pouët.net

Hello.

Now that I've been asked a few times what happened, I'd like to make it public here.

I was involved in a discussion about the admission criteria for the deadline in Berlin. I also explicitly emphasized there that I respect these rules. But I also said that I can understand people who feel discriminated against as a result. Polemics quickly popped up again like "tinfoil hat wearers" "reptiloids" "chemtrails" etc., apparently to make other views straight into the ridiculous? I don't know.

Now you all probably know the saying:
I am only responsible for what I write but not for what you understand.

At some point in the discussion, Fizzer wrote that he knew why he kept staying away from the demoscene more and more.

To which I replied (quote):
you should distance from the whole life tbh

By which I meant nothing more than: Then you no longer have to take part in public life, because you will always find other opinions there and also diseases and NOT "kill yourself" !

Perhaps that was to be interpreted incorrectly in the context. Then I have to apologize for it. However, English is still not my main language and especially in discussions where 10 people are pounding at you at the same time, you don't always find the right words right away.

However... What I would like to say in the end is that you do not ban people who insult others as an idiot or with "FUCK YOU", but with such a banal statement that you take as extremely insulting and which you have completely misinterpreted. Personally, I find that questionable. You seem to find it normal and as I have seen, in retrospect, okkie made it unmistakably clear that if this decision does not suit us, we can open our own demoscene channel.

I've been in the demo scene for a long time. But I haven't done anything in ages, except my remixes. I can't keep the current standard that the demo scene demands, which is why there are certainly other heroes who are far more productive here than me and from whom newbies can certainly learn more. So I can live quite well with the fact that I'm no longer welcome in the chat.

The post only serves to clarify the matter, not the request to let me back into the chat.
Thanks for reading.

What's the point of spending time chatting or social networks? Better talk about programming

Don't drag deadline into this, it had nothing to do with it. Also there's a separate thread for discussing deadline vaccination policy here on pouet it seems.
I was just a reader of discord yesterday and happened to see the debate in question unfold. Anyways as with all these things, I encourage people to just log into discord and make up their own mind instead of relying on a second hand report from whatever source.

And you did this even though you said that you don't go to parties (I don't either btw). This repeating fighting on other people's behalf is something I'm having trouble understanding.

Daxx making friends again.... The scene does not need you.

Ah, another case of people loving to smell their own farts.

I love it.

Nothing better than a good drama on pouet...

erstwhile on Fargo:

Opinion-wise I am not on anyone's side here, I guess from the Deadline threads it's clear I am absolutely in favour of Deadline's strategy, and do not share daxx's views here. Exec summary: I do not agree with daxx at all.

But I do not like the concept of having un-elected moderators banning people permanently just because they have a different opinion on $whatever.

After all, a fellow scener who has been active longer than most on that server is getting banned for an unlimited time, therefore not able to participate in the biggest realtime-communication channel discord has.

There are couple of steps you can take before banning someone permanentely. You can ignore the person (a feature discord has), you can warn the person, and in a situation of emotions boiling, you can do a temporary kick. A perm-ban should be last resort.

None of this is new, all of these concepts have existed and have proven themseles for 25 years on IRC. Not even the most controversial people where in the need of a perm ban. Typically a kick was enough.

The style of "moderation" on demoscene discord very much adds to the feeling of many that this is a place of constant anger, aggressions and fights, and not anyone about discussing your passion with friends. The suggestions I have heard so far from "those in power" how to improve it has been "let's be even more aggressive on people we do not agree with". If a concept is failing, let's try twice as hard on it.

We had a fruitful discussion on this over on Discord last night on how some of this can be improved, but in general I really feel that both discussion and moderation culture in Demoscene Discord is worse than all we had in 25 years of IRC, and I do not see much of an interest in regards of the moderators and admins to make this a more inclusive and welcoming place to *everyone* in the scene, including those you do not share opinions or worldviews with. Which is what would actually represent the scene: We all do demoscene-related art and join at partys, but other than that, are very different and neurodiverse people.

My head canon is that Discord actively promotes animosities by having notification sounds all the time that you cannot turn off selectively nor know where they come from and what they want to tell you, randomly mute and delay some people for some but not all participants so you talk over each other... and possibly more subtle things i didn't care to explore before ditching that medium.

I really would prefer something that is more modern than IRC, but not controlled by an evil company retaining the right to all the text you've written.

But all open source alternatives I have seen so far and might be suitable for the demoscene suck. Some sceners are now using a Mattermost-based solution, but that stuff can not even properly handle copy&paste and needs 4GB of RAM to hold 4KB of text backlog.

But looking for alternatives is a subject for a different thread, place and time, I guess.

Bans are for behaviour, not opinion.

Scamp's point remains though, and I tend to agree with what he just wrote.

