Talk:Demoscene

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Demoscene is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Other languages WikiProject Echo has identified Demoscene as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the Finnish language Wikipedia.

I took the following citaton from the wikipedia in the subject Motorola_68000

"When the 68000 was introduced, 16-bit buses were really the most practical size. However, the 68000 was designed with 32-bit registers and address spaces, on the assumption that hardware prices would fall."

both model, at the begining of yout article what you mentioned (atati st and amiga) contained this processor, so it is not a 16bit minicomputer... i think


tnx

Contents

[edit] List of Groups

Perhaps the list of groups should be cut down only to notable groups that people would know, like FairLight? Wikipedia is not a web directory or advertising platform. To that length, listing demoparties or demoshows like Pilgrimage should also be considered to be removed; instead, a link to an updated list such as that at Ojuice would be a better fit for Wikipedia.

No one is going to agree who is "notable" or not, and will result in some sort of flamewar. Alternately we should consider creating a wikipedia page explicitly for demo groups or refer to the demo groups category page. -- RaD Man
Indenting and signing your name on the Talk page rather than re-editing your original paragraph is helpful so I know who I am speaking with. I will reiterate that I believe this Wikipedia entry has outgrown itself and should be broken up into fragmented pages (such as demoscene, demo groups, demo parties). As for the Pilgrimage Demo Party, it is a fully qualified and active demoparty -- certainly not something to be confused with a short-run demoshow. Whereever the demoparties are listed on Wikipedia, it will belong. -- RaD Man

Also, PLEASE at least try to have a clue what you're saying. It has NEVER been 'Fair Light' and the L is not capitalized.

  • This list of Demoscene groups is just that, and I'm beginning to feel it's overcrowding the point of the article. Is anyone in favor of splitting this off into a seperate article of sorts? Radman1 22:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Aye. Would be nice indeed. // Gargaj 12:10, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • Maybe it would be worthwhile mentioning some of the historically significant demo groups like the Future Crew, Triton and Fairlight? Mattlach 00:07, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Just a thought, but maybe one should look for demos already added like Second Reality and list them just like the groups... Rad? :D --Gargaj 13:17, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Europe vs. USA vs. Asia

My impression as an outsider is that the demoscene is a largely European phenomenon. If this is true, it should probably be mentioned in the article. I don't think one hears much about demos in the US. And I really wouldn't know about Asia. Some sort of information on geography would make this a more informative article for those readers unfamiliar with the scene. Gwimpey 01:51, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

This is mostly correct. Historically there have been several Russian demoparties and there is an even an active Japanese demoparty which recently took place just last month (but it is only a virtual party by way of the 2ch BBS website). Throughout the United States/Canada there has been at least 11 documented physical demoparties ever [1], a small number in stark contrast to the approximately 70 demoparties which take place each year throughout all of Europe. [2] -- RaD Man

[edit] Intro

I'm have a degree in computer science and I still had a hard time reading this article. First off, although I know what a crack is, the average person doesn't and it's not really explained anywhere. Secondly, cracking software was an issue in the 70's? I'm a youngin but I thought it was very much a non issue before the internet. Especially because without validation being an issue, all the computers can just use the same key and noone will ever know. If no one beats me to it I'll add this to my todo list and clean it up a bit.

Also, is demoscene pronounced as two different words? if so shouldn't it be hyphenated, and if not, how do you pronounce it? Vicarious 01:52, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

* Cracking obviously was an issue because there were various ways to "stick" the program to the disk by using the characteristics of the disks. It wasn't really about keys - not many games asked for keys - but more about cracking the actual copy-protection so the swapper was able to actually spread the game.
Demoscene is usually written as one word, though some (as far as i noticed mostly in the U.S.) prefer writing it as "demo scene". I think "Demoscene" is the way the subculture prefers to be known as. // Gargaj 15:03, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
* Reference should be added for this quote: "Quite a few of the young talents that spent their time coding demos and thus gaining in-depth experience programming computer graphics later ended up working in the games industry, whose products they had initially cracked". It sounds like advertising to me, maybe it is possible to find a reference for this? 83.233.228.36 13:19, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
* Though the origin of the demoscene was snippets of flashy intros displaying who cracked whatever game in the mid 80's, I doubt that most demosceners ending up in the game business had cracked games. If there were 1000 people that cracked and distributed games, there were at least an order of magnitude more that made demos. But of course in some cases the statement about crackers ending up as games programmers is true.
And I'd say that cracking was a bigger issue in the early years, before the cd-rom came than today, the peer to peer network was about as wide as today, but consisted of real peers (as in teenagers) and it was easier to distribute tapes with 10 or 50 8-bit games or disks with 2-3 16-bit games on than to download, burn and install the games today. 81.227.1.122 04:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Demo Types

I just reworked the demo types section a little bit. I took out kilodemo; I'd never heard it before and Pouet returned one title.. I could've just as well added gigademo. I added a bunch of -tro's. I left "storydemo" and "ravedemo" for now.. but I doubt those two terms have been used much since 1994 or so, when the genres became more common. Anyone else think they should go?

