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.
