new diskmag issues 2009
category: general [glöplog]
The idea of putting articles online and when you have enough fill an .exe diskmag with it isnt really new. I wonder how many sceners would surf to this website on a frequent basis especially when the newest articles placed on there doesnt fit there interest.
When you release an diskmag filled with entirely news articles people can read what they like and focus on all contents in one go.
I wonder which has the best advantages for most of the readers..
When you release an diskmag filled with entirely news articles people can read what they like and focus on all contents in one go.
I wonder which has the best advantages for most of the readers..
p.s. I second smash to. Since some time sceners have a lot more to focus on than just demoscene. (family, work etc etc..)
The average age in the demoscene has reached new heights
The average age in the demoscene has reached new heights
ps: sounds good, and would work well for new articles. doesn't help with publishing the old ones online though. anyway, sent you an email, too.
I like diskmags, only they tend to be very big and far between. So once a year I get a mag, read the third of it, and leave the rest unread because of other higher priorities popping.
Something like 20 articles each 2 months rather than 60 each year could actually help to keep some momentum. While too often (daily blog?) and no one cares cuz it's no longer an event. It's important that a release be an event, more than a post in the onliner ;)
A web dump is also very handy, as I usually like to read at work, or even print and read later in the bus.
Like magic+smash said, it also requires lots of time and we're all growing busy with daily jobs and kids and all (omg scene will be so active in 20-40 years when we'll all be retired =) )
Something like 20 articles each 2 months rather than 60 each year could actually help to keep some momentum. While too often (daily blog?) and no one cares cuz it's no longer an event. It's important that a release be an event, more than a post in the onliner ;)
A web dump is also very handy, as I usually like to read at work, or even print and read later in the bus.
Like magic+smash said, it also requires lots of time and we're all growing busy with daily jobs and kids and all (omg scene will be so active in 20-40 years when we'll all be retired =) )
Some points I would like to cover here.
1 - Who are the diskmags made for?
The sceners? The newcomers? Both? It seems smarter to work in two ways, but in the end you come up with a product which will sound n00b for the average scener and way too complicated and unappealing to some new guy. Or not. Anyway, I would like to see that debated here.
2 - What articles do you prefer to read on a diskmag?
Let's say that I start a diskmag. I would start writing some articles, and either they would be too pathetic-trying-to-be-funny-but-failing-miserably or Optimus style. Plus English is not my mother language. In my spare time, I would write half a dozen articles about music and art. The mag comes out, and after if gets downvoted by people who read 2 articles it falls in oblivion. So... how to know the public's general taste? Of course, that depends on the answer to 1 - who's the public?
3 - Not every scener is a prod maker.
Which takes us to the question: what have you done for the scene today?! C'mon guys, if you call yourselves sceners without releasing it's like being a preacher with no faith. (because faith is with scamp. sorry bad joke) Of course it's easier said than done, but if some guy spends 10 min per day fixing up code for the engine, another guy spends that amount of time formatting text, another one proofreading, all you need is content. which leads me to...
4 - Why do we love diskmags?
Because they're isolated, nostalgic, insightful, funny, relaxing, educational, motivating, inspiring... and being at a demoparty we get all those feelings at once, so reading a diskmag is almost like being at a demoparty at home. And if we get so many demoparties and so many prods, don't tell me you can't find the time to share a bit of your code with witty comments, or talk about painting techniques or music beats. At a demoparty, you do that already while drinking a beer. Why not doing that in the confort of your own chair?
Sorry, it's past 5 AM and I can't sleep - happens a lot in our warm country - so I had to rant away.
and YES I offer myself to collaborate in any way I can - almost-funny articles, music, text-formatting.
1 - Who are the diskmags made for?
The sceners? The newcomers? Both? It seems smarter to work in two ways, but in the end you come up with a product which will sound n00b for the average scener and way too complicated and unappealing to some new guy. Or not. Anyway, I would like to see that debated here.
2 - What articles do you prefer to read on a diskmag?