Actually, now that I think about it, should this whole section be moved to Demo (computer programming)? --Vossanova 22:47, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Great rewrite! I'm not sure whether it should be moved to Demo (computer programming), although they should probably either be kept up-to-date with each other or have their overlapping content be placed in a single article. Personally I like the idea of one big article (this one) that basically tells you everything about all the important facts and then links to other articles for the details. It's pretty hard to decide on a good level of detail for the main article and then change all the related articles to recap and expand on them. Nmrd 06:36, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Maybe you should add musicdisks, slideshows... I dunno. I kinda formatted the Demo (computer programming) article to be more descriptive about the size aspect.
Also, maybe we should make a List of demoparties? // Gargaj 10:47, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What to do with all the external links?

The Demoscene entry appears to be very popular with people maintaining demoscene websites. Unfortunately, all of them feel that their site is worth mentioning at the bottom of the main article. Should we keep them there? I have two ideas about this:

  • If we keep even a single link in the main article, people will just keep adding or re-adding their links, so this article will require regular maintenance, which is undesirable.
  • If we remove the links section altogether (there could be an article with just Demoscene links) we'll lose some really essential links that belong in the main article.

Any ideas? Nmrd 19:48, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I personally don't see a problem with a lot of links - it gives the article more credibility. Besides, this way it's also a good starter for newbies. // Gargaj 23:00, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree, it's just that most of the edits on the article are basically link additions. If it's not maintained I suppose itll end up being a huge article with 80% links. As it is it's already almost 50% of the page. But I suppose we can deal with it when that happens :) Nmrd 19:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I feel that many of the links are dealing with specific aspects of the demoscene as a whole. There are links for the Amiga Demoscene, for example. There is already a bunch of platform specific pages (under SEE ALSO), these links should go there. But when speaking of external links on this specific Demoscene page, I think it should be limited to those which are considered a significant resource (Such as pouet or scene.org or ojuice) or it should have significant historical value (like Hornet Archive). Almost everything under "Other demoscene-related pages" could go. One might argue that PaIN and HUGI belong here, but there should be a new page for "diskmags", perhaps. A true diskmag is really a demoscene thing. Coplan 22:08, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Proposal February 2006

I don't understand why there's so many pages about this. Isn't it all the same thing? Ewlyahoocom 17:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

  • The same thing in terms of "Mick Jagger is Rolling Stones", "bass drum is drum", "Cartoon is joke" or anything like that. I admit that the sub-articles aren't in the best shape ever - but they are definetely different from each other because Demoscene is about the scene as a culture, Demogroups are about the groups, people around it, etc. and Demo (computer programming) is about the product itself. I admit that Intros might be a bit far out, but the other articles are definitely standalone, and merging them would be inconsistent and needlessly enlenghten the article. // Gargaj 19:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  • A big problem with the Demoscene article is that it's already getting too bloated with all the deep specifics and irrelevant details while still leaving a lot of stuff unexplained (for instance, the article doesn't actually explain at all what a "demo" or "demogroup" is). I think the Demoscene article should provide an overall coverage (with relatively short explanations) of all the important concepts (demo, demoparty, demogroup etc.) without going into the deep specifics, which could very well be in separate (sub)articles. My suggestion: merge the "Demo types" subsection of Demoscene into Demo (computer programming) (and replace with a "Demos" section explaining what a demo is). Also merge Intros, Crack intros and any other short and stubbish demo-related articles into Demo (computer programming). Demogroup, on the other hand, requires improvement rather than merging. Viznut 09:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Sounds really reasonable - who's up for doing it? // Gargaj 11:19, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I might; I worked on that section anyway. For now, I'll just remove the current merge suggestions and put one in that section. --Vossanova 14:55, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, so if a Demo (computer programming) is like a Powerpoint presentation, then a Demogroup is the work group that puts together the Powerpoint presentation and Demoscene is some kind of Powerpoint culture? Call me dense but I still don't see why that requires 3 pages to explain... Ewlyahoocom 10:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

i agree with that --MilkMiruku 15:22, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Splits

I guess the demoparty list would be nice to be split into a standalone list where a bit more elaboration could be spent on the individual parties. My other suggestion is splitting the demoparty defintion into Demoparty, although i dont know if there would be enough to fill the article with. // Gargaj 16:23, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the latter suggestion, even if the new article will be stubbish at first. There's a lot to tell about parties besides a short description and a long list, and the potential content might expand far from the demoscene point of view due to the fact that many parties are now relevant to many other computer-related subcultures as well. And BTW, there already seems to be an article called copyparty which could also be merged in. Viznut 05:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Demoparty seems to be a good idea, especially since when it's removed from this article, there'll be more space here to go into the other issues in more detail. Nmrd 07:49, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tracker articles being deleted

I know this isn't the right place for stuff like this, but in case you are touched by silly deletionist fights like this: the article for Schism Tracker, the ONLY semi-decent Impulse Tracker clone for modern operating systems, was recently deleted per VfD. You may still vote for undelete in Wikipedia:Deletion review#Schism Tracker. Viznut 12:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Sorry, i'm an FT2 fan ;) // Gargaj 15:34, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Demoscene?