In fact, it's been rubbing me the wrong way how I see some moderators behave, making sarcastic or passive aggressive remarks, in direct contradiction with the ethics narrative that's been discussed for some time. Or in other words, people who are moderators, at the very least stand to your own standards.

I´m not quite sure if the permban trigger is pulled in this case a bit too early.
Maybe the admin who permbanned d4xx could explain what was/is the plan.

In this case i share scamps point of view.

Cool!

You are now making the claim that I misbehaved. Allegations should include a source. Please show me my wrongdoing explicitly with a screenshot. During that time, I'll be happy to show you one.

If the Discord server would ban for opinion, holy crap, we’d be very busy, do you know how many people there are who believe the Amiga was superior to the Atari ST? So much foolishness and not a single ban in sight!

Then again, Discord has as much elected moderators as every single other platform the demoscene has chosen to inhabit. There were no elected leaders on FidoNet, IRC, Pouet, Demozoo, countless smaller Slack and Discord servers and indeed also not the Discord server in question so I would say we’re in good company here. So what exactly is it that rubs you, scamp, the wrong way about the Discord server but not, say, the IRC channels (which were rampant with toxic masculinity) from back then? Hmm… :thinkingface:

Anyway. Instead of speculating on your motives here I will say this:

The Discord server is a place for the demoscene. It welcomes all members who choose to follow some basic rules:

• Don’t be an asshat. Asshattery includes insulting people based on things they did not choose, like e.g. sex, gender, colour of skin, sexual orientation, or age. (List is not exhaustive.) It also includes general demeaning behaviour (such as displayed by some people on numerous occasions), disruptive behaviour (e.g. spamming other members, or trying to disturb conversations), you know, all the things that parents should have taught their children during the first years of their lives. And if you feel the need to language-lawyer this, oh boy, do I have news for you.
  

Okay, it’s really just one basic rule. If you think

• it’s okay for people to be harassed by somebody with many releases under their belt;
  
• it’s okay for people to have their experiences belittled by somebody who does not have the experiences and still think they know shit about something;
  
• it’s okay for people to be called derogative terms by somebody who’s been a member of the demoscene for so long;
  

this Discord server is not for you. Stay the fuck away.

Bombe (the owner of the Discord server)

after getting some background informations from some of my friends who experienced d4xx within the last weeks:

yeah. permban. welll deserved.

anyhoo...d4xx: you left the scene so often, that maybe you should avoid permbans by just be consequent and stay away from this community you despise its members so much.

Maybe there is another anthole you can stick a twig in.

??? Background information? Which one please? How about some proofs please?

bombe: Difference between me and some of the "moderators" on that server: I am self-reflective enough to understand I am neither moderate, nor a good moderator, and very often part of controversy myself.

I also aware that while I've founded some of the most significant scene communication forums back in the days, but was never good at moderation. I was causing division.

I understand that a bunch of people these days, especially those who have been under lockdown not actually meeting physical other sceners, are now completely stuck in their bubble when it comes to the simple question of "I am part of the problem?"

A "moderator" who calls a user who voices a different opinion (but does not insult anyone) an "idiot" and then perm-bands him, should not be a moderator. Moderators on every occasion jumping into heated discussions, making them even more heated, pouring oil into the fire to then have a reason to hang just another person... that's exactly what pretty much every sane person would call "demeaning", "disruptive" and "disturbing".

And if you don't understand that, you should not be in charge of running an important scene resource. Because you are worse of a communication dictator today - as a grown-up person - than I had been when I run the show when I was 17 years old.

Something I had to learn over the years since my childhood when I was bullied on a daily basis: In trying to prevent that, you often become a bully yourself, in my case up to the point that I had become the most scared-of person in school.

Running the server you might want to have another look at what it has become. A bunch of people trying to find victims to hang, a tiny percentage of people left actually talking about the demoscene, and 1000 registered users who mostly stopped writing or reading on it. So, be proud of your creation: Instead of bringing sceners together, this shithole is causing division, hate and sorrow.

And no, we never had such a situation on IRC nor FidoNet, not even when I was the "king" there.

Some people should learn your lesson: If you are less moderate and a worse moderator than scamp (!), then you really, really, really suck ass at your job.

I do not know the context nor do I care, but I'd say they did you a favour @D4XX.

scamp: could you maybe also reflect on how seriously one should take advice about moderation from a self described terrible moderator?

Hey, I would just like to point out that I did not ban you, D4XX. I am not a moderator on the Demoscene Discord server (and not on any other server either). I do not have the power to kick or ban anyone. It was just a coincidence that I told you to "enjoy your ban". I merely assumed that you would soon be banned.

I feel like this needs to be pointed out, because I heard that you believe it was me who did the banning. That's not true.

Thanks for pointing this out.