new diskmag issues 2009
category: general [glöplog]
silly me, mixing faith with fashion! shit happens, specially when you don't sleep.
ok, I agree with smash. not entirely, but it's true that we don't deserve the hard work from diskmags producers. rydi, I don't know if you were being ironic, cause if not then it's true, there's nothing else to do. there's no NEED in writing an article about how to make a demo look good, or how to make a great tune or great graphics. so much have been said, and the main problem is that it's a learning experience, if it would be easy I would just read some tutorials and make the bestestestest demo ever.
by all means, don't stop making diskmags. but is it interesting to read AGAIN about how to avoid coder colors?
ok, I agree with smash. not entirely, but it's true that we don't deserve the hard work from diskmags producers. rydi, I don't know if you were being ironic, cause if not then it's true, there's nothing else to do. there's no NEED in writing an article about how to make a demo look good, or how to make a great tune or great graphics. so much have been said, and the main problem is that it's a learning experience, if it would be easy I would just read some tutorials and make the bestestestest demo ever.
by all means, don't stop making diskmags. but is it interesting to read AGAIN about how to avoid coder colors?
enzymer:
really? where?
yeah. also, magazines like cosmopolitan, spiderman and newsweek should maybe consider closing down two of them and join forces - there's no way the end result would be worse than what it currently is!
no comment, i just wanted you to think about what you wrote there :)
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It seems to me that there are motivated and highly interested writers out there.
really? where?
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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.
yeah. also, magazines like cosmopolitan, spiderman and newsweek should maybe consider closing down two of them and join forces - there's no way the end result would be worse than what it currently is!
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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.
no comment, i just wanted you to think about what you wrote there :)
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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.
Coming up with some original topics and 'find' the right sceners for there cooperation isn't just grasping something to say. Some articles take many months untill finished becoz everybody has so less time to invest in the demoscene these days. My record stands on 9 months with the Fairfax/Androme interview ;-)
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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 =) )
Yeay but than we have to babysit our grand childeren :)
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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.
Perhaps thats a reason why people still love diskmags. The whole experience with great music and titlepics/layout in combination with
some nice content.
reed: you mentioned a very important issue, writting skills. its not mandatory to have a journalist degree (there are lots of journalists who only write crap without any proper research done) but its quite important to be able to do your writting cohesively and in an interesting way. and there aren't many people who can write long articles properly structured. i really envy iq's and viznut's sense of writting organization for example.
i envy not having such a stable sense of flow/organization, i usually pull my legs through my arms when writting long articles quite often, and end up having to rewrite things over a dozen times to make it more clear, which may break the flow of the article among other issues. this is really frustrating for me as an article writer, specially when i have points of view on things that could be alot more interesting then the typical "these guys did that, and it won, and i liked it" and all those pre-formated 12 question questionaires that are just plain torture to answer and read. any self-proclaimed journalist, professional or not, should not only master its subject before hand (or atleast do some decent research work) but also be able to expose it properly.
and yes, we do have a strong lack of those kind of people in the scene. good intentions alone doesnt cut the meat.
i envy not having such a stable sense of flow/organization, i usually pull my legs through my arms when writting long articles quite often, and end up having to rewrite things over a dozen times to make it more clear, which may break the flow of the article among other issues. this is really frustrating for me as an article writer, specially when i have points of view on things that could be alot more interesting then the typical "these guys did that, and it won, and i liked it" and all those pre-formated 12 question questionaires that are just plain torture to answer and read. any self-proclaimed journalist, professional or not, should not only master its subject before hand (or atleast do some decent research work) but also be able to expose it properly.
and yes, we do have a strong lack of those kind of people in the scene. good intentions alone doesnt cut the meat.
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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?
Some people visit lots of parties, therefore there must be some downtime in their personal lives which isn't being fully utilised.
Err, what?
actually, when travelling to parties abroad i been using the airport idling time to draw some graphics on my notepad. it's been quite productive so far, i have like 2 new drawings this year alone!!1
oh the number of articles i could have written with all those wasted hours if only i wasn't wasting them on this party travelling follery. :D
oh the number of articles i could have written with all those wasted hours if only i wasn't wasting them on this party travelling follery. :D
Maybe you should dial your local BBS and see if it has any new diskmags for you?
Hi there!
This is a very interesting thread for me. I've decided to keep silent until now since I don't want to influence what you are going to write in this thread.
