Aria Salvatrice Modules: Psychopump & Future of the collection

I can feel you man! What would be a good ratio alcohol/oxygen in your opinión? Thanks.

Nowadays I only get high on Jesus, can’t help you.

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At this point, I can’t understand what Andrew’s wrongdoing was.

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It seems there is a lot of context that’s missing, but it’s clear that Aria did not feel supported, and she says there are others who feel similarly. If we take the latter claim more or less at face value, which seems reasonable to me, all I can say is that the VCV needs to improve community management and consider the “emotional labor” aspects of that responsibility seriously.

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Allow me to put it as simply as possible, at the risk of being reductive.

Consider the following example:

Reviews of PRs to plugins don’t take a lot of my time. They take a lot of your time due to my strict reviews. If you have the time, submit a PR and see what happens.

  • This shows a high level of contempt and entitlement to the time and energy of unpaid contributors.
  • Had I seen this exchange before I started writing modules, I would never have started.
  • There are many examples like this. I can’t simply list dozens of them, it would be unproductive character assassination. Those incidents add up, and because they happen in public, the entire community sees them.
  • It goes against what VCV’s code of conduct purports to be, namely: “Showing empathy towards other community members”, and “conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a professional setting”.
  • Because it is couched in professional language, it is difficult to bring it up. Nonetheless, in a healthy company, it is the sort of language you can bring up to HR.
  • VCV presents itself as a company, referring to itself in the plural. We hold a company to a higher standard of professionalism.
  • You probably do not realize just how much works goes into a single module, since I do not think you developed any, but mine have all been in the 10~80 hours range (learning necessary skills included). This is not trivial.
  • This is not about “feelings” or a nebulous form of “emotional labor”, this is about respect.
  • Almost none of use are professionals. We are hobbyists. You are entitled to absolutely nothing from us.
  • People are quitting over this behavior, and are eager to see VCV replaced with a project where they are valued.
  • The people who are quitting first, or refusing to get involved, are the outsiders - be it for their inexperience with modular synths, their lack of a professional development / engineering / math / DSP background, their gender, their ethnicity, or other characteristics that make them stand out from the highly homogenous demographics of official VCV spaces.
  • I speak in part on the behalf of a few others who have quit, but do not care to make their identity known. What you can be sure of: if our plugins break in 2.0, don’t expect fixes.
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I had completely forgotten this, but now that you point it out, it’s almost comical. I mean, it reads like part of a to-do list. And I can speak from experience, it took me a decade and several times my body weight in psychedelic substances to realize empathy is something as vital as oxygen. Andre’s including this in the CoC seems like a projection. Empathy isn’t an issue to be raised on Github lol.

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I don’t think any of those things you wrote are fitting with the quote provided. I’m sure there was more context but I don’t see any contempt, entitlement, or any other form of disrespect from that quote. He simply said that it takes a long time for you to write changes and very little time for him to review it so if you want to do so you can. I’m not sure how this is against the code of conduct, if anything he is showing empathy by saying that it is possible for your hours of work to be rejected in a few minutes.

I’m not on any side here, I too have seen and experienced abrupt or rude comments from more than one developer here and elsewhere but I feel it’s unfair to attribute all the things you wrote to that example.

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Ok, how about making false accusations (that several others called out) and publishing personal messages for no valid reason, then not having the decency to apologise? I find that quite contemptuous.

And I see glee at the prospect of wasting a developer’s time from a position of authority. As I mentioned, this is a frequent behavior, not the analysis of a single quote. Please read the entire thread before reacting.

How you interpret this behavior doesn’t influence how plugin developers interpret it.

I have done and I have refrained from making any comments. The only reason I have done now is that someone asked what Andrew actually did wrong and you provided that quote. I felt like this is (and I mean this post, nothing else) an unfair portrayal of the issues.

Anyway, I probably should have just kept quiet, I’m not really interested in joining any kind of argument.

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I won’t try to ascribe motives to anyone; it’s always best to assume positive intent, but yeah, there’ve been a few times where I think @Vortico has come across as a little short on the forums. For instance, conversations around IP/graphics seem to be touchy subjects, or even just a few instances where I felt too much control was trying to be exerted over forum moderation like the “module ideas” thread where yeah, people didn’t follow the intent of the thread, but it’s a public forum with enthusiastic users who want to get ideas out there. Not everyone’s capable of designing modules in their heads, but they might have a good idea they’re hoping someone could run with. Seemingly chastising users for not being specific enough in that thread seems unnecessary, and while I don’t assume any ill intent, communicating via text sometimes doesn’t read to others the same way it reads in our own head. So people might be reading a much more harsh tone in some of Andrew’s responses or forum posts where none may have been intended. There was also a post recently where someone asked about V2 development and the response was something along the lines of ‘I don’t bring up your failures’ (paraphrasing). I didn’t take it as anyone saying that at all, and the response gave that same kind of awkward feeling I get when my married friends get into an argument in front of me.

No one’s asking, but my advice to @Vortico would be: soften the tone a little bit on the forums. Keep things a bit more chill. Even if that means ceding a bit of control. Throw some emoji’s in every now and then so people don’t think you’re angry, shooting them down, or taking something personally. Maybe don’t try to exert so much strict control over the forum or conversations if they derail a bit (within reason - obviously don’t allow for abusive posting and I’d discourage people from going entirely OT for too long). If a topic or line of discussion annoys you, take a breather before posting, find a friendly way to make your point, or just don’t engage at all. This is your forum, your platform, but it’s a place where you’ve invited people in to engage, share ideas, music, etc. openly. Once you invite people in to your home, you should just try to appreciate the discussions that are had versus trying to moderate every conversation. Instead of offering absolute responses ‘you can do this, take it or leave it’ or you can say something like ‘my advice would be to be specific in your license, but if you want to run an alternative approach by me, I’m willing to listen.’ Something like that. Some people are just going to be more sensitive than others, and you’re the only one that’s in your head and knows what you mean. You don’t want to turn off enthusiastic users because someone misread a forum post, or you made a glib comment, or were joking about something but it didn’t come across. Anyway, I hope you take the feedback without feeling like it’s an attack. It’s not. Just one perspective.

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Sound advice @funkybot. Moderating a forum is a lot of work, and letting go a bit means less work.

This has turned into a “publicly complain about Andrew” thread. If you have an issue about a post I have made, send me an email or private message with a link to the post and I will fix it. Closing.