Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)

TheThinWhiteDuke said:
@chrb98


Here is a super hot take question (and let me preface by saying I don't think you are trying to suppress negativity), and I know you are trying to make a space without VMP control- but what about flexing and doing the opposite? What if you hit up storf privately and made clear that a large portion of the subreddit is outraged, that it is growing, and is being fueled by their continued lack of attention?

What if you told VMP that your sub is suffering for their inaction and business practices, and maybe if they don't start addressing it that maybe mods post about the un-cooperation and VMP may have to rely on fb and twitter to maintain customer positivity?

Because hey let's be honest. Eventually this shitshow is going to hit r/subredditdrama. And eventually someone is going to write an article about VMP's disfunction. And at that point it is going to be near impossible to ever recover the goodwill of the sub and userbase for VMP.
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Well first off, as someone who checks /r/subredditdrama every couple weeks to see if the VMP sub has ended up on there yet, I definitely get where you're coming from with that last point lol

Secondly, everything I say here isn't any "official position" - there are three other subreddit mods who may have their own take on things and I don't wish to speak for them or to say that my opinion is the way things will/should go, I'm just a gal who already has one foot out the door anyways

At the end of the day, the only reason ANY of this matters is because VMP gives some semblance of a shit about the subreddit. If /r/vinylmeplease had zero interaction with Storf or Pauly or Matt or any VMP employee, if VMP never once gave any mention to the subreddit, I REALLY don't think y'all would care at all what's going on there. Nor should you, it would just be another place on the internet to discuss the same things discussed here. The only reason there's such a fervor about what happens over there is because, to some tiny extent, VMP has some investment in the subreddit, and what happens over there absolutely makes it way to VMP in some fashion, even if it's just a decent handful of employees browsing the sub and seeing what's going on. This benefits them in some ways: Storf posts about an upcoming exclusive and everyone gets hyped about it and they're all more likely to buy it, yay! Every single thread ever made is filled with people asking about an upcoming release from some dude named Still Woozy, thus causing more people to become intrigued, yay! It also can bite them in the ass: the subreddit has many more subscribers than the forum ever had members. The subreddit is (obviously) a reddit community, meaning people don't have to go out of their way to see what's going on like on the forums, they could just be browsing reddit like normal and stumble across what's going on. So when shit goes down, or when someone makes a post about a new mistake or shady business practice, it may not garner as much meaningful or nuanced discussion, but it certainly has more eyes on it.

I think this is important because it FORCES VMP to acknowledge the problem, regardless of whether or not they respond to it in an adequate way. If anyone disagrees with me I'd love to hear y'alls take, but I HIGHLY doubt VMP would have responded to the Mobb Deep fiasco if it didn't blow up the way it did. Of the top 5 posts of all time on the subreddit, 4 are about the Mobb Deep situation. This forces VMP to realize that the community knows about this issue, and they're all pissed, and they won't be blind to it. Sure, VMP could pull out now and try to erase all interaction with the subreddit, but at 6000+ subscribers and 600k+ monthly pageviews strong, it's increasingly more difficult to wipe everything under the rug. The VMP subreddit is a beast of its own, beyond the control of anyone at VMP. And to finally address the core of your question since I got a bit too long winded - while we as mods could choose to do what we can to fuel that anger and accelerate the process of everyone turning against VMP, I don't think we're QUITE at the "fuck it, burn it all down" stage yet. But we're also hardly at a "let's try and keep everything as positive as possible" stage. The megathread wasn't intended to censor or stifle negativity like some other people think, it was intended to reflect the current mood of the reddit-associated userbase in a constructive way. So if EVERYTHING goes to hell and VMP reaches the point of no return, the subreddit will adapt as such, and we won't try to stifle it or pretend like everything is okay. But until then, while criticism is absolutely vital to the subreddit and should never be censored, we think it's still important to retain at least a bit of civility and order. If not for VMP's sake, then for the sake of some semblance of community. And hell, maybe it's a futile effort to try and cull any sense of community on a subreddit, I dunno. The subreddit could never be even 10% of what the VMP forum was in terms of community, and it could never be 1% of what Needles & Grooves is. But "fuck everyone, fuck everything, burn this shit down" is not what anyone involved with the subreddit wants it to be, unless it's clear that VMP has irredeemably and non-exaggeratedly turned full-on evil
 
dhodo said:
One of the members on the old forum suggested Experience Unlimited to Cam, he said he'd check it out. Then, months later, they do it and he says in the interview that he discovered the album because he thought the cover was cool while late-night browsing on Discogs. He was called out, said "sorry, he forgot" but they left the interview up with that lie in it. **edit:and deleted the record of the conversation with the forum.
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I don't actually remember him admitting that. I think the apology came second hand through storf. @The_Stoned_Ape has some of the best taste in these parts.
 