But, regarding the comment
I'd like to inconspicuously refer to an article which I wrote a couple of years ago:
Does Editing Mags Require Talents?
That's all I wanted to say. Please continue the debate, it's very interesting for me.
This is a very interesting thread for me. I've decided to keep silent until now since I don't want to influence what you are going to write in this thread.
But, regarding the comment
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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.
I'd like to inconspicuously refer to an article which I wrote a couple of years ago:
Does Editing Mags Require Talents?
That's all I wanted to say. Please continue the debate, it's very interesting for me.
We released Showtime 18 a while ago. Scroll down on our site for a link to the votesheet, if you want to affect the charts of next issue. It will be released when there is enough articles and votes to make a good one.
I think the problem for diskmags now is interest. It's a great way to get news, read interviews and bullshit/slander :) and see who's cooler than the coolest.
Today it gets competition from websites such as this, and since we are now BOTH webjunkies and still sceners, it's more convenient to get the juicy bits from our fave sites.
If something is a diskmag, it should be a prod. And one where writers show off and shine. I strongly believe this. Some generic collaboration blog site will never be a diskmag, and Flash is crap. I could see party-sites allowing a story-page (about the last such party) where interested writers who were there could submit, though.
Strangely it's a bit hard for any diskmag to get votes today. Lots of parties and above all the web should make voting much easier than writing, mailing and then gathering and counting votes. And it is, it's just that too few people vote at all.
The disinterest could as mentioned be in the reading of it too; the new AND the old ones had like 100 pages, and it could be daunting to read it all - and all of the diskmags. And the frequent parties and release-sites helps compensate a little.
Maybe if it was all pooled into one 'big official' (Ministry of Truth) diskmag, the articles and votes would suffice, but who would be voted editor out of all the groups? :)
I think the problem for diskmags now is interest. It's a great way to get news, read interviews and bullshit/slander :) and see who's cooler than the coolest.
Today it gets competition from websites such as this, and since we are now BOTH webjunkies and still sceners, it's more convenient to get the juicy bits from our fave sites.
If something is a diskmag, it should be a prod. And one where writers show off and shine. I strongly believe this. Some generic collaboration blog site will never be a diskmag, and Flash is crap. I could see party-sites allowing a story-page (about the last such party) where interested writers who were there could submit, though.
Strangely it's a bit hard for any diskmag to get votes today. Lots of parties and above all the web should make voting much easier than writing, mailing and then gathering and counting votes. And it is, it's just that too few people vote at all.
The disinterest could as mentioned be in the reading of it too; the new AND the old ones had like 100 pages, and it could be daunting to read it all - and all of the diskmags. And the frequent parties and release-sites helps compensate a little.
Maybe if it was all pooled into one 'big official' (Ministry of Truth) diskmag, the articles and votes would suffice, but who would be voted editor out of all the groups? :)
when i said
the important part is "barrier to participation". doing it well still requires skill, talent, hard work and expierence. but compared to coding or doing graphics or music, it's surely easier to get started in writing.
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writing articles for diskmags has the lowest barrier to participation of anything in the scene
the important part is "barrier to participation". doing it well still requires skill, talent, hard work and expierence. but compared to coding or doing graphics or music, it's surely easier to get started in writing.
Yeah, editors (compilers for articles) are not strict enough, so the medium (platform) is not challenging enough.
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I think the problem for diskmags now is interest. It's a great way to get news, read interviews and bullshit/slander :) and see who's cooler than the coolest.
i'm really sorry, but you're talking about what diskmags were for in the early 90s. having a news section in a mag today is retarded - all the news would've been published earlier on scene websites. also, charts don't really fit the scene of today as evolution has taken it closer to a form of art rather than a cock measuring contest for 12-year-olds. (that is to say, the competition factor is much less visible in the scene of today.)
the whole point of making diskmags these days is having content that is still relevant, and cannot be found elsewhere.
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If something is a diskmag, it should be a prod. [...] Some generic collaboration blog site will never be a diskmag, and Flash is crap.
many people in this thread have expressed similar opinions about the web. my issue with this line of thinking is, you're limiting your options to either 1) a traditional diskmag prod, or 2) a traditional blog.
it's perfectly possible to do a web mag with the elements that make it work more like a traditional mag - background music, maybe an intuitive UI (think zine), an intro (as in, an introductory demo), all the articles available at the time of release (instead of a blog), etc. the good sides to this are - you get accessibility (not platform dependent, accessible from anywhere with net connection) and the advantage of being online (such as commenting the articles within the mag itself). i'm not advocating this as the only possible solution, but do understand that you can do pretty much anything on the web, and there are benefits.
