A Poll on VMP Thread Consolidation

How many VMP threads should there be in the Vinyl Clubs forum?

  • Five threads - one for each track, one for the store (exclusives, swaps, etc.), one for anthology

    Votes: 235 84.8%
  • One thread - all VMP related threads in the clubs forum merged into one

    Votes: 42 15.2%

  • Total voters
    277
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
We are not a VMP clone nor do we wish to become one. We want to be a music and vinyl forum that has some VMP threads. We are not anti VMP but we are our own thing. If that's not what some people are looking for then fair enough.

Even if we wanted to be an unofficial VMP forum, that would have no sustainability. The old place had churn because as people left the club and forum new people joined. We don't have a company behind us driving new membership. Over time this place would just die. If people come for the community and the general music chat then this forum has a better and longer future.

I’ll drink to this!

This evening after work spinning doves
 
We are not a VMP clone nor do we wish to become one. We want to be a music and vinyl forum that has some VMP threads. We are not anti VMP but we are our own thing. If that's not what some people are looking for then fair enough.

Even if we wanted to be an unofficial VMP forum, that would have no sustainability. The old place had churn because as people left the club and forum new people joined. We don't have a company behind us driving new membership. Over time this place would just die. If people come for the community and the general music chat then this forum has a better and longer future.

I agree we should not embrace them and promote them, however we also should not shun them either. The right course is usually somewhere in the middle.

Fact is they are a business that some of the members still patronize and as such should have a little sandbox for discussions. I voted for 5 because that was the choice, maybe the "right" answer was 3, but it certainly wasn't 1.

If Secretly gets bigger and more forum members decide there is enough room to expand to 5 or 10 threads to discuss that company then so be it. As others have said the size and needs will be dictated organically. Does anyone believe we need a 3 month deadline to reevaluate? The answer will come on its own.

Again the answer is probably not Micromanage or Ignore but somewhere in the middle.

YMMV
 
Why don't they just make VMP a separate forum under Discussions, and have the Vinyl Clubs forum be for all the other vinyl clubs? Look how many VMP thread views there are compared to the other threads for crying out loud! All the users are nomads from when they nuked the VMP Forum site.
 
Why don't they just make VMP a separate forum under Discussions, and have the Vinyl Clubs forum be for all the other vinyl clubs? Look how many VMP thread views there are compared to the other threads for crying out loud! All the users are nomads from when they nuked the VMP Forum site.

A separate VMP forum probably means other vinyl club threads will have virtually no exposure to the majority of forum members.
 
Well if the goal is to get the VMP nomads interesting in posting in the vinyl club threads then leave the half dozen VMP threads in the Vinyl Clubs Forum. If the goal is to keep the Vinyl Clubs thread from turning into a mini version of the old VMP Forum, then give VMP it's own Forum on here. You can't have it both ways.

I don't see what's so important about getting the VMP crowd to interact in other vinyl club threads more.
 
Elsewhere threads are often started around the particular release by VMP. Granted the traction is low, but there's an incredible number of threads with "Vinyl Me Please" in the title at Hoffman, so I don't really see how having 3 threads as that bad. I don't see consolidation doing anything but stifling and confusing the conversations.

TBH I think the energy devoted to worrying about this would be better suited to thinking of some interesting topic ideas for the other forums within the site.
 
Well if the goal is to get the VMP nomads interesting in posting in the vinyl club threads then leave the half dozen VMP threads in the Vinyl Clubs Forum. If the goal is to keep the Vinyl Clubs thread from turning into a mini version of the old VMP Forum, then give VMP it's own Forum on here. You can't have it both ways.

I don't see what's so important about getting the VMP crowd to interact in other vinyl club threads more.

I don't think it is important to get the VMP crowd interested in other threads, but I don't know why this forum should go out of its way to make it easier for them to ignore other threads.

I am fine with having many VMP-related threads as long as VMP does not get a segregated area.
 
I cancelled my membership and I feel like I've made it pretty clear I don't hold a very high opinion of VMP. But I also don't judge anyone who has decided to remain a member of VMP and is still interested in what's going on over there. I know opinions on VMP are at this point divided, but I don't think we should actively begrudge or dissuade conversation about it (I'm not saying anyone is arguing for this - just stating my personal opinion). I feel like this forum has already taken on a life of its own in the short time it has been up and that identity isn't one of "disgruntled former VMP members", but one of passionate fans of music and vinyl coming together to form a strong community about what they love.

It's hard for me to take a clear side on the issue, as I don't really visit the threads about record clubs to begin with, so whatever decision ends up being made here will have little effect on my experience with these forums. But I feel like this forum is strong enough to continue on its own regardless of if there's still threads about VMP or not. I admit to making posts taking shots at VMP but those occasional posts are far from my main reasons for coming here. I'm here to talk about music.

And I just hate to see people getting in arguments over VMP and how much they should be mentioned in this forum. The past is the past, and at this point, most former members have made their choice to stay or leave the club based on what they know and what they saw. I don't think there's anything to be gained from shitting on VMP or those who are members. If you dislike the company, not giving them your $29 a month speaks louder than words. As corny as it sounds, let's just all get along.
 
I don't think it is important to get the VMP crowd interested in other threads, but I don't know why this forum should go out of its way to make it easier for them to ignore other threads.