Let's say that I start a diskmag. I would start writing some articles, and either they would be too pathetic-trying-to-be-funny-but-failing-miserably or Optimus style. Plus English is not my mother language. In my spare time, I would write half a dozen articles about music and art. The mag comes out, and after if gets downvoted by people who read 2 articles it falls in oblivion. So... how to know the public's general taste? Of course, that depends on the answer to 1 - who's the public?
3 - Not every scener is a prod maker.
Which takes us to the question: what have you done for the scene today?! C'mon guys, if you call yourselves sceners without releasing it's like being a preacher with no faith. (because faith is with scamp. sorry bad joke) Of course it's easier said than done, but if some guy spends 10 min per day fixing up code for the engine, another guy spends that amount of time formatting text, another one proofreading, all you need is content. which leads me to...
4 - Why do we love diskmags?
Because they're isolated, nostalgic, insightful, funny, relaxing, educational, motivating, inspiring... and being at a demoparty we get all those feelings at once, so reading a diskmag is almost like being at a demoparty at home. And if we get so many demoparties and so many prods, don't tell me you can't find the time to share a bit of your code with witty comments, or talk about painting techniques or music beats. At a demoparty, you do that already while drinking a beer. Why not doing that in the confort of your own chair?
Sorry, it's past 5 AM and I can't sleep - happens a lot in our warm country - so I had to rant away.
and YES I offer myself to collaborate in any way I can - almost-funny articles, music, text-formatting.
I've been trying out some ideas for stuff that I might want to maintain. Please have a look and comment url
macaw: i like your "objective/subjective" scores on the reviews. :)
(btw, ive seen it so many places so i better clear it up. we were not going after gamers with frameranger. thats what we wanted to do - do this story stuff but stylishly and artistically. if anything we added the 2nd part to appeal to the poor "sceners" who only like a demo if it has cubes in it.)
(btw, ive seen it so many places so i better clear it up. we were not going after gamers with frameranger. thats what we wanted to do - do this story stuff but stylishly and artistically. if anything we added the 2nd part to appeal to the poor "sceners" who only like a demo if it has cubes in it.)
But but.. there were cubes in the first part as well! You're messing with our minds!!!11
gloom: okok i admit, we had to play to the crowd!!
sell out!
it seems that i need to be more careful with the built-in spell checker.
i'd love to see diskmags move to web, so that there would be a site where a mag would be released on issue basis. preferably for nice layout for each issue.
It seems to me that there are motivated and highly interested writers out there. The real question is maybe placed elsewhere for the to me few of the current PC "diskmags"
I fully understand that a person like Unlock, is busy with arranging the Buenzli, but again i know the editors behind PAiN are able to produce something if they really wanted to do so(i should know as i was a part of this some years ago)
I mean, i see the photoes of the same people at an majority of the same parties each year. Sure it's nice to get around and meet the sceners face to face, but again it made me wonder. I mean, you got time to go around the world, but you don't have time to write for one of the few things you actually do for the scene.
Even PS, who started this thread, should know better, than starting a thread like this. Take the (in)famous Truck, who are presented at nearly every party there are around the globe, why not use a small limit of the travelling time to write some articles?
Take Zine, which looks and feel i don't like, as it's far more advanced to get around in. There is a reason why newspapers have looked the same for a decade now.
Magazines like Zine, PAiN and Showtime, should maybe consider closing down two of them and instead use the focus to keep one alive and with releasing at least 2 issues a year.
At least Hugi comes on a regular basis, even through Adok is a highly hated person amongst many sceners. Hugi is actually once of the magazines who have accomplished more than the others have the last years. Yes, that's gathering and having more and more interesting content.
It all seem to me, that the main editors have gotten lazy and find all the boozeparties more important, than actually doing some scene work.
I fully understand that a person like Unlock, is busy with arranging the Buenzli, but again i know the editors behind PAiN are able to produce something if they really wanted to do so(i should know as i was a part of this some years ago)
I mean, i see the photoes of the same people at an majority of the same parties each year. Sure it's nice to get around and meet the sceners face to face, but again it made me wonder. I mean, you got time to go around the world, but you don't have time to write for one of the few things you actually do for the scene.
Even PS, who started this thread, should know better, than starting a thread like this. Take the (in)famous Truck, who are presented at nearly every party there are around the globe, why not use a small limit of the travelling time to write some articles?
