pouët.net

i personnally don't see the use of reading 20 reviews saying that a production suxx. that was the aim of my article. it's even often a source for flames.. as the scene seems fucking nationalist. (or you call that free-minded underground art? ..well that's another topic)

ratings are always good, for the reasons mentionned in that thread but can also be totally useless. matter of taste. the best solution is a "give a number of stars" system like on old Hornet or CDE (and yes, you can definitely rip CDE to death as it's already dead..)

to Optimus: SR was a great thing in 1993. you shouldn't take me wrong. (i'm not the author of all demoo reviews.. thanks god not).

and as a conclusion.. yes, i'm fucked up when people that still have one or two fingers in their ass want to tell me how I should have done this or that thing... as everything can be improved, always.

oh.. and guys, support PAiN with cool articles. it's a great great mag and unlock is really moving his ass (him) for it. support and respect. (off topic, but always good for some advertising..)

"I know that all these are in the game called the scene, and I enjoy playing in it .."

the scene is not a game !
the scene is a community of real life friends having fun creating with computers, this can be in demogroups, in demoparties, even in everyday life if you live with sceners, but it's not only on the pouet demoreviews !

in the past i wrote a partyreport flaming a french musician for his act at vip2, well not the whole report but an huge part of the report. i recently realized that my act was really stupid, since he and his group were much more active than me and since it's really stupid to have enemies in the scene. i reconciled with him at buenzli10. since then, i really don't want anymore to destroy publicly other's people work. and now i really regret the 3 or 4 thumbdowns or strong criticism i wrote on pouet. (yeah i'm getting off topic)

using a star-based voting system would create another problem (like on nectarine) : stars aren't a complete reference for everybody, some people will easily give 5 stars to most productions they like, some others will only give 5 stars exceptionnally.

to me, the best way is go backwards with no votes, no charts, just comments.

>"I know that all these are in the game called the scene, >and I enjoy playing in it .."

It's just a feeling I had sometimes and especially lately, that I am bored to explain in here and if I try to do so, I will end up writting nonsense. I remember Adok's article about how the scene looks really like an RPG,. you get a role like you are a hero (I felt that with me and I am Optimus :) or something and you stick on that role and you have a focus (Like breaking barriers, challenge, doing something creative, cool, appreciated, or just having fun. Or even having a fight with other groups, challenge about beeing elite with other people :) starting a new scene sect (call me Nextempire ;)... it's a strange thing, a strange world/community, there are also Ego's and bad attitudes inside in the "game", but that's another thing that makes it funny too. And I see this pattern and I take it less serious. I don't know, sometimes even life seems to me like a game, or I like to see it this way (It doesn't mean though that I fuck up everything in it, I respect life,.. it just means that I try not to take so seriously some things... aghh confused thing :P. Anyways,... lately I am doubtfull and confused with myself btw,. but that's another subject...)

Anyways,.. I shouldn't have mentioned this "game" thing, it shouldn't be considered as an argument about all these. You have some point here too. It's just that I am not taking all these votes so seriously and so it seemed to strange too me that you do, but I don't really know how other people are feeling, I am sorry about that, cause perhaps I am wrong here, just my 2C...

And yes, one reason of beeing in the scene is the community too, the most important today I guess, even if it's hard for me to visit parties. There are lot's of reasons to be in the scene, even fun, even friends, even because it seems like a role playing game, even just to get a job, even more. It depends of how the scener feels it...

And thumbing down a group prod doesn't really mean for me that I am an enemy with them. I never feel beeing really enemy (What means enemy? With the groupwars, and we can do better than you, beeing performed just for the fun of the thing,. the challenge, e.t.c... which are also taken from a not serious point of view)
I want feel like an enemy to someone else if I thumb down his prod for some reason,. I don't really know if he will think of me as an enemy. I definitelly don't want enemies in the scene (Afteralls I am a newbie right now, and search for friends only..)

As Oscar Wilde once put it: "Life is a far too much important thing to be ever taken seriously" - I really enjoy being member of the scene, and I ofcourse enjoy to produce demos and intros - but the day I'll start to take this all really serious will be the day I'll stop being active in the scene and start getting a life.

Serious, votes are interesting as a reference on what people think about you, but I certainly won't be frustrated when someone says that one of my productions suck (if they don't have a point, ignore them, if they do, take is at an opportunity to get better) and on the other hand I WILL vote a sucks for a production when I think it *does* suck - even if it is just a feeling in my stomach and nothing you can reason about.

