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

So here's a thing. Just got a shipping notice for Mobb Deep. But nothing else. So I currently have a Stone's album, and Mobb Deep album in transit, separately, and still no ROTM shipment. That's going to cost them about 30 dollars extra this month in shipping charges to me alone. Assuming this same scenario is happening to 30,000 members... THAT'S A LOTTA PIZZA DOUGH
 
Mather said:
So here's a thing. Just got a shipping notice for Mobb Deep. But nothing else. So I currently have a Stone's album, and Mobb Deep album in transit, separately, and still no ROTM shipment. That's going to cost them about 30 dollars extra this month in shipping charges to me alone. Assuming this same scenario is happening to 30,000 members... THAT'S A LOTTA PIZZA DOUGH
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"Hi. I'm so and so with VMP. It appears we accidentally overspent on shipping this month. If you could please send us a check back for our extra shipping costs, it would be appreciated. Please do the math yourselves and come up with the costs associated with the sepeaate packages going out, and mail that check back. We are a small business after all and it is the season of giving!"
 
Ajax said:
Regarding the John Moreland LP5 release: I been a big fan for a while and was surprised to see him work with vmp. But I'm more surprised that several folks around here mentioned it and were excited about it. I'm curious how y'all know John's music. Cheers.
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His last album was either in the vmp store, or just popular on the boards. I remember lots of folks chatting about that one at the time.
 
Tys1 said:
An interesting case study: The fact that people are STILL entrusting their funds to this company, and willing to overlook the dozens and dozens of very large mistakes simply because a STAX box set with a bunch of second best albums that will soon be repressed and available for a cheaper price comes out
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It really is baffling, I guess people just want to be loyal for who knows what.

I rejoined VMP over the summer after a long hiatus, but am canceling after this month. This whole debacle with the delays and lack of communication reflects so poorly on them. On top of that, I've come to view VMP as a "Choose your own Mystery Box" subscription, and given the cost and 3 month minimum its just not worth it. I say Mystery Box because people that sell those usually do so because they know the records would not sell if sold individually. VMP is a bit different but essentially you may end up with LPs that nobody wants or asked for (ie. Four Tet - Pink, Torres - Sprinter). And for every HBMS, you get a HUD Dreams or Funkdafied (imagine walking into a store and seeking out specifically and paying $27 for a Funkdafied reissue!). I saw a post a couple weeks ago by someone that suggested if you want to get new releases on a monthly basis, it would be better to just buy the Blue Note Tone Poet reissues when they come out every month. Given the usual price range on Amazon (usually around $25 to $35), I think it's pretty equivalent to a VMP sub., so I'm going to go that route instead (the list of upcoming 2020 releases looks great!). With the TP releases, you know you're getting some quality stuff - sturdy jackets, 180g, cut by Kevin Gray.
 
Tys1 said:
An interesting case study: The fact that people are STILL entrusting their funds to this company, and willing to overlook the dozens and dozens of very large mistakes
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I've been having this debate so much this year, Not just with VMP. Why do people feel this need to support and defend massive corporations who only see them as $$$. Like why spend your time defending them on Facebook and reddit against people who have legitimate complaints and problems? What do you gain from that
 
Fleetwood-Matt said:
I've been having this debate so much this year, Not just with VMP. Why do people feel this need to support and defend massive corporations who only see them as $$$. Like why spend your time defending them on Facebook and reddit against people who have legitimate complaints and problems? What do you gain from that
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giphy.gif
 
imajindat said:
It really is baffling, I guess people just want to be loyal for who knows what.