I am fine with having many VMP-related threads as long as VMP does not get a segregated area.

I don't think the point is to make it easier for the VMP crowd to ignore other threads, I think the point is to make it convenient for everyone by separating all the VMP stuff from the rest of the Vinyl Club stuff that receives far less traffic. The non-VMP people dont' have to sift through all the VMP posts in the Vinyl Clubs forum, and the VMP crowd can have all their stuff in one place organized into separate threads instead of lumping all the swaptions, classics, anthology, etc. into only a few threads. Everyone wins.

Im really fine with how it currently is, it seems to be only bothering a few people based on the poll results — but if any action is taken to find a compromise I think that makes the most sense.
 
It's fine how it is. Giving it a sub-forum would be elevating it above the other vinyl clubs, which would be dumb.

Yeah this is exactly how I feel too. Eventually cut out the store thread so there’s just 4 (one for each sub) and leave them be. I’d rather everyone unsubbed and stopped talking about them but I’m not naive enough to think that will happen!
 
Constant delays. Sometimes suspect care in packaging/delivery. Losing half of 500 pressings. Overselling tracks. Shutting down a community based forum. Price markups. Trying to sneak by a mistake on a “game changing” product only to be called out for it and then having to fix the mistake. Having some goofball jerkoff shill your “game changing” product are all of the reasons why I voted for one thread. I’m sure there could have been more reasons listed but those are the ones that rose to the top. I know it will stay 5 threads but I guess some people love to be abused.
 
I feel like Anthology should be allowed to let live separately, since it was already treated like a separate club. As for the three different tracks, there's absolutely no reason they each need their own thread. Exclusives is just people upset and discussion about VMP changing policies and being shitty to people, right now. That might sound like it's tanking as a thread, if that's not exactly what it used to be on the other forum, anyway. Because, there really isn't much discussion to have other than what the exclusives will be and once we know, we just discuss if we're going to get them or not for about a day. Then it's over. Outkast got announced. Sold out. Now what? Where does the convo go from here? Nat Turner only got delivered to half the people. What kind of discussion would we have had, other than a discussion about how half of us can't have it.

As far as their products, there generally isn't much more to them than a color variant. Does everyone really need a thread dedicated to discussing the color of a record for an entire month? The exclusives are almost always just a color variant. Do we need a full week for that? VMP even spaces their releases out, so that there's time between them and there's no reason for separate threads about them. The guess threads are over. What are you discussing about the Phoenix album? Go look in that thread and tell me about the riveting discussion that isn't happening. Or the VMP hip hop thread. What are you discussing that wouldn't live in the regular hip hop thread? Is everyone really diving into the new Sister Rosetta? If you really are, then I'll concede, but we all know that probably isn't happening. So... why do we need these? Really?

I've said this before, but everybody knows that even when the guess threads were left without clues for even a moment, everything just devolved into hot dog vs sandwich debates, or shit that had absolutely nothing to do with those specific tracks. Instead, we'd discuss other things going on with the company. Now, you just have 5 devolving tracks discussing everything else, anyway. There's no reason for it, other than it being a safety blanket for people that aren't ready to adapt to the new forum and move away from a formula they are used to. Go have those conversations elsewhere with everyone else. Go talk about hot dogs vs sandwiches elsewhere. Hell, start a hot dogs vs sandwiches thread if you want. I'd actually see more focus and value in that.

The argument has been tossed around that it will become a "clusterfuck." Guess what, those threads have always been clusterfucks by nature. There's an argument that nobody can chew gum and walk at the same time, that too many different styles of music can't be discussed at once. That VMP releases SO much different music constantly. But they actually don't. They release color variants. They released one album and a 3 album bundle this week. Is everyone still discussing that? They released an album and a TLC bundle last week. Is everyone caught up on that yet? Other than that, they release 3 albums a month and, for some reason, each album needs it's own thread? What if they release a rap exclusive and a country exclusive the same week? Do we need genre specific exclusive threads, too? It seems unbalanced with what the other vinyl clubs get here and I don't see any real justification for it. The excuse that you don't like rap or classics, so you don't want it bleeding into "your" thread seems absurd to me. You need to retain the purity? We have absolutely zero issue discussing various different albums all at once in the pre-order thread. We do it with multiple albums every single day, from all different genres, from all different distributors, retailers, and countries. And we do it at such a greater volume. Multiple conversations even co-exist. Do we get off track? Yup. And then someone drops some new link and some of us refocus on that. If there were more tracks being discussed in a single VMP thread, it would actually be LESS of a clusterfuck, because we'd have more albums/subjects popping up to refocus conversation more regularly, rather than having people running out of things to say about Phoenix a page and a half in and devolving the conversation into anything but.

There's a weird belief that VMP did SO much. That they release SO much music. That's not reality. They really don't and they really haven't. The difference is that, those of us spending more time in other areas of the forum, seeing all the new music being released by other outlets in the pre-order thread, or what's available in the vinyl deals thread, discussing jazz, hip hop, TV, film or anything else. For us, it becomes clear that, the further you step away from that place -- at least, mentally -- they are just another retailer. They put out a few albums a month. That's it. They don't need 5 or more threads to discuss that.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top