Column: s7ing of Alcatraz
To cut a long story short

Written by s7ing of Alcatraz

Friday evening, some spare time left and supporting the demo scene with one more article. So here I am to let my mind flow...

This time I want to remind you or tell you what is the sense of the scene and the sense of a demo group in my eyes. On the other hand most of the readers here know this... So it is more dedicated to those ones who are newbies or interested into the demo scene...

New blood for the scene gets more and more important - since we old farts are going to be older - day by day :)

Furthermore you will find some lines to the topic organizing a group or being a group organizer. So all in all it would be much to talk about, but I try to cut a long story short and start with:

The sense of the scene:

In my opinion the demo scene is a world where the main point for all people should be to have a lot of fun. People who like to be a part of the scene and are creative or just like to do something apart from the lame game-players. In the demo scene you could use your computer wisely. You learn to work in a team, your English skills could grow and a very important fact is to have friends worldwide.

One great thing which the demo scene brings together. Sceners all over the world with no frontiers in one world where the only competition is to beat the others with another nice demo, intro or other project.

The demo scene offers so much that it is hard to show someone outstanding what we like so much. I tried more than often to tell friends or colleagues what is so interesting. When they saw some demos - just pick the creme de la creme - demos of the scene, they are really flashed. Wow... and that is what you are doing in the scene is the answer by many of them.

Another reason to be a part of the scene is to meet all the friends you have known by the scene. As example partys are a very good place for that... A good place to meet a lot of sceners outside your country. Furthermore, the ages of the Internet with messengers, emails and forums makes it much easier to keep in touch with each other, much easiser than in the past. So don't wonder that some old sceners knows many people for ages. Friendship - one important pillar of the demo scene.

Coming back to the roots making demos, the friendship and of course a lot of fun. Don't take it all to serious just make that what you like anf enjoy the fun. And that's it, that's the way it should be. So I hope that the scene will continue this way and sceners will not throw all their ideas away, also if something like Debris was released.

It's always been a fact that some sceners are much better than others. But the demo scene consists not only of the best. It is a place for creative people and every scener which has hard worked for his project deserves our full respect. We often tend to see just names and not the work or production itself.

For the real sceners it is impossible to leave the scene from one day to another when you are involved for so many years. I couldn't miss all my friends which I know for ages now. It is just great to know people all over the world. For a scener the world is so small. The scene wich has no real frontiers.

We work all together and that's just fascinating. The sceners have built up a system with its own rules. So finally we can hope that this great world of FUN will live for a quite long time. Of course there will be the time when we have to leave the scene when and we are getting to old for it, but when this day comes we can say: "Hey, it was a funny time".

But can real scene maniacs get too old? I said with 25, okay now I am to old... With 30... I am too old... This year I am getting 35... And I think I am not too old as I see that some sceners are much older than me hahaha... Maybe it is crazy to think of to getting too old for the demo scene? So just let us go on and the time will show us what will happen...

Coming to another pillar which is so important for the demo scene:

The sense of a demo group:

Demo groups found their roots as all of you know out of the old crackers days where intros was build to show the audience something like a business card. Out of these days groups were built just to build demos and other projects.

Many productions are released nowadays in the scene which where made by different scene groups. But what is the main thing to be a demo group? People come together. They build up a group to be productive and creative. Furthermore, they have some intern meetings and do also some things that have nothing to do with the scene. But as they are a group they are close friends and spend also some spare time together. Inside the group all members have fun just moving around.

But are these things really true or am I just dreaming. There are groups which make the scene to business. Is this the right way???

No, way in my opinion... It is much more important to be in a group with real friends and to release some good productions from time to time.

A good group is when everybody inside help to keep a close contact to all members. Finally a word to the group organizers. Think about your group and if it runs well or should you maybe do soemthing to make all your members more happy. I have heard of some sceners that the organizers are buying currywurst and beer for the coders just that they are in good mood, hehehe I think the one I mean here will know it when he reads this. Ups, not that all coders try to get some more free beers from the organizer now hahaha...

For our members for sure ;) A beer for my group mates is every time possible - when we could release a 1st place demo then ;)

Before you get bored and time get lost for some of your important projects I will end here at this point... Just keep your good work up and let all of us have many more years of pure scene fun.

Coming for me to my last topic of this article. Picking out one job of a demo group:

The organizer job

Nowadays you could find organizers in many demogroups which have a higher amount of members. Interesting to see what changed all over the years.

In the very early days of the demoscene the organizer job was done by their founders or leaders of a group. Nowadays this is not always the truth. Some founders went inactive and members took over the organisation. prefer more the title of an organizer.

In the past a group was split into many sections, which might come out of the warez scene. So the group organizing was split in different countries.

I wonder that some sceners which I talked a while ago never heard of things like WHQ, GHQ, NHQ, NHQ and so on... The roots where a group was founded and settled was always called the WHQ (World Head Quarter) which was above of all sections. Other countries like e.g. Germany or Norway were called GHQ or NHQ then. Logicial or?

The meaning of that was very simply. Because of that, you split the countries with an own HQ the work could be much faster and every organizer have had not so much work. When the organizers of each country communicates with the HQ organizing could be that easy.

Nowadays normally no one talk about these HQ anymore in my opinion. The word of an organizer is more spreaded. The tasks of an organizer are mainly the same. And if you like it or not an organizer is always important for a group in my holy opinion.

It might be that small groups did not need these organizing structures. There is no need to organize 5 people or something like that. Also sometimes group members live in the same town - that is what I would call a perfect situation :)

But when you have members in more that one country it might be useful to have someone who could do some advertsing, spread the word of the group and organize some internal matters. Keep the members in good mood and inform them with the latest group news and what every member is doing recently.

The rest of the group has more time to concetrate on coding, making graphics or music. It might give some sceners outthere which think that an organizer job is lame and that they have not much done for the demoscene itself. I don't think so. It is like with the swappers of the past. They are still important and are honestly sceners which love the demoscene. Organizing a group and its members is no easy work - believe me. Sometimes an organizer will wish that he also could only concetrate on coding doing musics or graphics.

So I just want to say that if you do a good organizer job you have many things to do and you need a lot of time for that. And time is for the most of our demosceners very rare as we all went older and have beside our hobby family and real work.

Like Met of Rebels said in Hugi#33:

In my opinion the organizer of a group motivates members to do something and who is in touch with most members. How is this in your case?

Met: "100% true, that's the meaning of organizers: to motivate and pull the strings."

Is organizing still an important job in a demogroup?

Met: "Well, I guess it's not in groups based on the same location in the world. But for a group with members all over I really think its necessary, but perhaps we should ask the others about that.."

When is a group well organized?

Met: "When every single member feels that he are having fun and are a part of the family..."

I really enjoyed his statements and could only say: "Very true words, Met, that is exactly how it should be".

So finally this little part of this article is only meant to show that beside sceners like coder, graphicans or musicians also other parts of our demoscene are so important.

The mixture of a bunch of sceners keeps the scene alive and everyone involved in it is a little stone of that building. Many functions make the demoscene and it doesn't matter if you are editor, webmaster, ascii artist, organizer, coder, graphican, musican, packmaker or whatever....

So finally I have only to say that the demo demoscene could bring you so much fun... The scene has so much to offer... Just keep up your great work!

s7ing of Alcatraz