pouët.net

As an old fart who hasn't visited a demoparty for at least 10 years (if not more), I don't know how Breakpoint is, but definitely M&S, while I had fun at it, was a bit over the top to me: everything was excessive without a reason. And I'm not precisely known (ask anyone -scener or not- who knows me IRL) for being a shy, introvert, softporn-avoider, alcohol-free guy... so when I say "excessive", I really mean it.

When I got back from M&S that year (2001 IIRC), even if I had fun, I thought it was just not worth the rather expensive trip (back then at least) and never came back.

That said: I don't think I complained loudly about it (save for one known scene-guy who I will not mention, from whom I did complain, who was a total asshole at that party), and if that's what sceners want, so be it.

Not trying to bring back anything about it, and I don't think I'll be visiting any demoparties anytime soon (except if they happen nearby, which is unlikely), so I'm not saying anything should be changed: just adding my voice from past experiences to the discussion.

And again, this was M&S... I don't know if Breakpoint kept the pace, but I'm biased to think it did

...

Sesse: Avoid _what_ situation? What if by chance (and yes, this routinely happens) people around the guy with the large speaker actually _like_ the music he's playing? And suddenly an orga comes from the other side of the hall and says "sorry, turn that down, you might annoy people", and everyone around goes "annoy who exactly?". Boom, spoiled everyone's mood.

Apart from that you also have the option to go to the infodesk and ask an organizer to help fixing your problem. But again, not before anything happened.

JCL: compared to MS2001, recent revision parties have been silent, pieceful, and not excessive at all. thats the whole WTF regarding this thread.

and yes, if you dont like random people from the crowd playing chipmusic loud (and by that i mean FUCKING LOUD) then perhaps "demoparty" is not for you. my advice for this situation is: give them an usb stick with music on it that you like.

And to put some things into perspective before even more people who haven't been at a party for years weigh in: As several people already mentioned, Revision is ten times more civilised and quiet than M&S or Breakpoint ever where, to the point where I was wondering if people still had fun. Luckily they have, and I'm still amazed every time when I press that jingle button and suddenly all the music in the hall goes quiet for the duration of the announcement.

Because THAT's how considerate everyone is at Revision. I don't ever need to ask anyone to turn down the volume because they voluntarily do when other people might miss something important.

And can you guys really stop blowing things way, WAY out of proportion now? It's getting annoying. On one hand we have a few drunk people who might be a bit loud but hey, they're actually making pretty awesome demos though. On the other hand we now have people who also make pretty awesome demos but also actively say "hey other group, stop doing what you like". May I remind everyone that the demoscene is a HOBBY and we're doing this for FUN and that maybe, juuuust maybe, telling other people to have less fun when you can instead simply resolve issues directly or ask for help or walk away isn't, well, the most SOCIAL thing to do?

This isn't about Revision specifically. It just started in the Revision thread by coincidence.

Ok, fuck that, I'll stop before I have to type "people" once more. :)

that said, i seriously miss those people (you know who) who would crank up their amps at 4am and play some silly drunkard music. that kind of stuff belong to a demoparty for me. DROGEN UND GEWALT!

Komm mach die Titten frei, denn ich will wichsen...

I have only two things to say.

First, I mostly agree with what kb_ says here: developing some ten commandments or legalese sounds very clunky. Common sense should be enough, and for people who do not fall within the common sense description, they can hopefully be handled on a per-case basis.

Second, I know I've myself been way too drunk in some earlier demoparties (not this particular Revision, I hope) and probably acted stupid/disrespectful towards other people due to it, for which I apologize. The best way to deal with that has been for people tell me that: "Hey, you're being a dick. Stop it." This has actually been done. And trust me, we humans have this amazing concept called shame, it works.

jcl: but we need to share a beer! ;)

[quote="havoc"]Gargaj: What kind of valuable discussion do you see? The ones who say we should take action refuse to say what actions should be taken, and the ones who think our system is functioning as-is have nothing to elaborate on. So sadly this discussion seems stalemated before it even began :([/quote]
I'm not sure how you can say that anyone refused to give suggestions when you've been shooting down suggestions on IRC all afternoon with hilarious humor.

That said, have a concrete suggestion:

Throw together a beamslide that explains how to spot orga, asks people to talk to them when someone sees someone being an ass, and mentions that there will be real consequences for continued assholery. Have it up on the screen a few times a day.