Take Zine, which looks and feel i don't like, as it's far more advanced to get around in. There is a reason why newspapers have looked the same for a decade now.
Magazines like Zine, PAiN and Showtime, should maybe consider closing down two of them and instead use the focus to keep one alive and with releasing at least 2 issues a year.
At least Hugi comes on a regular basis, even through Adok is a highly hated person amongst many sceners. Hugi is actually once of the magazines who have accomplished more than the others have the last years. Yes, that's gathering and having more and more interesting content.
It all seem to me, that the main editors have gotten lazy and find all the boozeparties more important, than actually doing some scene work.
jeenio:
personally i think coding articles and interviews are most rewarding to read. i think music-making articles are a lack of these days too, a how to master your tune, or how to build up a tune from scratch (f.ex. what makes a song sound good?) also i would love to see some articles about what colors make a demo great! so color-design and how to make ideas from reallife to the storyboard of a demo, how to make that happen.
and people don't like demo-reviews because its subjective or what?
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2 - What articles do you prefer to read on a diskmag?
personally i think coding articles and interviews are most rewarding to read. i think music-making articles are a lack of these days too, a how to master your tune, or how to build up a tune from scratch (f.ex. what makes a song sound good?) also i would love to see some articles about what colors make a demo great! so color-design and how to make ideas from reallife to the storyboard of a demo, how to make that happen.
and people don't like demo-reviews because its subjective or what?
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because faith is with scamp
SCANDAL!!
i wasnt going to rant but then i saw the post from enzymer, echoing what we've seen in all new diskmag prod comments by various people for some time now and i thought fuck it, it's well deserved. rant on.
i want to implore everyone currently working on a diskmag to stop right now. the "community" as it stands doesnt deserve your time and hard work. that scene community is now largely made up of watchers who view demos like youtube videos and diskmags like blogs - to be thumbed down without thought merely because it does not fit their own bizarre and exacting tastes of what those things should be. those watchers are willing to demand unlimited dedication, work and skill from those producing, yet are totally unable and unwilling to do anything to contribute themselves.
writing articles for diskmags has the lowest barrier to participation of anything in the scene - you just need a grasp of language and something to say, which pouet users are not short of. that there is not more contributed can only be down to the audience not giving a fuck. and for a community lead production that means: it's time to stop. you would be better off to put your time into anything else rather than doing something for the joy of that audience. they dont appreciate it.
when those people flood your inbox with articles, offers of participation etc, then its time to get back on it.
What Smash said, as well as:
..and there is a reason why a diskmag is not a newspaper.
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Take Zine, which looks and feel i don't like, as it's far more advanced to get around in. There is a reason why newspapers have looked the same for a decade now.
..and there is a reason why a diskmag is not a newspaper.
bad journalism is when you mix fashion and faith up ;)
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It all seem to me, that the main editors have gotten lazy and find all the boozeparties more important, than actually doing some scene work.
oh fuck off.
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writing articles for diskmags has the lowest barrier to participation of anything in the scene -
No, that would be posting on Pouet.net. You don't even need a grasp of language here. :) At least in diskmags, you have to sound coherent and have the intention that people will actually want to read it. But there is a certain percentage of people who won't bother with diskmags anymore when websites are around, so diskmags are mostly a group of authors writing for themselves.
I can't remember the last time I saw an appeal for writers/articles by any of the major diskmags.
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No, that would be posting on Pouet.net.
that's not participation.
Gargaj sooo has leading.
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It all seem to me, that the main editors have gotten lazy and find all the boozeparties more important, than actually doing some scene work.
