pouët.net

This.

A million times this.

If I may generalise for a moment, because this subject is bigger than Revision or booze or loud music: "Bro culture" is driving people away from the demoscene, right now.

We're in an echo chamber here, telling ourselves that everything's OK and it's no big deal to tolerate bad behaviour... because the people who have chosen not to tolerate it have already left.

A couple of months back I read a blog post by Sole with this off-hand comment:



For every Sole or Cutter who speaks up about problems in our culture, you can bet there are ten more who just walked away without saying anything. Like I nearly did in 2005.

I refuse to accept that our community is only open to people who are willing to tolerate asshole behaviour. I refuse to accept that asshole behaviour is an integral, inseparable part of the party atmosphere. (And I refuse to accept the implication that parties like NVscene are somehow not 'proper' parties for having managed to separate the two.)

I don't know how we're going to fix this, but if we can draw people's attention to the elephant in the room, then at least that's a start. Since reading Sole's blog post I've been wondering whether it would be at all realistic for demoparties to take a cue from what's happening in the tech conference scene and adopt a Code of Conduct - and what that Code of Conduct would actually look like for a demo party, or whether it would end up so watered-down as to be useless. Frankly I don't think that Revision could adopt any kind of meaningful code of conduct right now and actually live up to those standards - not a criticism of any of the organisers, just that there's too much past history and expectation of what's accepted there (*cough*). On the other hand, if it was smaller parties taking the lead, maybe it could work...

For the record, I have brought three girlfriends to various demoparties over the years and all of them have complained about people talking past them, not taking them seriously (even if they participated in making the demos and graphics entries) and staring at their various body parts. That is hardly something that I can feel proud of considering that of the various subcultures that I participate in, this is the most precious to me.

Have any of you considered the fact that it's not full-on on-purpose sexism but just shyness in a male-dominated group full of nerds? I know that I personally don't always react to women in the scene but it's not because I don't care, it's because I, in general, have problems meeting new people - which includes women as well. And I also know that I'm not the only one. So - generalizations aside, if we're trying to be more tolerant, can we have some respect for socially inept or introverted people as well, please?

@preacher: tell them to wear (size depending) black bars on specific parts of their body?

Coming from a place where girls could get in for free, I think the scene matured a lot this past decade.

@lug00ber: I <3 you too ! :)
was awesome !

On the current topic, well, that all may be D.Fox's comments, etc. however I know of one person who after the party was all about wishing there were more photos of a female member of a known group more or less so they could ogle. :-/ That person also has a wife, afaik.

Do I know that sort of stuff was going on at the party itself? No idea. Do I think it is right regardless of whether it happens at the party? Heck no.

that all may be: D.Fox's comments, etc.*

(correction)

What gasman and Gargaj said.

holy sheet, PC is taking over! /o\

und überhaupt: WARUM SEID IHR SO SCHEISSE LEISE?!?

WTF, rules? The demoscene needs no rules, never has, never will. That's an extremely instinctive reaction, I know, but so far it has served me well for over 25 years so I'm definitely reluctant to break with that attitude. Much rather than writing laws on how we should behave in a friendly manner to (for example, because Gasman referenced sexism) females and not stare at them too much or touch their body parts uninvited and other ridiculously obvious shit like that, I want to put them on the biggest possible stage as compo participants, music performers or livecoders. That is my domain, that is where I can achieve the biggest impact if I want to have a sprinkle of hope to change people's hearts and minds in a positive way, to make the audience see what great skills women (or whatever randomly perceived minority which I'd personally just categorize as "people") possess.

T$: psst! sonst fühlt TITTEN HITLER sich VAGINA noch jemand AUGEN angepisst FICKEN!

PENIS!

i did not follow this thread, so i did not know that a serious discussion was going on.. seriously..

as my pal deathboy would say........

ANUS!

[sarcasm]Yeah, because visibility is working so well for women in gamedev.[/sarcasm]

Seriously, though, I get Havoc's point. I believe he is right in saying that showcasing women's contributions can, in part, do good for equality on the scene. However, it's not enough by itself. People will still see a female coder or a female graphician and put emphasis on the "female" and perhaps even ignore the rest.

While much of some sceners behaving in an unwelcoming way can be attributed to a lack of social sense, there is undeniably some very real sexism within the demoscene. I know of at least one woman who got groped and told to "go make a sandwich" at the first Payback event, and I know one woman who won't go to a sauna at demoparties because she has personal experience of being harassed there. This shit happens, mostly unaddressed. When it IS addressed, you have people rolling their eyes and going "oh God here come the SJWs again".

The demoscene, like many geek/tech subcultures, is tragically defensive against change. The scene has historically been a white boys' boozing society, and we still hark back to the glory days when you couldn't count on a party not ending halfway through due to police intervention. We take misguided pride in welcoming the weird, when we are actually welcoming a very specific, well defined kind of weird. If you're a vegan, or a teetotaler - or a woman - you can be sure someone will make a point of you being One of Them. And God help you if you mention that you ever felt uncomfortable for even a second. There'll be a deluge of shit. And then you leave and never look back. Score one for the dudebros.

The world has no use for our bullshit. And we wring our hands about Unity killing the demoscene.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
There is an infodesk, they have cleaning utensils there which they happily hand out and they might even help the faint-hearted in dealing with all kinds of mess. (Including removing too wasted sceners from the hall)

"I've seen things..."

Regarding rules, may I quote the main "rule" of the recent TRSAC editions: "Use your common sense, GODDAMMIT" ... or something to that extend.
And mind you, TRSAC is a party that starts very cozy and civilised but takes a steep turn after the infamous "Beer und Schnaps" Break.

*…during the Acid Music Compo.

What Gasman and jobe said, absolutely!

@Cutter and the silent people with a similar experience: As you can see, there actually are people who are different; it's just that they are harder to find because they are not so loud and obnoxious. It took me a second and third demoparty to get to know them, and I almost gave up after I've gotten puked on during a compo and couldn't hear the music during another compo because of drunk idiots). So, please don't give up just yet!

I've seen this actually happen. More than once. God is my witness.

Maybe it just me, our group and the people I consider friends as well as my extended family (the scene as a whole), but I can't identify myself in most of the recent commenst above.
I find it hard to sate the scene consists out of puking sexists drunks when I see children playing, but maybe I'm just naive :)

Saying "sexism exists in the demoscene" is not the same as saying "everyone on the demoscene is sexist". The latter is obviously not true.

I didn't see all of it, but yes, they did. Security removed someone who was from my table to at least as far as the info desk. All I saw was they were getting dragged--more or less, iirc--away, but the second-hand story from them was that after their hotel roommate convinced someone that said person had the only room key,* they were only dropped off at the info desk. Afterwards they returned to the table, but had a coffee in hand and seemed fairly agreeable in temperament.

* They were staying at the Crystal. If you've been there, you know too. I was more surprised they even had their key, since they asked me for mine as I left every morning so they could clean.