pouët.net

you can always compete by the number of likes!
so if only 10 people "like" your prod its probably crap. if 100 "like" it its probably not that bad and if you reach 1000 "likes" you probably spent money on them ;p

Pffff.Not gonna happen.
And if a production sucks - it sucks.
Then you should work on your releasequality.

Its like these damn casting shows, were people sing - who just cant.
And when asked "who told you to come here? you really can sing"

They say: "My friends did".
Juror: "They are not your friends."

For each day this thread has been open, more sceners have signed up to support this project. There are now 49.
Some are quite well known.

As someone mentioned that most sceners are boys, let me recall an article I recently read which stated that the first programmers were female and linguistic ability was considered more important for programming than mathematical skills. This changed in the 1970s and since then computers are something for male math geeks.

I am astonished that someone purchased an Internet domain for that document about ethics instead of just posting it to a pouet.net thread. After all, an Intenet domain costs money. This makes it appear that they are really serious about what they are writing. I've never experienced real assholes in my life, but the language in the demoscene is a bit more vulgar than in other communities I am involved in.

First, find so many people.
There are a lot of good prods with small amount of votes.

Oh yeah lets turn it into a vote system discussion.

I'm still waiting for someone to come up with the meat already.

We both have history in beeing asses, cause we acted against each other in the (far) past like some ^.^

There is potential for a lot more. I have spoken in person with a few people that have signed and no-one has refuted my criticisms and are aligned with the spirit of the site (as am I).

I will try to collate my thoughts and make some concrete suggestions later today, but a few thoughts I had were:

- Remove the patronising language (reminds me of telling a child to say "What's the magic word? Please!" when they forget to be polite).
- Use anecdotes where possible instead of prescriptive language (much better at building empathy in my opinion)
- Have a mechanism for feedback
- Attach it to names, even if they are scene handles, it ought to be a conversation (I don't agree with the diffuse identity thing)
- Find high profile "halo" sceners to endorse your cause
- Consult with a broader audience to ensure the responses and suggestions are both proportionate and realistic to the demoscene context. Broader online culture seems to overreact and I'd like to think the demoscene was less susceptible to the provocative/prevaling algorithmically accellerated narratives fueling the so-called "culture wars"
- Pitch it as a direction, not a mandate. I know that is the intention but it doesn't feel that way to me and feels too formal as it is.

I truly believe the demoscene is progressive and this should be protected, but the tenet of free expression and identity are equally important, and I think both can be achieved.

I did also want to say that often culture war algorithmically accellerated prevailing narratives often end up damaging a cause - for example the BLM movement in the UK does not adopt the #acab facet as the UK does not have a militarised and occupationally immune police force yet this narrative gets swept up as coalesced, which ends up muddying the waters. (The black people I have spoke to in the UK are more interested in equal treatment, reduction of stop and frisk rather than tearing down statues and renaming roads).

I do also think that empathy is a two way street and you should always assume good fait where possible. Anyway, I'll post something later on. :)

This point is well worth expanding on, I think...

Most of us in this discussion are fully committed to the demoscene. We've drunk the kool-aid, and we're not going to be driven away from it by someone puking on our shoes or making a shitty "girls can't code" comment. But don't let that mislead you into thinking that the ones who *would* be driven away by those experiences are some kind of fragile snowflake type who doesn't belong here. They're people like us, who haven't yet experienced that spark that tips the scales into "yes, this is my community".

There are a hell of a lot of people on the periphery of the scene who don't do the circuit of Revision, Evoke, Assembly and just visit their local or niche-platform party. In 2005 I was one of them. Then I went to Breakpoint and tUM, and, quite honestly, experienced some crappy antisocial behaviour that overshadowed my enjoyment of the party. I won't go into specifics because I know that'll just derail the discussion into a defence of that particular 15 year old incident, but let's just say that if I'd complained about it at the time, I'm positive that the response would have been of the "don't be such a pussy - this is just what we do on the demoscene" variety.

I seriously considered giving up on big parties at that point, but in the end I gave them another chance, things got better, I had my Damascene conversion (heh) and have had 15 years of wonderful experiences since then. But still I have to wonder how a different random distribution of good versus shitty experiences might have tipped the scale in the other direction and led me to miss out on all of that.

For me, that's what initiatives like this, the newcomers' table at Revision and Evoke's newcomer award are all about: shifting the good-versus-shitty-experience random distribution so that people who DO belong here don't miss out on the experiences I've had. And while I'm not aware of a whole lot of overt bigotry on the scene, I do believe that women and non-binary folks have that good-versus-shitty-experience ratio stacked disproportionately against them, and so the gender balance on the scene is a good indicator of how good a job we're doing at that.

Ok, after a lot of consideration I can pretty much summarize my stance on the topic with "what ruairi said".