My points are quite simple actually: Writing that a production was OK when I think it sucked isn't helpful for anyone - and the votes actually are nice as a quick reference whether to download some production or not. To explain that a little bit: There are some persons with whose votes I almost always agree. If some of them commented the production and noone liked it, I certainly won't bother downloading it - this usually works ALOT better than judging by party rankings, simply because I can select the persons whose taste I think are closest to mine to choose which demos to watch.

And about charts: This is a topic EVERYONE keeps arguing about, but my idea is quite simple: Charts aren't meant to discriminate anyone or something like that - it's just nice to know whether people like what you produce or not. Ofcourse it's placative, but who cares? It's ALWAYS nice to know what people think of you :)

ryg has a good point here. I personally use the thumbs up/down ratings, but not for the obvious reasons. Usually, I only take seriously ratings from people that most of the times I agree with. And even with that, when a demo gets very bad critisism I still download it to see what everyone else hated. Also, many times a demo that has been flamed like hell impresses me. All I am saying is that ratings are not bad as long as you dont take them too seriously.

About comments vs votes..

This far, i've got offended exactly once because of an unthoughtful comment. Never because of a vote.
Sometimes i'm amazed about how ..err.. "different from mine" someones taste is. But that's it.

Am i just me?

No, you are just you.

ryg, if you'd take macaw's taste as a reference, you wouldn't see any demo lately ;)

(just kidding, of course :-) )

yeah, but i'm luckily not swimming on that recent bad taste wave. :)

Completely agree with Ryg's vision on the matter. Btw, great quote :)

bump

alienus: banned

Oh damn! I just read that thread thinking it was a recent post ! And I was like WTF???? The trolls, NOW THE VOTING SYSTEM !!!???? And I was like WTF IS OPTIMUS DOING THERE WITH HIS LONG POSTINGS ?

Errr, yes - it's subjective. That's kinda the idea, isn't it?

Besides, voting anonymously makes no sense? Despite all the arguments given here, I fail to see how that would make the voting system better.

Nah, the way the system works is basically OK for me, but I'd just like some more nuances put in there. Today we have 3...eh..."flavours" (so sue me, alright???!) and a comments text field. How about 5 levels instead of 3? I often find productions that are not quite there yet, but are absolutely above the grey mass in the middle, but I don't feel like I can vote realistically on them - so I, more often than not, choose a piggy accompanied by a suiting comment. And it feels kind of hollow to me.

Oh, please - don't make it anonymously. It's FUN to see who you agree/disagree with and I think it enhances the general social connection of the scene.

nutman: the discussion has been over for six years. noone wants anonymous votes anymore, they have all migrated to intro-inferno so they can write "omg cool" for an intro and still vote it low.

The anonymous rating system was tried on other sites and results in extensive abuse.

Uh I should clarify a little. By abuse I mean that voting becomes less honest, not more honest as you might expect. People seem quite happy to give ratings they could never justify if their names were attached to the vote.

Well see. I wrote this six years ago.

I've always have been against the idea of voting on pouet: to make the vote even more of a joke than what it really is at this point did not bother me at all back then. More importantly I'd like to have a way to hide it and make it somewhat irrelevant.

Anyway, what's wrong with voting on pouet you ask?

I'd like the design and mechcanics of the site to put more emphasis on the content inside comments rather than a two-headed, clumsy system emphasizing "HELL YES!"/"FUCK NO" feedback over reasoned critique.

Considering a lot of us seems to be in need of validation and/or need a way to express their taste in self-gratifying ways, I do not hold much hope
of getting my way here. Each time a new alternative to pouet has been built (demozoo excepted so far) I've seen the seed of that very cancer.

Nor do I even care that much. I rarely "thumb" things and try not to write comments when I've got not much to say. ("Me too" comments are soo common around here, and even the most intelligent people here manage to make write the dumbest stuff ever)

Not to say I've got an impecable commenting history.. it's easy to see on my profile I've had difficulties producing even remotely interesting commentary in any demo I commented on. Let me blame the website's design, instead of personal inadequacies.

Or maybe let's blame demos for being so rarely relevant enough as to spur interesting discussions.

Thanks for reviving this old thread, bastards. :)

I realised that, but I was afraid someone might pick up on that "idea" again. And, for the love of God, DON'T!

you just gotta love that one :-)

(knos don't worry, i understand exactly what you mean, but that particular quote just gave me the giggles :)

:D

amazing how the whole thumb-issue is still a matter. until today we can see how, even if only very few, people reduce their ego on thumbs and how badly it can effect the emotional state of others. =) hell, if the thumbs are worth anything, than it's them resulting in whole "i'll give you a beer at party x" or "i'll stick my thumb up yours for thumbing me down" scenarios.

uncle-x, perfectly fine, i'm happy if people get it ;)