Lee Newman said:
I don't actually remember him admitting that. I think the apology came second hand through storf. @The_Stoned_Ape has some of the best taste in these parts.
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Found @Dead C's chronicling of it:

Dead C said:
Sup?



tenor.gif


View attachment 2490





View attachment 2489


EDIT:
And then, of course... the fake story

View attachment 2493
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You may be right, I don't remember that part as well.
 
Count_Vader said:
Not to mention that the Miles Davis album we got was Sorcerer, which so happened to be the only Davis album he didn't own. Fucking SORCERER....
Also it's very funny when someone tries to look down on your musical taste while simultaneously holding Bro Country on a pedestal...
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I like Sorcerer. I didn't love the pick when it was first announced, but with some perspective I see it as a very good pick. It may not be Miles's best or most popular album, but it is one of the best representations of the sound his 2nd Quintet developed.

Chosing that record because it's the one he couldn't find in stores.... well, that's another story. But the pick per se is very good, IMO.
 
Imagine a pizza shop where you order a pizza. You have to pre-pay. You wait an hour, no delivery. You call them, line is busy. You email them, no reply.

Finally you get through. Oh, we ran out of that kind of pizza. Sorry. You have pizza store credit for your next order.

And they don’t even have the best pizza! Half the time when it does come, it’s cold, or ran to one side, or late, or even the wrong pie altogether. Someone across town got your pizza in with theirs once!

Tell me how this shop stays in business?
 
djdavedk said:
Imagine a pizza shop where you order a pizza. You have to pre-pay. You wait an hour, no delivery. You call them, line is busy. You email them, no reply.

Finally you get through. Oh, we ran out of that kind of pizza. Sorry. You have pizza store credit for your next order.

And they don’t even have the best pizza! Half the time when it does come, it’s cold, or ran to one side, or late, or even the wrong pie altogether. Someone across town got your pizza in with theirs once!

Tell me how this shop stays in business?
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But the meat man, this post isn’t meaty enough!
 
Btsvinylfarm said:
I'm on the verge of making a post on my Instagram about the issues, and my outstanding orders.

I'm not the biggest account in the world, but ~7,500 followers isn't nothing, and I do get a ton of DM's for recommendations. I've recommended these guys in the past, and at this point it just makes me look like an ass if I tell some vinyl newbie that their service is actually good right now. Which sucks, because there are times when they've done really good (and as recently as Jazz Impressions of Japan and QOTSA), but since the migration it has been an unmitigated disaster and the radio silence from them is awful.

I can't think of their name, but the person who runs their IG is actually a cool dude/dudette. So I'd feel a bit bad putting them on blast but at some point they need to address the issues.
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I'm not about to say anything negative, but I have mentioned VMP in a few audio equipment reviews I've written for one of the two major reviewing mags... and I don't think I'm going to mention them again. I just don't want to put VMP on anyone's radar, even if the readers of my mag are probably not VMPs target demo.
 
Pizza dinner tonight with the family, so I can speak from experience:

Teething babies LOVE pizza crusts.

I'm sure at least ONE person is reading this and will thank me later.
 
agutierrezb said:
I like Sorcerer. I didn't love the pick when it was first announced, but with some perspective I see it as a very good pick. It may not be Miles's best or most popular album, but it is one of the best representations of the sound his 2nd Quintet developed.

Chosing that record because it's the one he couldn't find in stores.... well, that's another story. But the pick per se is very good, IMO.
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Sorcerer is what got me to sign up as I was getting into Miles and it seemed like a fun intro point to the club.
 