Enzymer: please, be our guest and bring your demoscene work :)
(pouet posts, comments, thumbs don't count)
a reply to ps' first post:
the problem is, the people writing the articles should preferably either be professional journalists or have a convincing background in doing it as a hobby. having a grasp of the language doesn't guarantee you can write proper articles in a proper way and therefore get proper readers to properly enjoy it. i'm not pointing fingers, but certain mags from the past few years (*cough* showtime) have been sub-standard in terms of the quality of the content. when it comes to mags i've never understood the "it's not the best, but at least we released!" principle. a mag is a major release, and you don't see people releasing major demos with that kind of attitude. if you know it won't be the best ever, don't do it. whether or not anyone would care enough, that's another question.
there are people sucked in. from a finnish point of view there are a handful of promising new sceners who have found the way into the scene because of assembly, the scenebooth from the previous years (although it failed this year), and because of a finnish programming site called ohjelmointiputka and viznut's smaller-scale outreach efforts. it's working, mainly because there's a continuing link between the future prospects and the current scene - it's not a one-off event where some guy tells a hallful of people about these pieces of art we do. but i digress.
i don't particularly miss coding articles, but as far as centralizing articles goes, bitfellas has been trying to do it for a while now. the problem is, there's a lot of stuff in there, it's organized in a messy way, it's hard to pick out the important stuff, and it's infested by germans :)
this made me chuckle :) traditionally doing proper interviews has seemed to be surprisingly difficult, the best examples being magic's interviews where he's sent out questionnaire sheets but hasn't bothered to see what he's actually asking, which resulted in completely irrelevant questions and a completely dumbfounded interviewee. crown's interviews for amp are also notorious for this.
problem is (again), it's not that easy to produce an article that's properly written, about an interesting subject, from an interesting point of view. in my personal opinion, over the years there have only been a few people who have really excelled at writing, but as you said they're low on time or interest. my point being, it's not really the slavemaster's fault if you can't find any slaves who could row a boat.
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anyone who could do those kind of jobs would need to either be an experienced scener (which lacks time for such things) or the usual not that active as a scener guy (that likes writting about the scene but everyone in the scene points at him with ocasional scorn for not being productive)
the problem is, the people writing the articles should preferably either be professional journalists or have a convincing background in doing it as a hobby. having a grasp of the language doesn't guarantee you can write proper articles in a proper way and therefore get proper readers to properly enjoy it. i'm not pointing fingers, but certain mags from the past few years (*cough* showtime) have been sub-standard in terms of the quality of the content. when it comes to mags i've never understood the "it's not the best, but at least we released!" principle. a mag is a major release, and you don't see people releasing major demos with that kind of attitude. if you know it won't be the best ever, don't do it. whether or not anyone would care enough, that's another question.
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why the fuck are we bothering spending time doing outreach when whenever it gets done properly people still arent really getting sucked in
there are people sucked in. from a finnish point of view there are a handful of promising new sceners who have found the way into the scene because of assembly, the scenebooth from the previous years (although it failed this year), and because of a finnish programming site called ohjelmointiputka and viznut's smaller-scale outreach efforts. it's working, mainly because there's a continuing link between the future prospects and the current scene - it's not a one-off event where some guy tells a hallful of people about these pieces of art we do. but i digress.
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i miss proper coding articles (you know, actual, interesting for demosceners, like the ones at iq's homepage, im sure there are plenty others scattered about, why arent they centralized curated by someone who knows what he's doing?!)
i don't particularly miss coding articles, but as far as centralizing articles goes, bitfellas has been trying to do it for a while now. the problem is, there's a lot of stuff in there, it's organized in a messy way, it's hard to pick out the important stuff, and it's infested by germans :)
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i miss properly done interviews
this made me chuckle :) traditionally doing proper interviews has seemed to be surprisingly difficult, the best examples being magic's interviews where he's sent out questionnaire sheets but hasn't bothered to see what he's actually asking, which resulted in completely irrelevant questions and a completely dumbfounded interviewee. crown's interviews for amp are also notorious for this.
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probably by lacking proper curators poking people for really worth reading content. (...) it would sure be nice to go back and read something about the demoscene properly written.
problem is (again), it's not that easy to produce an article that's properly written, about an interesting subject, from an interesting point of view. in my personal opinion, over the years there have only been a few people who have really excelled at writing, but as you said they're low on time or interest. my point being, it's not really the slavemaster's fault if you can't find any slaves who could row a boat.
fuck magazines.. video is very hipster, thus we need okkie dressed up as jon stewart doing a daily show discussing the latest scene scandals, pouet jokes and hilarious photoshops by/of havoc!