It's a commendable effort, and the points in the "manifesto" are all sound, and if the kinks in the communication are ironed out, I'd gladly co-sign. To reiterate those:

- That puking/shitting trope is completely out of place. I know it's an often used cliché, and not fully without reason, but let me go out on a limb here: Even in that regard most parts of the demoscene are _better_ than "normal people". You find toilets at demoparties disgusting? You should really get out more (but, er, not now. pandemic and such.).
- I know you're trying to describe situations as general as possible but in its current form it's abstracted to a point that it borders on passive aggressiveness, and it's so vague that I can understand people being afraid of misuse. Better be a bit more concrete. I guess avoiding "woke slang" was probably a design goal when writing the text, but in my book it's fine to explicitly name things like sexism, racism, transmisia (or -phobia for the laypeople), or simply putting down other people's work for no reason.
- Put the names of the people behind the text on display or at least supply a contact that goes beyond adding yourself to a supporters list. Currently I don't even know who the "you" is I'm addressing (even if I'm having a pretty good idea), and in its current form the text pretty much popped out of nowhere and is now "imposed" on the scene by a faceless "Demoscene Ethics Project". And as stupid as it is, I can understand that a few people feel a bit put off now. A "hey, _we_ started this, we're sceners, we love the scene and want to make it a more welcoming place" with faces or handles to attach to would be very appreciated here. And I know you probably also want to shield yourself from getting into the line of fire from assholes but as it stands you also shield yourself from constructive criticism that way. Perhaps one person can take the heat, who knows.
- Relatedly, and what initially put me off personally: As said, this popped out of seemingly nowhere, and it's no miracle a lot of the people who acknowledged its well meant intent but yet were a bit irritated were fellow party organizers (like rc55, v3nom and scamp) and "community managers"/admins. Because we're the people who are already deep into the issues, we're the ones who are in the best positions to bring actual change, and some of us have been doing good work in the last years. To see that almost none of those people were part of the initial draft felt... wrong, to be honest. But ok, now that _someone else_ opened up the discussion there might be hope for more broad participation. It's an important topic; let's make this a community project and not a handful of anonymous people having an opinion on the internet, please.

Stupid question: Is there anohter "Manifesto" than the website that iam missing?

nope, still discussing the same old thing :)

phew...

yes, I was being ironic...
i think the trend to show no neagtivity in social networks is corporate bullshit to make sth acceptable for as many people as possible (although they are still full of hatespeech somehow?).
someone used the term "sugar coating" and it kind of makes sense i guess.
if we publicly avoid all kinds of negative language the meaning of certain originally good meant phrases and words will shift and "nett" will indeed not be the little but the big sister of "scheisse" ;p

Well theres https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=3572 =) but..

Thanks kb, I agree 100%

To add to kb’s point, there’s also us organizers here (rimina and me for example) that already signed it, me on just content alone. I didn’t read anything objectionable there I wouldn’t sign or stand for.

54 names now.

How to spot a nazi:
1.) they use the term "nazi" to describe other people

Ooh, we got _two_ entries for the compo I mentioned earlier. Guys, it‘s on!

I originally did't want to write on pouet. I want to give some critiques regarding "ethics" in here. My problem with that is, that discussion circle was small. I think it would be an idea to discuss how we want to act as community over a longer timespan and with some discussion panels with educated guests, probably from human sciences. There are many problems in society, such as racism, antisemitism and classism to name a few. I think there is not much worth in it just assigning a paper, or in this case a formular. It is easy to assign something but a different thing to act like the assigned document. I would propose to have over 1 or 2 years some dedicated discussion panels on major parties about that topics and then have, hopefully something we all agree. If the timespan is smaller, it would be even better. I think this would not diverge too far, what party organizers do already. Unfortunately right now in-person-parties are difficult. In the end it is a discussion process, to build awareness. I think technology is not something appart from rest of society. Besides this, I am not a fan of making a polit group out of demoscene.

I'm going to say something now as *me*, not a member of the project team, so take it in those terms. For that matter when I cited numbers I did that as me.

Some folks on this thread have said things intended to be helpful, and the team has been in the process of reaching out. That said, it is important to remember that the voices of marginalized folks tend to get drowned out in the scene, including in a public forum like this, and that is why the scene needs to change. It can't be about egos, and the status quo isn't ok, or multiple people, including several organizers, wouldn't have worked on this thing.
To be honest when folks stress their skills and experience and expertise and get angry they weren't consulted from the beginning, they make the point for why this is an anonymous team project.They make it about them. This isn't about them. This isn't about me (which is why I am going to step away from this thread after this).

Dominant voices demanding that marginalized groups can only ask for space on their terms isn't making progress.
It isn't doing what you say you want to do.
Asking that marginalized groups' request for space be changed to what makes you comfortable is the opposite. It says you want to keep things the way they are and that things are fine, when things are manifestly not fine.

Instead of needing your input, perhaps it is better to reocgnize that you are threatened by the document not because of how it was made or how it is written but because you feel it threatens your control, your dominance, the status quo.
Is that really who you want to be?

This document isn't a mandate.

Get curious about yourself if it bothers you enough to post about it here.

Have a safe, sane, healthy 2021.