I was surprised at how the article characterized the terms "pantyshot" and "upskirt" -- how extremely negative. My familiarity with the terms is not from porn but from celebrities who, whoops, get caught flashing their panties inadvertently in public. So to my mind this was relatively innocent activity and I would have never thought of it in the extremely negative way the article portrays it.
Also, people often have no idea how badly something like this will be viewed by others. I have seen several instances of that sort of thing here on HN and (IIRC) in every case where I have commented on it, simply informing them of how negatively their term was viewed caused them to change it (either the name of the product/site or some wording on it). They just didn't know.
Edit: Can anyone explain to me why this would be downvoted? Thanks in advance for any enlightenment.
>>So to my mind this was relatively innocent activity and I would have never thought...
Whether or not you are genuinely naïve about the terms connotations, I suspect there is a perception that you are trolling. This is in part because the original author of the package expressed the same kind of (artificial) shock when people expressed their concern over the name and responded in a very passive aggressive manner.
No, I'm genuinely naive in that regard. I got married young and raised two special needs kids who needed all my time. So for many years, if it wasn't appropriate viewing for a small child, I was not exposed to it. And that's exactly my point: I'm fairly well read and had no idea this was something that would be interpreted this negatively. So perhaps the authors didn't either. And when you start a conversation with something that amounts to a personal attack/assumption of guilt, it is very normal to get defensive reactions which you might not have gotten had you simply inquired "Do you know how bad this sounds?" In cases on HN where someone used very offensive terms, I did exactly that -- asked what their understanding of the term was or quoted a dictionary -- and in every case they honestly had no idea and promptly changed it without any argument.
[I] had no idea this was something that would be interpreted this negatively. So perhaps the authors didn't either.
The original author, when challenged, renamed the package to 'Misaka', an Anime character portrayed as an 11-year old who is often depicted graphically from an upskirt angle (its all pretty unsavory, frankly).
Point is... original author clearly knew what he was doing with these package names.
My understanding is that the original author, feeling betrayed, has abandoned her open source project, allowing the once collaborator and suggester of the name "upskirt" to make his suggestion of the replacement name "misaka".
Point is... original author clearly knew what he was doing with these package names.
That seems very likely, but from what I have read so far, all the evidence is circumstantial and guilt is being inferred. So it is still possible it's a stupid mistake. Seriously. (Perhaps there is damning, definitive evidence out there. But what I have read so far contains no smoking gun.)
Possible, yes. But so absurdly unlikely that I find it strange to seriously suggest the package maintainer did not know what he was doing.
There has already been evidence posted here that the woman involved in the project, like me, had some idea it was kind of risque but no idea just how negatively it would be viewed. So far, no one has posted any definitive evidence to the contrary -- it is all circumstantial. And I have repeatedly seen instances of this on HN and in every case, simply politely informing them of how negative it was got them to change it. I think it is far from "absurdly unlikely" that they vastly underestimated how negatively this would be viewed.
We're talking about two different things. You're referring to the female author of Panyshot, who was a non-native English speaker who did not know the full meaning of "pantyshot". I'm talking about the author of Upskirt who is a native English speaker and changed the name of his package to that of a young anime character famous for upskirt shots.
I think we are talking about two different things only I would frame it as "I'm talking about assumption of guilt (and how rampant and problematic that is) vs actual proof" and you seem to be talking about probability. Given how this conversation has gone so far, there is probably no point in trying to further clarify my intent or meaning on that point.
I meant we were talking about two different people - I was not talking about the non-native English speaker who clearly did not know the full meaning of the word.
I submit that evidence (I hesitate to use the word "proof" since it can have implications of certainty) is all about probability. You have to weigh the probabilities, always. With the native English speaker, I find that his words on the matter make it overwhelmingly likely that he knew exactly what he was doing. I'm not assuming guilt, I'm concluding guilt.
For the record celebrities rarely "flash" their panties. Its a case of being followed around by paparazzi and the inevitable occurring. I'd actually suggest that the full implications of celebrity magazines (and how they obtain their photographs) is anything but relatively innocent.
It's weird that my only encounter with the term is through mainstream manga, not hentai, manga. Shonen Jump, stuff like that (and for the record I wish stuff like Cages of Eden and Highschool of the Dead toned that down and focused more on the plot). I wonder if its a bit of culture-shock as I would expect it is seen as "relatively innocent" in Japan.
My familiarity with the terms is not from porn but from celebrities who, whoops, get caught flashing their panties inadvertently in public. So to my mind this was relatively innocent activity
Famous female celebrity gets out of car, inadvertently flashes underwear due to short skirt, photographer snaps said inadvertent underwear flash and publishes results for titillation and ridicule.
Innocent on the part of the celebrity, sure. But not innocent on the part of the photographer which I think squarely places this within Violet Blue's assertion of upskit/pantyshot being 'an attack on a female'.
