pouët.net

As we all know right now the biggest realtime-communication system of the Demoscene is hosted on a private Discord instance of a fellow demoscener. Just as for years I had been objecting to moving demoscene streaming to Twitch, I am objecting having such communication hosted on a no-privacy commercial service (that could be bought by Microsoft and/or Facebook tomorrow). Not having any neutral or reasonable oversight over content on those services makes it worse.

During the last week I have taken a lot of heat and flak for defending the right of a long-term demoscener who had voiced very unpopular opinions (that I do not agree with) to still be able to participate in demoscene communications. The person got banned from Discord. Most people did not care about that, he never had been popular anyway, but I did not like the precedent this once more was setting at all.

In result of this, I had two nights of quite fruitful discussions on Discord, with the topic being on how to stop the constant fights and drama by establishing proper moderation. What I was suggested was starting a nomination process, where relaxed and known for being mediating kind of folks could be suggested as becoming moderators. I suggested to afterwards running an election process. I also suggested creating dedicated channels for everything that is not really on-topic for the demoscene, but important topics that people wish to discuss but that often derail and spoil the mood for others. I had mentioned "Corona" and "World Views / Demoscene Ethics".

What happened afterwards is pretty much what now happens on a weekly basis on Discord: Some people, including the scene's #1 attention-seeking outrage queen, started to derail the conversation, making it destructive and personal instead of trying to reach a common goal.

In the end I was banned, and all conversation on the subject on "how to make moderation better" stopped. I suspect the reasons for that may include that those who right now are running the show (badly) on Demoscene Discord simply do fear elections and/or the power to run the outrage machine.

Anyway, I was not just getting banned. In parallel in the background the evil-scamp outrage machine was run, spewing all kinds of hate, lies and bullshit about me and Underground Conference (which is one of the about 40 demoscene parties where I had been involved organizing so far). Also mutual demoscene friends got contacted with "if scamp is allowed to go to this party, I won't go" and similar attempts to try to get my demoscene friends to boycott me and whatever I create or organize for the scene.

I was kinda used to it, with well-known scene influencers constantly "forgetting" various stuff I do when it comes to "upcoming parties", "biggest scene sites", "most senior demoscene organizers" etc. - but it now has reached disgusting levels, where people who just enjoy what I create have to justify themselves.

I have spent the last weekend with my friends at a demoscene meeting in Northern Germany. I have learnt that a lot of people got hurt in "cross-fire". Meaning: They do not wish to be bothered with this drama and boycotts. I heard about people crying due to this.

Yes, I am a controversial scene personality, and have always been controversial. I am OK with taking fire for that. But "don't party with scamp"? It's disgusting.

I therefore wish to apologize to all my friends in the scene who currently are in the situation to suddenly get attacked for liking me and/or hanging out together with me and/or for going to the events I organize. I may have been blind and should have seen it coming, but didn't. It was a mistake. For once, I should have acted against my believes and values and just stood silent for the benefit of myself and my friends.

During the pandemic I so far have tried to organize four demoparties, with two of those actually have taken place. At those parties and additional meetings I saw (vaccinated and/or protected) people hugging, laughing and having a good time together, similar to what we were used to pre-pandemic. And that included people I had online "fights" with. This is the way it used to work: We do have disputes online, but heal those by hugging real-life.

It turns out that I had forgotten to see that some sceners did not have this compensation yet. They are still in lockdown mode, with two years of suffering and frustrating on their shoulders. They do not have the huggings part available. I believe this is one of the main reasons why the online part of the demoscene right now consists of lots of hate.

I do believe that the campaign for an inclusive and open-minded demoscene needs to continue. I do believe that we must make sure that it does not matter what your world view or opinions are when it comes to being allowed to participate in the demoscene. I do believe we must reject those that pretend to be spewing the hate in the name of love. I do believe we need to get rid of anti-democratic tendencies in the scene and attempts to make it a place for worldview-aligned people instead of passion-aligned ones.

But I understand that right now there is no chance to get reform, especially not on and for Demoscene Discord. Yes, I found it unfair that I was unable to take part in the névoke online conversations, because, surprise, such demoparty stuff is now hosted on the "It's a private server, you can just go elsewhere!" Discord. Yes, I can go elsewhere, but I can no longer chat with friends online during an online demoparty. Luckily this happened during a real-life party where only in parts we were just watching a stream. Else I propably would have felt quite lonely.

I will therefore together with my like-minded friends shift stuff into Reallife more. We will meet, we will party, and we will try to make the scene better for everyone who has the intention to some day to get off their blood-dripping keyboards again, go out and see that fellow sceners are humans, too, that none of us is free of defects, but that we still can be friends and have a great time together.

Envious?

what sir said

great non apology bro



discord being privately owned has been a concern for a many other sceners who have been working on setting up alternatives (telegram, matrix), talk with truck for example if you want to push that forward. their lack adoption is largely due to discord being more reliable and easy to use, same way twitch is easier to stream to.



you didn't take heat and flak, you were largely ignored and then proceeded to throw shit at friends who were explaining to you why that rant is getting old and should be done with bombe the discord owner who can actually affect changes and not insurrecting yet another flamewar on a random discord channel.



if you call constant flamewars fruitful, sure.

i do agree with a lot of the things you proposed, but those were not fruitful discussions, that was you DEMANDING things be done your way over and over and refusing to listen while people explained how bombe's discord was not your irc channel.



those derails actually only happens on the demoscene discord when you or d4xx were active chatting there. coincidence?



or they're simply not forced to do your bidding on demand and increase their moderation work 10x because scamp is paranoid of cancel culture taking over the world.