I rejoined VMP over the summer after a long hiatus, but am canceling after this month. This whole debacle with the delays and lack of communication reflects so poorly on them. On top of that, I've come to view VMP as a "Choose your own Mystery Box" subscription, and given the cost and 3 month minimum its just not worth it. I say Mystery Box because people that sell those usually do so because they know the records would not sell if sold individually. VMP is a bit different but essentially you may end up with LPs that nobody wants or asked for (ie. Four Tet - Pink, Torres - Sprinter). And for every HBMS, you get a HUD Dreams or Funkdafied (imagine walking into a store and seeking out specifically and paying $27 for a Funkdafied reissue!). I saw a post a couple weeks ago by someone that suggested if you want to get new releases on a monthly basis, it would be better to just buy the Blue Note Tone Poet reissues when they come out every month. Given the usual price range on Amazon (usually around $25 to $35), I think it's pretty equivalent to a VMP sub., so I'm going to go that route instead (the list of upcoming 2020 releases looks great!). With the TP releases, you know you're getting some quality stuff - sturdy jackets, 180g, cut by Kevin Gray.
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I looked to the Tone Poets and BN80s to curate my own personal version of the Blue Note Anthology. Averaged less than $25/record, no errors, no regrets, and an always evolving second to none community here on N&G. Highly recommended.
 
Dead C said:
Looks like there's a ton to catch up on in here. Looks intriguing. There is something that I do want to say before digging through anything, because the last thing I remember reading was about reddit mods. When the forum sank, some of us encouraged the mods to scrap the reddit and tell VMP to go fuck themselves. Even though they didn't do that, I do believe that they took the time to think about what that meant. It could be interpreted like they are running a subreddit for the benefit of VMP, but, regardless of differences of opinion or actions or methods or anything, I came to view it as mods like @chrb98 making sure that they owned r/vinylmeplease and weren't handing over their space and relinquishing the entire narrative to VMP. They actually didn't let them have it. I have to commend them for that.

They are also part of this N&G community whereas most redditors probably aren't. I do still see this as a place where we all united together to tell those dicks that they didn't own the community, even if it grew from their platform. If the reddit mods were random shitheads, I wouldn't care, but they shouldn't be addressed like outsiders here anymore than we should be over on reddit, because they definitely aren't. Them running that place doesn't separate them from this place which they are undeniably important members of.
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Thanks a ton for this. I joined the VMP forum roughly three years ago, and being a part of this community has been a blast. I know I'm not the MOST active on here, just because sometimes it can get difficult to keep up with the pace of everything lol. But it's weird to hear people theorize about myself and other mods being paid VMP plants, or some random redditors coming in, or just outsiders in general. I'm more than happy to hear what people have to say about the subreddit and the decisions we've made there, but I also sense a very weird "N&G vs Reddit" dynamic growing, as if they're two entirely separate and opposite camps rather than just two adjacent online communities with a somewhat shared userbase
 
chrb98 said:
Thanks a ton for this. I joined the VMP forum roughly three years ago, and being a part of this community has been a blast. I know I'm not the MOST active on here, just because sometimes it can get difficult to keep up with the pace of everything lol. But it's weird to hear people theorize about myself and other mods being paid VMP plants, or some random redditors coming in, or just outsiders in general. I'm more than happy to hear what people have to say about the subreddit and the decisions we've made there, but I also sense a very weird "N&G vs Reddit" dynamic growing, as if they're two entirely separate and opposite camps rather than just two adjacent online communities with a somewhat shared userbase
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Humans are tribal and need conflict to provide purpose. If it doesn’t exist naturally in a sufficient amount, we will manufacture it.
 
chrb98 said:
Thanks a ton for this. I joined the VMP forum roughly three years ago, and being a part of this community has been a blast. I know I'm not the MOST active on here, just because sometimes it can get difficult to keep up with the pace of everything lol. But it's weird to hear people theorize about myself and other mods being paid VMP plants, or some random redditors coming in, or just outsiders in general. I'm more than happy to hear what people have to say about the subreddit and the decisions we've made there, but I also sense a very weird "N&G vs Reddit" dynamic growing, as if they're two entirely separate and opposite camps rather than just two adjacent online communities with a somewhat shared userbase
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Yeah we joined around the same time and we made them institute a referral cap because we played the game so well. Good times.
 
bdm105 said:
Yeah we joined around the same time and we made them institute a referral cap because we played the game so well. Good times.
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These days they just all out removed the referrals altogether. They blame the site, claiming that the function simply isn't currently working. It's been like that forever now.
 
