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Playboy image from 1972 gets ban from IEEE computer journals
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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I think it's nice to have traditions inside areas of research, and if somebody said "let's retire the Utah teapot. It's too simple a construct and has no bearing anymore" I'd be opposed.
Similar with "Lenna". Is it a good test image? Not anymore, but if somebody wants to include it as tradition then let them. It hurts no one. Nobody is making money off it. Most people just know it as an image that's been in many seminal graphics papers they want to emulate, but even if they do know it as being from an issue of Playboy, why is that a problem?
I'm not angry about it. I'm not going to die on any hill about it. I just see it as pointless and infantile for the IEEE to refuse papers over something so trivial.
I'm wary of the argument for any practice continuing being just because it's always happened and is "tradition". Similarly though I'm wary of the argument that a valid practice should cease just because it makes a few people uncomfortable. If the only thing going for the Lena image is "tradition" then there really is no argument for keeping it.
Just about anything can make a few people uncomfortable
The issue was that it did make some people uncomfortable, so it was harmful. You can't just ignore the reasons stated and then say it's pointless. The ban didn't come out of nowhere.
That logic makes me uncomfortable, let's ban you
Well said. I feel like so many people here are missing one of the biggest issues with the photo as far as I understand it, which is encouraging women into STEM. For many women I think this photo felt a bit like walking into a professor's office to see they have bikini photos on their walls. It just cements the feeling that these sciences are boys' clubs.