What are your thoughts about starting up a demoscene WikiProject? It seems there are at least a few people (Gargaj, Viznut.. erm, myself ;) who are knowledgable and reliable enough to maintain demo-related articles. We could cover trackers as well. The subject itself may be relatively small, but with the growing number of demo, demo group, demo party, and tracker articles, a structured project may be called for. --Vossanova 17:29, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

What's a WikiProject? // Gargaj 23:08, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Umm.. really? Wikipedia:WikiProject
I'm not sure whether a WikiProject is the exact thing we need, but at least we need a place for guidelines, notability criteria etc. and perhaps a more generic place for discussing stuff like this. So, well, perhaps a WikiProject is fine, I'm in.
Anyway, a problem with the Wikipedia+demoscene combination is that if we start systematically including notable demos, parties and groups, we'll eventually get very close to the "vanity line". Even the articles for highly notable groups tend to attract clueless deletionists (I remember at least keWlers, Pulse and recently, Melon Dezign having been proposed for deletion), so we may have really hard time in protecting everything. In my opinion, we should concentrate on quality and more generic concepts than on the creation of a lot of separate demo/group articles (we would need a separate "demopedia" for all that information). -- Viznut 06:43, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
So basically the "WikiProject" is one big amalgam page of all things related? Like... categories? Seriously though, apart from being a good idea for, say, biology or rap music, a demoscene Wikiproject would have a lot less basis (being a culture based and rooted in self-promotion ;) and a lot more animosity from deletionists. I'd say we wait with this a bit. (Of course if you insist, i'm in.) Oh and... "Demoscene wiki" exists - only not public yet ;) // Gargaj 10:43, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, no WikiProject for the time being. --Vossanova o< 20:08, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article flow

Right now the different sections are organized in such a way that it's a bit hard to follow if you have no idea what the demoscene is. My proposal to solve this is to make the article more coherent by putting the sections in a different order and letting them introduce each other. For instance:

  • Introduction (top section) (=> What's this about? What are demos?)
  • Concept (=> Detailed discussion: What are demos? What kind of demos are there?)
  • Demo types (=> Detailed discussion: What kind of demos are there? Who make them?)
  • Sceners (=> Detailed discussion: Who make them? How are they organized?)
  • Groups (=> Detailed discussion: How are they organized? Where to they gather?)
  • Parties (=> Detailed discussion: Where do they gather? What do they do there?)
  • Competitions (=> Detailed discussion: What do they do there?)

What would basically work I think is if each section would introduce the main point of the next section. As above, the next section starts off with a detailed discussion of something mentioned at the end of the previous section. This idea would introduce a "Scener" section which I think makes sense. Also I haven't placed the "Impact" section in this setup yet. It can probably stay at the bottom where it is now. Nmrd 21:46, 2 May 2006 (UTC).

  • Go for it - thats kindof how i wrote the article for huwiki. //Gargaj 23:09, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Sounds ok for me. Of course, we need to write the "Sceners" section at some point of time (it will require some information that isn't yet found anywhere in the article). -- Viznut 06:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah, a reordering like that would be okay. Your Concept and Demo types sections sound redundant, however, so maybe lose Concept. Also, would the Sceners and Groups sections overlap each other? And yes, you could probably keep most of the Impact section, at the bottom where it is now. --Vossanova 14:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree that Concept and Demo types overlap too much, especially with the general introduction above it as well. My idea for Sceners and Groups is that the former would discuss the different roles and activities (in short) and that the latter would focus only on what groups as a whole do, such as go to parties and release stuff (since internally they are just a collection of Sceners :)) I will try to do a first overhaul this evening or tomorrow. Nmrd 15:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Templates?