I think everyone knows how to spot an organiser, at least at Revision?
The houserules are already on the website, and the most important ones are on the bigscreen as well.

mithaldu: well yeah and no, that idea is something different from the CoC that's being proposed.. i think/hope, because by golly, if we're talking 4 pages about just a beamslide now, well, i just don't know what to say :)

To be honest, it is impossible to compare Revision to Mekka & Symposium. Whilst I personally never attended any of the Breakpoint parties (but did hear / read some horror stories about same) Revision is certainly a much better experience than M&S in my book.

Whilst Symposium '96 was my first major demoparty in Germany, the experience that both myself and CiH had at MS2k2 was not good. Lots of noise (a lot more than at Revision) and a general bad atmosphere along with the questionable quality of some of the entries at the compos meant that we avoided the big Easter parties for a number of years.

Revision, though, is different again. Whilst it does try to be 'family-friendly', given that a few sceners do bring their children with them, I share the view of others that it is not quite a place to bring very young children to, but I guess if said scener's children have grown up watching demos / livestreams from parties with their parents then that is no bad thing. However, in saying that, I must admit that I am pleased to see those sceners with children at Revision taking good steps to protect their children's hearing. I don't know the names of these sceners with very young children but props to you all for doing what you have done. Even when some children have been running around, they are on good behaviour so a pat on the back also for this situation too :) This is a fantastic example of proper parenting !!

Yes, sceners at Revision will have had a few drinks, even to the point where they are feeling a bit drunk but - to compare this situation to UK city centres on a Friday or Saturday night the situation itself is a LOT safer. I personally have not had too many issues that I can remember in recent years with drunk sceners - they have, more often than not, been fairly coherent no matter how much they've had to drink.

I note that there are already sensible rules, particularly at Revision and also at other parties too and these are straightforward to follow as a basic principle, as with quite a bit of German law, which, to me, is respectable enough to just follow :)

Very loud music played by one small group of people is not as much of an issue as it maybe used to be, particularly if there were more than that doing the same thing. The Evoke-connected orgas at Revision 2015 in particular were the only ones who were, in my opinion, getting a bit too loud with their kit but like a number of people have written, that is one of those things.

Just my ha'penny's worth, I guess :)

havoc: That's the problem, different people think of different things when they hear code of conduct. You seem to think only about the rules, but they actually matter the least to me and it's fine if the only rule is "don't be a dick".

The important parts are documenting what to do when someone is a dick and what orga does about such a person, as well as keeping that kind of thing in especially the newbies' minds along with the affirmation of orga that yes you want to do something to dicks. ... In my opinion.

numtek: This year I barely saw any and didn't know what to look for either.

Right now, the Revision website doesn't appear to have anything saying the equivalent of "don't be a dick. If you encounter anyone being a dick, and it's affecting your enjoyment of the party, let an organiser know, because we care about this."

If we achieve nothing else in this discussion, then surely making something like this a standard feature of all demo party rules is a positive and uncontroversial change?

I know - it's redundant, it should be common sense, yada yada. But:

* Calling it "common sense" assumes knowledge of social conventions which newcomers to the scene, who are the most affected by this, DO NOT HAVE.
* I was going to write a bullet point here about how an increasing number of people are choosing to only attend events with a code of conduct on a point of principle, but basically, this. all of this.
* What have we got to lose? In the worst case, it's just a few extra paragraphs on a website for people to scroll past / beamslide for people to ignore.

This is a prematured (came to read until page 2 and almost exploded!) and slightly drunk comment! ;)

I just cannot believe we have that sort of thread/discussion here!
First of all i want to fire an argument no other sort of "big party" can come up with, except a demoparty:
"I haven´t ever seen any fight on a demoparty...and i visited a lot of parties in the past 25 years!"

My second and for now last argument is:
"Not everyone got born with a golden spoon in his mouth!"
--> what others tried to say already: for some life is easy, for the most it ain´t! ;) So becoming an old stubborn negative idiot at age of 29 is nothing uncommon in real-life...so why should it be in our skene? I have to say i only met few people like that over-exaggeration in my last sentence in my life at all, but the fewest in the scene! Think about it: All our creativity aswell as our meetings (f.e. revision) are boosting our entire life...so why not just tolerate everyone as is, which is as we always handled it since the first ever meetings!
One of the best parts demoscene does better than real-life does, atleast in my eyes! :p
Letting everyone do whatever he/she wants at a demoparty is exactly what everyone expects off a demoparty for himself: Go nuts or not, it doesnt matter! :)

Wall of Text, more to follow if anyone wants to meet deeper details of what i call demoscene, but for now just sorry and dont take it as wall of text but a TL;DR you DID read, so please also think about what you read for atleast 2 minutes! ;)

All this said: I still apologize to anyone i annoyed with my drunk attitude/smell/behaviour! I just enjoyed the best party in the world (to me!) and had fun while at it! (3 Days of coding it was for me! ;) With many cigarette-breaks while being a non-smoker in real-life! ;) Never again party-coding for me, i got too old for that by now i guess, better staying with the old-fart-attitude of a 29+8 years old depressed idiot, finishing half-assed 4ks before leaving to party-places!)

