5 ms·

I don't (anymore). About two years ago I went through about a six month period where I spent pretty much every day in a revert war with various people who defi

I don't (anymore). About two years ago I went through about a six month period where I spent pretty much every day in a revert war with various people who definitely didn't know anything about the field/area I was trying to provide some information on. I happen to have a fair amount of expertise and experience in a certain area (Music Trackers) and at the time thought I would lend a hand to flesh out the still woefully inadequate content to that part of Wikipedia and started or fleshed out dozens of pages of content. I probably spent north of 100 hours on content creation even going so far as to setup emulated environments in other OSs so I could get screen captures of some of the software. I spent dozens more cleaning up missing or outright incorrect information. Every time I did something, the change was reverted. To this day, not a single edit I did ever stayed on Wikipedia longer than a week. Eventually, tired of endless arguing with editors who just wholesale reverted entire sections of material rather than edit or augment what I put in there, I just gave up. Particularly egregious were the endless arguments over notoriety of this or that. Responses to the editors demonstrating conformance to Wikipedia's notoriety guidelines were met with silence and further reverts. One in particular, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sega http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sega, actually has a page now anyways -- but it's not mine. Fascinatingly, I think that two of the editors causing most of the problems didn't even know what the demoscene was! In a bizarre argument from one of the editors, I was called unqualified to write about the demoscene since I myself was a 'scener! I think I'd still be contributing if the editors had...I don't know..."edited", instead of reverted. I would have happily participated in ensuring things like objectivity and article organization were well followed, but wholesale deleting information? Nah, I'm done with participating in Wikipedia as a contributor.

tokenadult 16y ago
What sources (published sources by observers of the industry) did you have to refer to at the time you posted the articles you created?
- elblanco 16y ago
  As an 30 year-old underground-ish art movement rooted deeply if not almost entirely online, the demoscene is not exactly one with much printed source material or reporting (I've managed to be interviewed on TV once though at an event in Quebec) http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/10-of-the-coolest-demoscene-creations-715166 but has had a relatively profound impact on the tech industry e.g. the game industry in particular is stuffed full of demosceners http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedy_Entertainment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games http://www.spore.com/ftl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopCap_Games etc. (as well as a few others like the music biz) http://www.pelulamu.net/timbaland/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sega http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lynne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothomstates nearly every soft-mp3 player supports scene music formats (.mod, .s3m, .mtm, .669, .xm, .it, etc.) or have extensions to support them The recent resurgence in pixel art I find amusing since the demoscene has been carrying that torch for decades: http://gfxzone.planet-d.net/frames.html I've been part of the scene for over 20 years myself and my sources are pretty much all primary, personal contacts, etc. Influence-wise, tons of tech industry folks got their start hacking away on 'scene projects and bring a particular style and set of associated concepts with them. Print e-Sources though may include some of the scene-zines, a handful of books, Wired has run a few articles from time-to-time, but most of the scene exists either as web sites or chat logs to be honest. http://www.scene.org/ http://www.demoscene.us/ http://www.pouet.net/ http://www.scenemusic.net/demovibes/ http://datunnel.blogspot.com/ As a movement, the scene has a pretty cohesive culture, style, ethos, language, etc. One way to think of it is that it's the Liberal Arts alternative to the Open Source movement (if you consider the Open Source movement as the Hard Engineering/Science alternative to the Artsy Demoscene). It has its sub-cultures and there are various geographic differences -- dialects -- if you will to the scene. Not entirely unlike the difference between say, Korean Hip-Hop and North American Hip-Hop. Thousands of people attend the events (called parties) which are loosely organized as competitions but are really just a chance to show off your creations to loads of like-minded folks. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4143/4868635967_19ec3ddc7c_z.jpg Like most art movements, the work ranges from amateurish to sublime http://www.demoscene.tv/page.php?id=172&lang=uk&vsmaction=view_prod&id_prod=13947 (keep in mind this is realtime, one of the core foundations of the demoscene is for productions to run real-time) ...is often abstract and at times quite evocative. videos of tons of productions here: http://www.demoscene.tv/ So when I sit there, on wikipedia, and see this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Tracker_musicians I really really want to provide some content, but I know from past experience it's not worth the effort or time. Which is a shame since I believe I would have a lot to offer in fleshing out this quite vibrant art scene.

tokenadult 16y ago

What sources (published sources by observers of the industry) did you have to refer to at the time you posted the articles you created?

elblanco 16y ago
As an 30 year-old underground-ish art movement rooted deeply if not almost entirely online, the demoscene is not exactly one with much printed source material or reporting (I've managed to be interviewed on TV once though at an event in Quebec) http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/10-of-the-coolest-demoscene-creations-715166 but has had a relatively profound impact on the tech industry e.g. the game industry in particular is stuffed full of demosceners http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedy_Entertainment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games http://www.spore.com/ftl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopCap_Games etc. (as well as a few others like the music biz) http://www.pelulamu.net/timbaland/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Sega http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lynne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothomstates nearly every soft-mp3 player supports scene music formats (.mod, .s3m, .mtm, .669, .xm, .it, etc.) or have extensions to support them The recent resurgence in pixel art I find amusing since the demoscene has been carrying that torch for decades: http://gfxzone.planet-d.net/frames.html I've been part of the scene for over 20 years myself and my sources are pretty much all primary, personal contacts, etc. Influence-wise, tons of tech industry folks got their start hacking away on 'scene projects and bring a particular style and set of associated concepts with them. Print e-Sources though may include some of the scene-zines, a handful of books, Wired has run a few articles from time-to-time, but most of the scene exists either as web sites or chat logs to be honest. http://www.scene.org/ http://www.demoscene.us/ http://www.pouet.net/ http://www.scenemusic.net/demovibes/ http://datunnel.blogspot.com/ As a movement, the scene has a pretty cohesive culture, style, ethos, language, etc. One way to think of it is that it's the Liberal Arts alternative to the Open Source movement (if you consider the Open Source movement as the Hard Engineering/Science alternative to the Artsy Demoscene). It has its sub-cultures and there are various geographic differences -- dialects -- if you will to the scene. Not entirely unlike the difference between say, Korean Hip-Hop and North American Hip-Hop. Thousands of people attend the events (called parties) which are loosely organized as competitions but are really just a chance to show off your creations to loads of like-minded folks. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4143/4868635967_19ec3ddc7c_z.jpg Like most art movements, the work ranges from amateurish to sublime http://www.demoscene.tv/page.php?id=172&lang=uk&vsmaction=view_prod&id_prod=13947 (keep in mind this is realtime, one of the core foundations of the demoscene is for productions to run real-time) ...is often abstract and at times quite evocative. videos of tons of productions here: http://www.demoscene.tv/ So when I sit there, on wikipedia, and see this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Tracker_musicians I really really want to provide some content, but I know from past experience it's not worth the effort or time. Which is a shame since I believe I would have a lot to offer in fleshing out this quite vibrant art scene.