Demoscene
Concepts
Demo - Demoparty - Effects - Demogroup - Compo
Parties
Current: Alternative Party - Assembly - Breakpoint - Buenzli - Evoke - The Gathering
Past: Mekka & Symposium - The Party - Scene Event
Websites
Hornet Archive - Pouët - Scene.org - demoscene.tv
v • d • e

Ok, anyone has some ideas for some Demoscene templates? Maybe something with the connected main articles listed, like either Template:Suicide or Template:Analogvideo? Or maybe even some generic infoboxes for demos and demogroups? // Gargaj 18:13, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems that we already have an article series here, so we definitely need a navigation template. Maybe one that would stick to the upper right corner (like Template:Suicide) would be visible enough. Perhaps we could also have a "footer bar" -style template for the major demoparties. Dunno about infoboxes though. --Viznut 10:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
How's this -> // Gargaj 15:29, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Otherwise very nice, although I somewhat disagree with the platform-specific links until we have an article for PC demos: until then, a casual reader might get an imperssion of a computer subculture mainly focusing on historical platforms. It'd be perhaps OK to replace it with links to major parties. I was also worried about the link to disk magazine, because the concept is older than the demoscene diskmags. --Viznut 10:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Updated the template accordingly; opinions, please. --Viznut 10:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

We could perhaps use Template:Infobox computer underground for demo groups. See ACiD Productions for an example use. --Viznut 10:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

My input:

  • I would like to see a template on the bottom of the page for the "(Platform) demos" articles at some point, with all the platforms on it; but like Viznut said, maybe we should wait until a "PC demos" article is made.
  • The "Infobox computer underground" template would work well for demo groups - obviously certain fields won't be filled in. Is the template final/official yet? If so, let's try it out for one of the groups.
  • I'd like to see a demo infobox template as well, but that can wait until we get more demo articles and a better idea of what goes in them.
  • The Demoscene infobox template featured in this discussion is too broad; we don't need party and website links on every demoscene-related article. Instead, might we make a footer template for just concepts (demo, demoparty, demogroup, compo) and put it on those four pages?

--Vossanova o< 14:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I like the underground template idea, and i agree that a demo infobox needs some more demos first. On the other hand, I don't think it's too broad, it's just a few links really and it kindof makes it look a bit bigger. the footer template would kindof look silly and non-serious. // Gargaj 14:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

So is it only going on the Demoscene article? That's okay; it just seems excessive for every article related to the demoscene. --Vossanova o< 15:20, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Just for the main ones (demoscene, demo, demogroup, demoparty) but not necessarily for websites, etc. // Gargaj 16:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok I added the template to Outracks. Wonder if it's good enough. // Gargaj 14:17, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I expanded the template to have an additional parameter for platform(s). The "product(s)" listing can get quite long for some groups, so perhaps it should only include the most notable releases and a link to a comprehensive listing (such as a pouet.net page). --Viznut 07:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

So what's the status with the main template? Should we keep it on the side, or change it to a footer? I'm kindof confused now. // Gargaj 20:19, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

The footer could look something like this:

Template:Tnavbar-mini
Demoscene
Concepts
Demo - Demoparty - Demogroup - Compo
Parties
Current: Assembly - Breakpoint - Evoke - Scene Event - The Gathering
Past: Mekka & Symposium - The Party
Websites
Hornet Archive - Nectarine - Orange Juice - Pouët - Scene.org

// Gargaj 20:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd vote for the side version --Viznut 08:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Added to main article. Anyone up to spread? // Gargaj 09:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
It's now in all of the "concepts" articles. Some additional layout work might be needed for other articles. --Viznut 11:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


Can anyone add the link http://sceen.org/microsite/ to that template in the Magazines part? I am new to Wikipedia editing and don't know how to do it. Maybe Magazines should also be called Paper Magazines as well. - DCMP

I dont know, SCEEN isn't a 100% demoscene magazine and also doesn't have an article... It is relevant, but it needs to be established first. // Gargaj 14:53, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
What Gargaj said.. anything linked in the template needs to be to a Wikipedia article, not an external site. --Vossanova o< 17:43, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] dutch colour scheme

Since dutch colour scheme sadly redirects to color scheme (without any information) I hereby request that you give it a try: original content. It needs some improvement, but I'd like to see it as an own article, because it doesn't really fit neither in color scheme nor in demoscene. --32X 16:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a joke term used only in the demoscene (and mostly just Pouet users, really), so I wouldn't give it its own article. It's mentioned in the PC Demoscene FAQ so you can just link to that. --Vossanova o< 16:47, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Well, at least I was twice talking to sceners about demos/intros, mentioned the dutch colour scheme and they were like "WTF is DCS?" Since it's referenced here and there I'd go for a WP entry. --32X 16:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Not notable enough for Wikipedia. Refer them to the PC Demoscene FAQ instead. --Vossanova o< 17:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Link fest

Why are there so many links? virtually no other article on wp has that many.

I'd disagree, the more time you spend reading wikipedia the more you will see there are quite a lot like that. Sure it is on the upper end though. Mathmo Talk 06:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable Information at the "Concept" section

The argument that a lack of variation caused a competitive environment that created the scene is simply not true. Would it be possible at least to find a source supporting this or clarify how a lack of variation found in early computers actually sponsored such an environment?--Frozenport 19:12, 16 June 2007 (UTC)