Dead C said:
These days they just all out removed the referrals altogether. They blame the site, claiming that the function simply isn't currently working. It's been like that forever now.
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Yup. One of 2 sites who removed referrals after I got a lot of them
 
chrb98 said:
The idea that criticism is being silenced is ludicrous. Literally the stickied post on the subreddit is an entire thread dedicated to complaints and ongoing issues. The first post you see when you load up the sub is "look at how much everyone hates VMP right now". The top non-stickied post is a meaningful discussion about how to proceed if VMP continues to fuck over customers. @Dead C made a fantastic post criticizing VMP's approach to the Mobb Deep fiasco - it wasn't outright hatred, it was well deserved skepticism and tough questions that VMP need to answer, and it's one of the highest rated posts ever on the subreddit. When a post was made about the Charlie Brown Christmas album being oversold, the comments were nothing but negativity, and rightfully so, this overselling shit is getting BEYOND ridiculous. /u/djsgribbs made a post on the eve of Black Friday calling for a boycott due to VMP's continued business malpractices, which generated an interesting discussion on voting with your wallet and why some people still give so much money to VMP through such obviously hectic times. When we all found out that swaps were locked, we were shocked and confused, because there was virtually no communication whatsoever of this issue. Most people found out about it through reddit, because there was a highly upvoted post criticizing VMP for the sudden and inexplicable change. Hell, someone LITERALLY accused VMP of being a ponzi scheme the other day. I decided to leave it up, and there are multiple reports on it now that say "shouldn't this be in the megathread?". So if y'all wanna say that the subreddit censoring bad info about VMP... y'all have the right to think whatever you wanna think, but that's a REAL stretch.

But here's the thing about reddit. If every VMP subscriber made their own separate thread on the subreddit about their personal take on what's happening, those posts would fill up the entire front page. It's not like a forum, where older posts generating a ton of active discussion rise above new posts no matter what. Even if a thread is highly upvoted and has hundreds of new comments, it'll fall off the front page within a day. Especially if a ton of new threads are coming in. The pizza post is the exact type of post we made a megathread for. I know y'all want the subreddit to be even more of a shitshow than it is now, but a front page filled with actual discussion and news, good OR bad, is more conducive for a semblance of community than 37 "here's why I think VMP is bad" "well here's why I think VMP is bad" "I think VMP is bad and here's why" posts. Because guess what? If the front page is just everyone giving their own personal opinions on existing issues, where does that leave actual news that people need to know about? Like I said earlier, a TON of people found out about VMP's new swap policy because a reddit thread alerted people to the change. How many people do you think wouldn't have seen that thread if it were buried under a slew of "I dislike VMP now" threads? Imagine if here on N&G, instead of everyone talking about VMP in this thread and the dedicated side-subs threads, we all made a brand new thread every time we had something to say? That MIGHT have some semblance of usefulness if it's "By the way, here's this new issue with VMP that we didn't know about till now" "here's this policy change that they're not communicating". But if we all just made a new thread every time we had an opinion, it would be... well, a shitshow.

The mods and I stressed multiple times in the megathread that if NEW information arises, or if VMP have NEW fuck-ups, PLEASE make a new thread about it. We assured people multiple times that the megathread wasn't an attempt to stifle the information that people deserve to hear. But if you just want to give your opinion on news we ALREADY know about, without having questions that generate meaningful discussion or insights that others don't know about, how in the world is that more important than "here is another example of how VMP fucked up?"



