices stay hidden.
  • Add a separate optional Show my birthday privacy setting so members can let the community see when their birthday is; show day/month by default without exposing birth year.
  • Birthday sharing must be independent from age verification: hiding a birthday must never disable 18+ checks.
  • Age eligibility should update automatically as the member gets older.
  • Calculate the member's western zodiac sign automatically from date of birth and show the member their sign in Profile/User Settings; public zodiac display can be a separate profile/privacy choice later.
  • add a soft zodiac visual card/illustration beneath the age/sign result in the About you section so the automatically calculated sign feels more personal and playful rather than text-only;
  • create a coherent set of 12 cute CookieMonsters-style zodiac illustrations, one per western zodiac sign, e.g. a sweet Aquarius / water-bearer illustration for Aquarius, using the same soft/cozy visual language as the rest of the site;
  • the correct zodiac artwork should switch automatically when the stored birth date changes; the card can show the sign name, symbol and illustration without requiring any extra member input;
  • always let the member see their own zodiac card in Settings even when age/birthday are private; if zodiac/birthday visibility is enabled for others, reuse the same tasteful card/artwork on the public profile according to that privacy setting;
  • keep the zodiac artwork decorative and compact enough to use the existing open space below the birth-date/age controls without making the About you section feel crowded.
  • implement a member Time zone preference in the same About you/profile-settings area as birth date because Calendar/Event times depend on it;
  • use real IANA time-zone IDs such as Europe/Stockholm, Europe/Rome, America/New_York rather than fixed UTC offsets so daylight-saving changes are handled correctly;
  • offer a searchable, friendly time-zone picker with current local offset/city examples; preselect from browser/system time zone when first setting it up, but let the member override it explicitly;
  • the saved account time zone becomes the member's default display zone for Calendar/Event times across devices; event times are converted into the viewer's own time zone automatically rather than showing the creator's clock time to everybody;
  • store event instants in a timezone-safe form (UTC plus the originating IANA zone where useful) so edits, DST transitions and cross-time-zone attendance do not silently shift events;
  • if a member has not saved a time zone yet, use browser/system detection as a temporary fallback and gently prompt them to save one before creating an event.
  • Add privacy controls for location-related fields where appropriate.
  • Show these fields cleanly on member profile pages.
  • Later allow Members search/filter by language/location where useful.

CM-TODO-ID:c8b13202655b6f566abe

Future notes, acceptance criteria and status changes belong in this Redmine issue.