I don't for a second believe it is "innocent" on the part of the celebrity, in the majority of cases. If you're not in the news, you're no longer a celebrity.
Well, honestly, I consider that relatively innocent on the part of the photographer as well, at least compared to some of the harassing things the paparazzi do. If you are a celebrity and in public, you know they are taking pictures. It's not unexpected, surprising, "gee I had no idea the paparazzi would be at the award ceremony". I consider it to be a lot more obnoxious when celebrities are harassed at home, their trash is gone through and so on. Taking a picture of a celebrity at a public event where they know they will be photographed and lucking out and capitalizing on it really doesn't strike me as evil behavior. Though I realize that Arabs found it very offensive when American publications showed some middle-eastern public figure in his t-shirt -- which I imagine is kind of like a "pantyshot" to their minds: it's his underclothes, it's too intimate and it's disrespectful. It wasn't intended that way by the Americans who published it. It never crossed anyone's mind here that a man in a t-shirt was risque.
If I was going somewhere and I didn't want people to see my elbow, I'd wear a long sleeved shirt.
Edit: This is specifically for celebrities/public people. I do agree that taking pictures of random girls in this manner is an invasion of privacy however the same common sense rule applies.
In the US, it's illegal in "circumstances in which a reasonable person would believe that a private area of the individual would not be visible to the public, regardless of whether that person is in a public or private place."
I find that a bit debatable though. It seems like these laws are specifically targeting hidden cameras in public spaces. If I'm a celebrity wearing a skirt (or kilt) with no undergarments on, who has an army of photographers capturing everything I do, how can I reasonably think that my private area would remain 'not visible' when performing certain maneuvers.
I upvoted you because I think your description of the normal response to this kind of unintentionally provocative language is indeed normal.
I speculate that you were downvoted, because the incident in question is fairly clearly an aberration from the normal course of events; an aberration in which someone who wanted to be playful now feels betrayed.
I speculate that you were downvoted, because the incident in question is fairly clearly an aberration from the normal course of events; an aberration in which someone who wanted to be playful now feels betrayed.
Thanks for your feedback, but I honestly don't know what you are talking about. Care to clarify what is supposed to be so clear? :-/
I believe the following clearly describes an aberration - an exception - to the normal course of events. In the normal course, those who use language more provocative than intended quietly revert it. In the incident under discussion (quoting from the original referenced article):
"She, not being a native English-speaker, had accepted on trust a foreign-language name for her library. According to Holden, the revelation - and the attention to her unknowing complicity - brought about with the name was so uncomfortable for her that she quit working in open source altogether."
Then, later
"Smit [a collaborator with the original author] re-named Pantyshot/Upskirt after a Japanese name. Not just any name, but popularly belonging to an Anime (adult comics) character whose superpower is electricity, and is controversial due to notorious upskirt shots of the character - most especially as she is depicted as being 11 years old."
As for my adjective "playful", I applied it to the situation because of this quote attributed to the original author:
"I did know the sexual and voyeurism connotations of the word “upskirt” and I was very hesitant to actually use it. For the record, my limited grasp of slang English means that I genuinely had no idea where it lied on the offensiveness scale, and whether it could be covered up as something more harmless (and have it be more of an innuendo than of a basic offensive word)."
Hmm, so instead of being about non-consensual pictures of panties of random girls, it's about non-consensual pictures of random celebrities, and is thus ok? I haven't downvoted but the term is far from innocent.
If you are famous and attending a public event, you are well aware they will take photos. If you don't want your panties published, you should take appropriate measures to avoid flashing them. It is possible to do that. If they invade your home and take photos of you in your back yard or something, sure, sue the hell out of them. But a famous person at a public event is very often seeking publicity and looking to be photographed, not trying to avoid it. So I fail to see your point.
This is still victim blaming. Just because you're a celebrity it doesn't give people some sort of license to invade your privacy. You could argue that anyone who wears a skirt is asking for it, because their panties are visible at a certain angle (but nevertheless public space). But we don't want everyone covering up just to prevent creeps getting pictures.
Wikipedia often links to specific laws for stuff like this, you should read them if you're actually curious.
In the US, it's required that you have a reasonable expectation that your private areas cannot be seen. Which no reasonable person could have when naked in public.
If you wear a skirt in a public space, you expect people to have a level of decency and respect. In case you hadn't noticed, creeps are in the minority.
Also, people often have no idea how badly something like this will be viewed by others. I have seen several instances of that sort of thing here on HN and (IIRC) in every case where I have commented on it, simply informing them of how negatively their term was viewed caused them to change it (either the name of the product/site or some wording on it). They just didn't know.
Edit: Can anyone explain to me why this would be downvoted? Thanks in advance for any enlightenment.