For @KenKaniff

I've see all of the threads about complaints about orders and lack of communication. And I've seen the folks agreeing with the complaints, and I've seen all the folks bashing the complainers; telling them to be "patient" and that "records aren't a life or death situation.
So, having an extraordinary amount of time sitting at my desk on a conference call, I thought I'd offer a scenario to the fanboy defenders. Please indulge me on this, and take it as a joke, because I got time to kill and this is my outlet right now. And I'm hungry.
I'm bout to make like Herman Cain all up in here. That's right, it's time for a pizza analogy! Because everything is better when it's pizza, right?
Pizzas are like records....they're round? And there's a wide range of quality - some pizza is made better than other pizza, just as some records are made better than others. You with me, still? Good.
Anyways, let's say that a year ago, you discovered a new pizza place in town. Some of your friends had been talking about it for a while, and you finally got around to trying it. And guess what? It's great! So great, in fact, that you instantly became a loyal customer. Every Friday you order their specialty pie of the week. When you started ordering from them, you fell in love because the pizza was delicious and no one in town was making pies like this. Gooey cheese, a crispy crust, a healthy amount of toppings, and crazy cool variants on traditional bites that no one else was doing! And all at a reasonable price! "What luck!", you think to yourself, "I've always loved pizza, and now I finally have a great place to order from!"
Week after week, you ordered from...let's call it "Very Meaty, Pizza!". You enjoyed it so much that you frequently recommended it to others. You even joined their "frequent slice club" so that you got discounts on some pies and free delivery on others. Sometimes you'd drop into the shop just to hang out with your buddies and chat about the newest pie creations.
As time went on, quality dipped a bit - no biggie, you figured, they're just getting popular and are jam packed with orders. You ordered a pepperoni pie and it came as plain cheese. But you called the shop and they took care of you, pronto! A partial refund was given AND they sent you a fresh pepperoni pie. What great service!
Lately, though. things have gone down hill a bit. First, they closed down their eating area at the shop! That was pretty frustrating. No more dropping in to discuss the latest pizza dealings with your buddies. Guess you'll have to take that chatter to the local public park. Oh well. But then you noticed more and more quality issues. You ordered a pie recently, and it appeared the delivery driver slammed on his brakes somewhere along the route, and the pizza was smushed in the box. You called the shop and they said they'd look into it, but offered no immediate solution to the problem. Around this time they also raised prices, and cut the options on their menu. They also instituted a 3-pie minimum for new customers. That was okay, though, because they grandfathered any older customers into a no-limit ordering system. You can eat a lot of pizza, but 3 pies is a bit unnecessary unless you know you're having people over.
A few weeks ago, you ordered their "Old World" pie that was supposed to come with those salami-sized pepperoni, but when it showed up it had tiny little ones. When you called again, they said the issue was with the company that provides their ingredients and there was nothing they could do. But, still, you remained loyal because when they did get the pizza right - it was the best pizza you've ever had (especially those "classic" styles).
Since they closed the eat-in area of the shop, one of their kind employees would occasionally drop by the park to tell us about some of the cool new pizzas they'd be selling soon. He also would take questions and complaints from folks about prior orders. While it was nice to have a listening ear, it wasn't of much use - most of the complaints were not within his area of pizza making expertise.
Recently, things started to get really bad. "Very Meaty" apparently put in a new point-of-service system, and revamped their website and phone-in ordering system. In doing this, they also cut down the menu further and began to enforce the 3-pizza minimum to everyone. You ordered a pizza last Friday, but it turns out that your order, and the order of nearly 20 other people, got delivered to a single person! Worse yet, they didn't contact you to give you a heads up your order would be delayed. When you contacted them, they said they were working on fixing the situation. It turns out that they had asked Bobby down the street, who received all of the pizzas, to return them. In exchange for returning the pies, they offered to let Bobby tour the test kitchen and a chance to see the secret recipe book. I don't know if Bobby took the deal, but there was a craigslist add that night selling pizza at absurd prices. You never did receive that pizza as of this writing. You've tried to call the shop, but just get a busy signal. You went down to the shop and opened the door and asked for a refund. The chef you spoke with said it would be processed. But after a week or so, you're still out the $27 for the pizza you never got.
You're frustrated. And a little hungry. Yeah, you have other food in the house. And yeah, $27 isn't the end of the world. But, dammit, you wanted that Very Meaty, Pizza pie. And you didn't get it. You feel let down. You feel mad. And the fact that you can't get an answer and the shop owner is nowhere to be found is infuriating. I mean, you loved their pizza, but are you really going to be the dummy that continues to do business with these people? You got to the park to vent, and find that others are doing the same. But there are still some loyalist telling you to just be patient. Your pizza WILL be delivered...eventually. So what if you have to wait a few extra hours? The back and forth continues for days! And then some nut job starts comparing your pizza to vinyl records. What a lunatic! You go home, heat up a frozen Digiorno, and sit in sad silence. Farewell, Very Meaty, Pizza. Maybe one day I'll return if you get your shit together. But for now, I just can't trust you to get quality pizza to me anymore



www.reddit.com/r/VinylMePlease/comments/e9ceib/a_vmp_metaphor_pizza/
 
johnpisme said:
Maybe banning Storf from the sub would be helpful? His presence is a lightning rod for anyone who feels wronged by VMP. Not only that, but the fact that VMP has an actual presence with an employee at his level on the sub every single day probably is not helpful for the sub in general, mostly because it makes that the place where people will angrily react instead of just emailing or going to one of the VMP official social media accounts.

And does anyone actually believe that Storf's presence is ONLY because he loves hanging out and talking about the releases with people? At what point does Storf grow a beard, a weird accent, start referring to himself as a jazzbo and telling everyone to smile more and spin a record? Is it at all believable that him using the sub to stoke the fires of FOMO is not something that comes up in his yearly reviews, at the very least?
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Seems like the strategy is to ban anyone who doesn’t suck Storfs farts instead, right @chrb98? 😂
 
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