PS: Admins && Glöperators: mark this "shit" as what it is already: "residue" !
As "Shit" == "Residue" !

TL;DR:
Change Perspective, man! ;)

Well. I agree. I'm not the one to put this into offical regulations, but if the majority agrees to include this unwritten rule in the general rules I can't oppose such an argument based on rational thinking.

Emotionaly I kinda oppose writing everything down that is commonly understood for the obvious reasons. But yeah, if it helps,.. I mean the size limit are included in the rules for the 4,8 and 64k compos as well right? Since I can't make a logical argument why such a rule would hurt a demoparty, I say let's make it a default.

Just to be clear: I'm all in for the informative part. As soon as we're talking consequences, minimal penalties, judges and trials, do's and dont's-signs, codes of conduct etc you know which side of the argument you can find me on.

After organizing Kindergarden for 20 years now, I'd like to point out a talk we had with one of the neighbours of our regular party location from a few years back. She's an old lady living next door, and she came over while we were rigging up the party location to have a chat.

One of her first statements was "Oh, it's you guys! You're always so nice and quiet!". Our first reaction was "What!?". While talking with her Lug00ber and another guy were carrying in the very large PA-equipment we were going to use, but that didn't seem to affect her in any way. She then started talking about this other party someone organized at the same location a little while back, which mostly consisted of late teens/early twenty year olds. First of all there had been a bunch of noise and quarrels outside - ie. negative noise. Then, when she had decided to go to bed on Saturday evening she found some late teens standing outside her bedroom window smirking and waving a dildo at her.

My point is, like Hardy mentions, there's really rarely any negative drunk situations at demo parties. At Kindergarden we have a bonfire, and outdoor hot tub, lots of people drinking, and a general party atmosphere. There's a lot of stuff happening outside, where it surely affects her. Her comment to this was "yes, but it looks really cosy around the bonfire".

Sure, people are drunk, but there's hardly any fighting or similar crappy behaviour going on - which in other parts of society is, unfortunately, quite common. Even the people who are drunk at demo parties are generally very good at taking care of each other, trying to help out when someone had way too much. There will always be the occasional situations where things don't work out all that well (puking on people is really not acceptable in any way), but we're generally a welcoming, including bunch of people. Simply put: Yes, some people get drunk, but even the drunk ones are generally friendly.

they call it "tupper party". great fun!

Public information announcement style video begins>>

On not being a dick and common sense, please let me use myself as an example of a slightly weird nerd to show what is, and is not, ok. (the not ok ones will be made up)

Trolling vegans/vegetarians:
OK - I react by saying "yeah I dont eat meat. Im not a real man.... so, how did you like your cat testicles this morning? what, you dont eat that? you sissie!" This means it is ok for you to continue trolling as I clearly can take it and give it back.
NOT OK - I react by looking shocked, uncomfortable, hurt, or by leaving immediately. It is NOT ok to troll this person. In fact you might want to say sorry if you see them later.

Anti social sceners:
OK - Ask the person sitting by themselves, ie me last year, if they brought any entries, what the computer in front of them is, or just say "Hi I'm X". [This is why I go to demoparties even though I'm agoraphobic and would consider any other large gathering hell, I know I will share an interest with strangers.]
NOT OK - Pushing drinks into their hands, demanding they loosen up, telling them they don't know how to party, grabbing them, staring at them for hours, or anything else you wouldn't want your least favourite relative to do to you.

Remember, it is fine to have fun, but not if it makes other people flee in terror. Common sense is that you look at people's reactions, and do not continue if they are offended.
<< video ends

@Felice: yeh i was thinking of uk town centres too, or even the student bit of Plymouth I live in, which has a lot more puke stains most Saturday mornings than Revision did.

@nic0: I need to compare meat eater trolling notes with you someday :)

I'm with Arcane.
It is the general vibe and atmosphere that draws we towards the demoscene. Same holds true for the freeparty scene. We have a bigger P.A. and instead of demoparties this community tends uses a ton more narcotics, but hey, we clean up after ourselfs and have a general good time.
No fighting, bullying, or any of that negativity. I think that is the keyword here. In the freetekno scene people look out for each other like family.

another note: the only code acceptable on demoparties is MACHINE CODE
everything else does not compute ;)