The mod team and I are currently in talks with reddit admins to remove Cam as a mod - he hasn't been active on Reddit in YEARS, and he's never once removed a reddit post or comment, but even his presence on the sidebar is worrisome enough. We're more than welcoming of VMP employees who choose to come on and interact, but there's no way we're letting any of them have any sort of control over the sub after what happened with the forum earlier this year. Speaking of which, after the forum closed, people on here asked why I still chose to remain on as a mod for the VMP subreddit, and I gave a similar reasoning; if reddit is going to become the de facto VMP community, it needs to be controlled by someone who has NO ties to VMP, and who has no obligation or wish to follow their every order. That's been my philosophy this entire time, and it's the philosophy of all the other mods. We are JUST as critical of VMP as the rest of y'all - go back a few pages and you'll find me comparing VMP to a company that fucked up so badly that countless exposés have been written about the phenomenal failures they had. Even when subreddit threads have gotten too toxic, we've left them up if they contain important discussion or news that customers have the right to know about, as everybody deserves to know how bad VMP has gotten. So while I get the implication of your gif here, I think you might have it reversed as far who is who.

For the record, removing the pizza post was the only thing I did on the subreddit today - I didn't have a hand in any more comment removals, bans, etc. But as far as the user who was temp banned, he had a history of personal attacks on Storf and had been warned before by other mods about his behavior. I can't justify or speak for other mod's actions because that's just not my place (I wouldn't expect them to justify or speak for my actions either) so I don't really have much to say on that subject specifically.
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Ok. Just read this and I think it's a more than fair response that breaks things down pretty well. Like I already commented earlier, before reading this, I appreciate you not letting VMP take over that sub. If they had, they would be doing exactly what you guys are being accused of now.

The thing about reddit that's so crazy is how the mob decides. A few weeks ago, the mob felt like it decided that any critique of VMP was unwarranted. Now, everyone feels that any critique is completely valid.

Personally, while I agree with most complaints, I never expected the black friday shit to arrive yet OR December shipments, necessarily, but people are already rioting about that. I think that waters down the legit issues, but there is zero patience at this point. Black Friday was less that 2 week ago and my ROTM always used to show up way after everyone else, even when I first joined. People in Sweden were getting packages before me. That's normal. That being said, we have people still waiting on September packages and ZERO communication. We have people being told their albums are sold out after being told they were shipped, only to have them available in the shop. To me, those are real issues and we have plenty of those real issues.

My point is that, when the tide shifted, so did the subreddit. It's a free-for-all street fight over there, but it was allowed to become that without censorship. I believe that the mods allowed that natural shift to grow without trying to control it. As for my own comment about the ban -- and I know it wasn't you -- that sort of wording is a bad move, because it reflects poorly. With the original comment that provoked it removed in the process, it just leaves the mod responsible standing there coming off like.... not well. It feeds into a negative perception of you folks as mods, especially from those who don't have the insight to know what you took on from the beginning and why.

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As for your other comment about N&G and reddit looking like opposing forums, I have my own belief as to why that is, which I've touched on before. When the forum shut down, those of us who tried to visit the sub were likely greeted with people who were never part of our community bashing us. Redditors have talked a lot of shit about something that was personal to me and plenty of others, chiming in when they had no place to and accusing us of being toxic while praising VMP for fucking us. That's finally stopped, but only because they all got hit in the face so quick and hard that most of them woke up.

The other reason is because it's such a different layout with a different pace and expectation in communication and interaction. Every post is a response to an individual which forces everything into either an "I agree" or "go fuck yourself" bucket. It's a royal rumble in that bitch. I won't say that communication can't or hasn't formed there, but it's so splintered and different than a forum like this for structural reasons.

The old VMP forum had a hierarchy with the staff there. We really don't have one here. And, whether people see it or believe it or not, I believe that you've done a admirable job of not allowing one to take hold over on reddit, for the most part, either. You even naturally regulate staff and remind them that the people are in charge, simply by allowing our frustrations to remain prominent on the front page.

The one critique isn't even if someone was banned, because I didn't see it, but how they were banned. In my opinion, the way the ban announcement was presented was offputting and a misstep, because it threatened everyone, while flexing a position of authority. Never doing that is the main thing that has always given everything you've just posted a level of integrity. Warning the "community" that you can lay the hammer down to punish them is going to piss people off and lose their respect really quick. It's also going to feed the conspiracies.
 
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