pouët.net

magic: you can say that, but there is a grain of sad truth in anything that was said over here...you just have to read "between the lines"

Agreed.

But isn't it obvious that everyone who ever visited a demoparty wants exactly the same? I'm not trying to supress anything, I'm just wondering what kind of different views are possible. Is there really so much wrong with parties these days that we need to enforce rules to regain order? Not saying we shouldn't discuss issues like this, so everyone speak up, but I think common sense and respect will solve all issues posted in this thread.

Gargaj: What kind of valuable discussion do you see? The ones who say we should take action refuse to say what actions should be taken, and the ones who think our system is functioning as-is have nothing to elaborate on. So sadly this discussion seems stalemated before it even began :(

@numtek: I am pretty sure (almost) everyone wants the same regarding the demo in demoparty. But party seems to be interpreted pretty differently.

Call me lame and boring, but the party aspect is secondary for me. I can have a party every day with other people (and I am sure all others too). But the demoscene is pretty small and therefore the one thing that unites us should always have top priority.

Can we at least separate the alcohol and sexism topics? Those are quite orthogonal. Trust me, parties with 80% intoxicated women can be just as horrible.

bitbreaker, kb: Sorry for bringing up those specific incidents in such a clumsy way. It absolutely wasn't my intention to wave them around as examples of "person X did something bad 5-10 years ago and they should feel bad about it".

(This is the sort of conversation where we can spend hours trying to find the right words, and still end up offending everyone. Which is probably why we try to avoid the subject so much of the time.)

When I talk about people being too indoctrinated into the culture to see its flaws, I count myself in that group too. The best I can do is to try to put myself in the shoes of an outsider (and relate that to the time when I *was* an outsider), and keep an eye out for potential problems.

I also care about not contributing to those problems myself, so thankyou kb for pointing out the parallels between Metalvotze's PA system and my impromptu concert... that's genuinely noted and appreciated.

For every incident that I do observe, I'm sure there are a hundred more that I don't. And so all I was trying to do was offer those up as data points - things that are considered normal behaviour within the scene, that an outsider might see as hostile. I don't hold any specific people responsible for that - it's more a product of our culture.

Which really leads back to the central question here. There are no pantomime villains here, no magic "kick out all the drunks and everything will be okay again" solution. How do we fix our social problems (which really exist, NOW, not just in theory) without throwing out the baby with the bath water?

I personally think working on the above demonstrated "FUCK YOU, I DO WHAT I WANT, AND EVEN MORE" attitude could be a start. It reminds me of sad things.

How about we don't look at sex (as in, male or female, not the act of intercourse), because unless you want to reproduce, it shouldn't matter. At least, that's how I see it, because to me a woman or a man are people just like everyone else.

Let's address the REAL issues:
Sexism - This one is dying out, and in a pleasingly fast way, in the demoscene. Of course, there are uncultured swines who decide to rile up others just because of their gender, but those are dealt with properly, as in booting them out for not having respect. Also, demos presenting unrealistic expectations of men and women (Come on, how many times did we see big hunky muscular sexy men and thin sexy women with big breasts and big butts in Amiga era?) are scarce nowadays.
I believe this issue in the demoscene will disappear completely quite soon.
Other kinds of bigotry are pretty much non-existant in the demoscene. Of course, there are always some bad people, but those also are swiftly kicked out.

Binge Drinking - While I'm personally against substance abuse, I do believe that it's alright to drink some booze on or take some mild drug once in a while, of course doing so responsibly. Getting drunk/buzzed to the point where you lose control over your body? Get help. You're dangerous not only to others, but also to yourself. What I'm saying is that you can have your booze, but be responsible and have self-control. It'll save you from many unpleasant situations and might save you from death too (Losing control might get you in such a situation, as extreme as it is).

SCREAMING AND HOLLERING - This one is entirely up to the organizer. Either it's a loud party or a calm party. Some people like it crazy, some people like it calm. Both can be fun, and both have its pros and cons. You can't please everyone, but you can make it so that a majority is pleased.

Well, the feeling left out thing... Demoscene is very diverse so I don't think this is much of a problem. You just gotta learn and adapt, that's all. And of course, be civil to each other.

I've never been to a demoparty. I wanna do my education and get an IT degree, so I don't really have time for such stuff, and DEFINITELY don't have the money for this kind of stuff. Also, social anxiety could catch me, and I'd need someone to explain how it all would work so that I don't end up sleeping in a wrong place. I'm socially awkward, yes, but I generally try to be nice to others.

Hi,
I think I should add my own voice here.

I visited the "easter german demoparty" in 2010 (it was Breakpoint back then) and I didn't enjoy it all that much. It is a big list of small issues, which made it not so good for me. Let's try to list those:

* Lots of loud music from various random sceners. I'm not complaining about the main audio system, which was appropriately setup, and not used at night. Had this been the only one in the party, it would have been ok. But continuous music from several sources (so you can't even listen to it) combined with rather high ambient noise, for all 3 days, was not all that great. This leads to several problems for me (and I'm not alone, there was already a thread discussing this on pouet 2 or 3 yars ago).
- Permanent damage to my ears (I stopped attending the parties before it was too bad...). The answer to this is generally "you should wear earplugs", and it is probably not a good idea to keep earplugs in for 3 days long. And yes, I could escape and go to an hotel, but back then I was a student and didn't have enough money for that, and, after travelling 1000km to go to a party, I certainly didn't plan spending half the time outside of it.
- Not being able to talk with people sitting right next to me because of too loud music. When I noticed that I was using IRC to meet people, I found that having to go to Germany for that was rather useless. Sure, I could go outside, but if your way to be open to everyone is "anyone is welcome, but if you complain, maybe your place is outside the party hall", there is something wrong about it.