(yes, i know people have tried to do a "proper" web mag in the past, but they've been efforts by people who are still struggling to get aboard with web 1.0.)
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Yeah, editors (compilers for articles) are not strict enough, so the medium (platform) is not challenging enough.
this is actually an interesting point. for, say, talented musicians and gfx artists it's easy to get into the scene by working on a production - you just do the things you're good at. for mag editors it's much harder - even if you got yourself a really talented writer from outside the scene, it wouldn't do you much good cos he doesn't have the necessary insight or contacts. it is a demanding job in that sense.
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it's perfectly possible to do a web mag with the elements that make it work more like a traditional mag - background music, maybe an intuitive UI (think zine), an intro (as in, an introductory demo), all the articles available at the time of release (instead of a blog), etc. the good sides to this are - you get accessibility (not platform dependent, accessible from anywhere with net connection) and the advantage of being online (such as commenting the articles within the mag itself). i'm not advocating this as the only possible solution, but do understand that you can do pretty much anything on the web, and there are benefits.
this kind of mag is exactly what i would love to see & read. hell, someone shows that they can do it properly and i'll write an article for issue #2! :)
diskmags are dead, blogs suck. (well, except the f-blog)
and the future of paper zines don't seem so good (i wish sceen would've gone for longer)
oh and also, a site which would have easily accessed archives of diskmag articles would rock.
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oh and also, a site which would have easily accessed archives of diskmag articles would rock.
bitfellas is.
is it that? the layout of the site is so fucking confusing i never got what it was all about.
yea, Oleg and Jools, keep it simple, stupids. you could be the next pouet ! :-)
so, still looking for _easily_ accessed archive. :)
and one that would have every article from every mag. with an option to search from 'everywhere else than hugi'
and one that would have every article from every mag. with an option to search from 'everywhere else than hugi'
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for a moment I thought you were into ansi/ascii.been using the airport idling time to draw some graphics on my notepad
It's interesting to see that most people view a diskmag website as an incarnation of a blog.
Personally I'd see it as a central app to make the editors/writers/whoever else's lives easier.
How they choose to package up an edition wouldn't really factor into the design all that much. Websites have been spitting out webpages forever.
Personally I'd see it as a central app to make the editors/writers/whoever else's lives easier.
How they choose to package up an edition wouldn't really factor into the design all that much. Websites have been spitting out webpages forever.
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It's interesting to see that most people view a diskmag website as an incarnation of a blog.
I'd say that that would be to give too much weight to the argument of certain outspoken Poueters. :)
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Personally I'd see it as a central app to make the editors/writers/whoever else's lives easier.
It certainly isn't to make the life of anyone involved in the production easier, I can tell you that.
an example: http://hplusmagazine.com/digitaledition/2009-summer/
its a mag, and its online, and it works.
alot better then having a .zip or a blog imho
examples like these are all over other scenes (photography, datavis, urbanart, indie music) but never seemed to shape up into reality in a place like the demoscene.
its a mag, and its online, and it works.
alot better then having a .zip or a blog imho
examples like these are all over other scenes (photography, datavis, urbanart, indie music) but never seemed to shape up into reality in a place like the demoscene.
ps: While there are numerous examples of magazines taking their content online with great success, I personally hate "flash-magazines" online with a vengeance. Anyone who takes the physical limitations of an old medium and tries to bring that with them to a medium which has completely different ways of navigation and manipulating the content, are idiots.
examples like these are all over other scenes (photography, datavis, urbanart, indie music) but never seemed to shape up into reality in a place like the demoscene.
who should write something and for which audience?
the whole scene has a smaller active userbase than any of those mentioned "scenes".
who should write something and for which audience?
the whole scene has a smaller active userbase than any of those mentioned "scenes".
xenusion: very true. perhaps thats the whole reason right there why scene publications/media always lives on for a fraction of its promised time. its odd that in the 90s the userbase was similar in numbers to these days (even smaller for mags focused on their own country's scene) and yet there were much more "editors" actively working on stuff. guess free time of teenagers and early enthusiam helped.