bombe's discord server isn't the only demoscene discord out there, and you're free to create another one with all the moderation rules you want.



it's curious that you mention that while you're doing the same thing about them at the same time. how about you all sit down in private and resolve your private issues instead of ressurging more flamewars in public?



wtf are you on about? how about apologizing for acting like an ass to the people you actually acted like an ass towards? namely kb darya gargaj and bombe? not to mention your previous post-revision stunt where you insulted dfox and draugven?

seen what coming? the evil nordic conspiracy cancel culture that is out to get you and destroy demoscene as we know it?
you're fucking paranoid scamp. get your head out of your ass.

people aren't out to get you couz of some anti-freedom conspiracy, they banned you couz you've been behaving toxic.



nop, it's not because of covid lockdown and/or potential mental illness that people think you're being toxic, it's couz you're being toxic.



worldview-aligned and passion-aligned are the same. you're just spewing hatred towards people who champion their own causes now.

do agree with the rest though. but it's not by demanding things to be done your way on a private server that you implement democratic server. if you think the server is not serving it's purpose you set up your own the way you envision it to be, not walk all over what others have been doing and start demanding change because you say so.



maybe you could have participated on the server during nevoke IF YOU DIDNT THROW A SHITSTORM OF INSULTS TO TWO OF ITS ORGANIZERS A FEW DAYS BEFORE.
in fact ruining the preparty mood i had been working at for days to setup, so cheers for that btw.

Dear friends:

The temperature here today reaches 40 degrees Celsius but it seems that tomorrow it will drop to barely 30. I hope that is also the case wherever you are.

Hugs!

Interesting that at least 2 out of 4 names mentioned here are involved in constant discussions and the result leads to a kick or a ban and somehow nobody notices this. coincidences?

Not a single ban from the Discord server was performed because of an opinion. The repition of such a claim does not make the claim true, no matter how hard you try.

Every single of these bans from the Discord server was because of the way people chose to express their opinion. We can disagree about everything, that really doesn't matter but when you

• insult people;
  
• call people derogative names;
  
• don't listen to anything you're being told;
  

you're not contributing meaningfully to a discussion but are actively disturbing it.

And that will get you (and everybody else!) a ban every time.

Can you point out, why TEIS got banned from your Server? - I'm curious!

What the fuck? Why are you tolerating these assholes on this website?

Of course I can but I won't because that's none of your business.

So, ask those friends to join you on some other server? Problem solved and you don't need to write 3gb of text every week about how you're misunderstood.

That’s D4xx and Scamp, to be clear.

Srsly, fuck off scamp.

Dude... your idea of open minded isn't open minded. Open minded doesn't mean "ignore me being a horrific piece of shit." Open minded means accepting that you need to SHUT THE FUCK UP about your shitty opinions because other people don't fucking agree with you, and they don't have to. Nobody said you had to agree with anyone, you just need to keep your toxic shit locked up inside your own god damned brain where it fucking belongs.

Also, anti-democratic? WHERE?!?!? When a majority of people realize what a piece of shit you are and want you to fuck off and die, THAT IS DEMOCRACY IN ACTION.

You are such a prick, I'm glad I have never had to know who the fuck you are. I regret that I am forced to know who you are now. Why don't you go crawl back under that rock you crawled out from under?

Why do you call me an as**** ? What did I do to you?

That's literally the job that falls to moderators. That's as much of a non-point as scamp made a non-apology, and it sets the whole tone of disingenuity.

@deathybas: nice new account and aesthetic toxic insults you got there m8

why don't you calm down the tone a little

What is constantly shown on Discord (and to a lesser extend here) is that people simply claim to have been insulted or "harassed" taking this out of thin air, to then insult people heavily.

Also, feeling insulted is a personal decision and/or feeling on the receiving side. You can only influence that to a certain extend. Some people right now simply appear to have the 24/7 to feel insulted by everything, to then have a justification to call for the hanging of others.

It's laughable to claim that I have *disrupted* a discussion subject that *I had started and run*. That's logically impossible. The timing directly after me questioning moderation style points to where the truth is.

The "nobody ever was banned" stuff is a clear lie. Also, banning isn't my main point. Trying to exclude people or lynch them is my point. And there are a lot of victims to this already. Should we hear about one of those people having committed suicide one day (not me), a lot of people might regret that. What some people are doing here can not be justified no matter how strong the fuck-up by the target might have been.

...

While indeed some people have moved away from Discord and now use other channels, this is not an option for discussing a live online party. That sucked already during Twitch times where half the communication was on Twitch, the other half on Discord. Online parties need to have a single discussion channel where people meet. We also do not sit in two different halls during reallife demoparties.

A bit like you're feeling insulted for being banned, then?

It's apparently a personal decision you're feeling insulted by this, so maybe try not feeling insulted?

You might have missed it, but I did apologize. To those that got hurt. But not towards those who do hurt. Which is logical.

I support that. But a moderator's job is not to put personal feelings into something just because his friends (a) offend (b) others, and when those others (b) react the same way to his/her friends (a) they ban others (b).

When we talk about rules, imho they should apply to everyone or nobody. And at this point people come and say, if you don't like it, create your own channel, which I find really questionable. As I like to say: At the end of an argument, the insults come.

And by the way, I say that here completely free of any feelings of hate. I just wanted to get rid of that.

Who said that? Can't find it. Could it be that you outstandingly suck in the smoke candle throwing department?

I do not feel insulted, and did not. Again: I have been a controversial scener for 27 years now.

I felt insulted by those who run that shit show trying to cause harm to my friends. Such things have not happend to this extend in all of those 27 years.