* soft and hard porn everywhere and sexism issues. The Viprinet banner was already mentionned, and wether it was designed by woman or not, what is acceptable to some people is not to others. There was an easy way to "fix" the sexism issue: have a version of the same banner with a woman in the center and 6 guys around it. Why did that not happen? In either case, this was a rather embarassing item when trying to show pictures of the party to other people. I am putting this on the account of cultural differences between France and Germany, rather than Demoscene vs real world, as I think the banner was not designed specifically for demoscene members.

* softporn or nudity in demoscene productions: I don't think that a good idea, but I can understand the cultural difference. So, I'm not going to complain, and admit it's ok because of artistic freedom. I'm not going to do it in my own productions.

* people screming, drinking, watching porn, whatever: yes, YOU are annoying other people, and not everyone thinks this is the right way to party. Also, this is not the demoscene I'm proud being a part of.

The overall impression for me is that while there were some nice things (demoshows, liveacts, etc), it is not worth all the small annoyances. So, I'm not visiting the german easter party. Fortunately, I had visited other much smaller parties before, and I continue to do so. Without them being silent, alcohol-free places, they are much greater for me to meet people (it's so much easier to meet people when you can understand each other), sit down on a table and code something, or spend the night discussing interesting ideas about new effects and whatnot. So, to all people who found the german/easter party was not a good experience: try some other parties, they come in all shapes and sizes and there is probably one somewhere that will suit you better.

I'm not going to try to change Revision. There seem to be a lot of people enjoying it, and that's fine. You can continue partying the way you like. But:

1) Please remember not everyone agree. Don't pretend it is "open to everyone, free of any discrimination problems". It is not (and I think there is no way it could be).

2) Please don't say this is the "demoparty experience". There are ways to run demoparties in much different ways. And probably some people will find these other parties closer to the "demoscene spirit" as they see it. It is fine this way, as long as everyone keeps it in mind.

Noooo, don't start feeling bad because you think you "contributed to a problem" now. That wasn't my intention at all. I just wanted to point out that stuff like this is never clear cut but pretty grey, and what can be a lot of fun for some people can be a nuisance for others (in your case I was just worried about loud music outside at night during a holiday in a pretty conservative part of the country).

Really, the question is how are we going to handle this. And I stand by my opinion there: If you don't like something, speak up, and if you actually have a point, something will probably happen. Because prophylactically cutting down on things that _might_ offend people is a slippery slope, and even if it _does_ offend someone, it still should be decided on a case by case basis. There's a lot of clear situations such as people sexually harrassing or puking their wodka on someone, but people being just drunk? or loud? at a _party_? You may not like it but who exactly are you again to interfere with other people's way of celebrating?

I wonder if these demoscene social issues are more or less severe than what they have in other scenes.. Football fans, chess clubs, graffiti scene, poetry or literature,... whatever there are. If a kid wants to get active in the demoscene, is she more likely to get into social problems there than if she chose to play ice hockey instead? Just wondering how bad this thing is really.

a little common sense goes a long way.

Be happy that it is 2015 now and not the 90s anymore, i mean it. Also, Gurkenwasser is the better booze.

I come from the freetekno/squat/rave scene, we celebrate our freedom with parties in squats and abandoned buildings. Go figure :)

Just to clarify, I didn't want to say you shouldn't approach people and tell them what they're doing annoys you. By all means, do. But these threads veer dangerously into "orgas should put a stop on something before it happens" stuff and this is what I'm firmly against. Look at TRSAC. At day people are nice and kind and work on pretty cool productions for a party of that small size, and at night basically everyone is 15 again. I've never seen people including the organizers drink and party so hard at a demoparty, and guess what? It was ok! For everyone! Young, old, boys, girls, Frenchs and Norwegians alike.

Is it every year like that? Then it was OK for everyone attending.

All others (no clue how many) stayed at home, I suppose.

I have a general feeling that people confuse the terms demoparty and technology conference.

Others have pointed it out earlier: insane intoxication has been going on since the first parties in the 80s. Same goes for loud music and naked humanoids on screens.

It has been a couple of years since my last demoparty experience, so i'm not 100% updated. However, my impression back then was that people were getting older and therefore more aware of their limitations. In the 90s the majority of party-goers were teenagers or people in their early 20s who were desperately trying to push the alcohol limits of themselves (me included :)

I have no relevant input or suggestions. Consider this a reflection from an old fart.

indeed.

and noone mentioned blubberwasser yet in this thread. i am disappointed. not even the whiners are what they used to be :(

http://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=10312 should I say more?

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=10586 oops.. this link :)

bitbreaker: was that the same shitter i saw from your last post on irc or was that another one?

kb: If something is so bad that it is acceptable for a random visitor to go and say it to someone's face, surely it must also be acceptable for organizers to try to avoid said situation in the first place?

While the ideal of self-policing among visitors is interesting, I'm not sure if it would work in practice. The bystander effect is very real; try as a first-time partygoer to tell some drunk old-timer that he/she should be a bit less loud and annoying when nobody else takes that initiative. I know for sure I would rather just not go to a party if I am expected to (repeatedly) confront people in order to get an enjoyable experience.

I hope this thread goes to another page soon.

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