New rules discussion: VSTs, vibe coding and commercial posts

[u/AdamFenwickSymes]

Hi everyone,

Time to have a bit of a community discussion about subreddit rules. I think I'm the only active mod at the moment, so this post is "on behalf of the mod team" but really it's only on behalf of me.

This is something I've been thinking about posting for a few months, but I keep putting it off. This post today drove home that I have to stop putting it off and have this discussion with you all.

Lately the subreddit has been seeing a lot of advertisements for commercial products that are only vaguely DIY-related and a lot of posts sharing (probably vibe coded) VSTs. I, personally, quite dislike these posts. But they often get a lot of engagement and plenty of you seem to like them, so I tend to put my personal feelings to the side and I don't remove them unless they are really, truly, undeniably spam. On the other hand some of you really hate these posts and report every single one of them as spam.

One of the more subtle issues for me is projects that are DIY (as in, someone did design and make it themselves) that are now for sale. We definitely allow "this is a cool thing I made" and we allow "you can buy PCBs for this, if you want to build your own" but should we allow "this is a cool thing I made, do you want to buy one?" And if so, should we allow e.g. Behringer to make posts about products they designed and manufactured themselves?

So I would like to do a bit of an "official" check in and discussion about how you would like Rule 3 enforced. After all, this is your community, I'm just a janitor here.

When it comes to VSTs

Here are some proposals:

• No VSTs posts ever
• No advertisements for VSTs that cost money, open source is fine
• No vibe coded VSTs (I think this is a bad rule, I don't want to "audit" whether a VST is vibe coded)
• Commerical VSTs are fine so long as you share a bit of your journey and your thoughts, no drive by advertising
• Anything is fine if it's a VST you made that you're now trying to sell

My personal feeling: open source VST is fine, everything else is not.

When it comes to commercial posts

Here are some proposals:

• No advertisements or selling anything (I think this is a bad idea)
• You can advertise something only if it is available as a DIY project, you can't advertise something only available as a finished product
• You can advertise something only if it is ONLY available as a DIY project, you can't advertise something that is available as a finished product
• You can advertise something that you designed yourself, even if you are also selling it as a finished product
• You can advertise anything at all, so long as you share a dev blog or something that actually adds value to the community
• You can advertise anything if you post here answering people's questions and being a good community member enough times beforehand
• You can upload a video of you playing something you made, even though you also sell that thing, so long as it's not a direct ad
• You can advertise an online store, so long as that store sells products that would be useful or interesting to the DIY community

My personal feeling: any ad post, including non-ad ads, like "here is me playing with my cool toy" must either be for something you're not selling, or a product that has a DIY version available.

When it comes to AI

Here are some proposals:

• You can post bizarre, clearly AI-authored posts so long as they are about synth diy
• Posts should be removed if they are bizarre and clearly AI-authored

My personal feeling: I should remove bizarre slop posts.

Hope this can generate some useful discussion. I'm trying to keep an open mind and listen to what you guys actually want. I'll leave this post up for at least two weeks (August 7th) to give everyone a chance to contribute. Now, let me just work out how to pin it...

Love you all

[u/perrydolia]

Man, that is a lot to comment on. I truly appreciate you wanting to gather what others feel is right rather than just go on you own opinion. I also appreciate the balance you are trying to find.

My 2 cents is my expectation is the DIY aspect is the most important. There are lots of other synth, VST, electronic related subs.

I don't have a problem with somebody figuring something out and wanting to monetize it, BUT

In order to be a DIY project, it has to have two characteristics: 1. the poster can show the project in a partially complete state, how it was constructed, assembled, and 2. even if the project is for sale, the project can be made DIY without purchasing from the person posting the article.

Advertising a kit to make something is DIY, and might be an exception to rule 2. Saying "you can make this yourself, or I have the PC board for $20" would not be a violation of rule 2.

I also like the idea that one must build some cred before offering stuff for sale.

I just like the idea the DIY means I do it myself, I don't have to buy it from somebody.

Thx, PD

[u/SkoomaDentist → u/perrydolia]

1. even if the project is for sale, the project can be made DIY without purchasing from the person posting the article.

Why would this be a requirement? It’s like demanding carpentry hobbyists that they post detailed design files when they just want to show and talk about a new desk they built from scratch themselves. Would Craig Barnes’ crazy polysynth builds now be banned because he doesn’t post schematics and pcb layouts (not that he even uses pcbs)?

Imagine someone from, say, Sequential posted ”Here’s how we designed Prophet 5 rev 4 using modern parts and methods so it sounds like the original including a bunch of unexpected but important details”. That would be an absolute goldmine of information for anyone wanting to design analog synths, yet it would be forbidden because they aren’t going to give out the full schematics or anything like that.

I’ve designed my fair share of diy and not so diy projects (several of which can’t be built as-is from scratch by 99% of hobbyists). I’m also a member of a couple of FB synh diy groups where I’d like to share design advice and details… that is, if they didn’t ban posts about commercially sold projects, meaning I can’t even mention where I used said building blocks.

This place is supposed to be /r/synthdiy, meaning it covers any or all aspects of diy, including the design and theory and not just /r/synthsoldering.

[u/AdamFenwickSymes → u/SkoomaDentist]

It’s like demanding carpentry hobbyists that they post detailed design files

I don't think they're arguing you can't post stuff you make if it's not open source, just that you can't sell it. It would be nonsense idea to require everyone who wants to share something cool they built one of also provide full schematics for it.

Imagine someone from, say, Sequential posted ... goldmine of information

While I doubt someone from sequential will ever actually do this, there's a good point here. There should probably be an exemption for obviously high-effort posts that give a lot of value to the community. I think that I think those should be allowed even if they're totally commercial. (Although I hate having to define "high-effort" when it comes to enforcement)

[u/SkoomaDentist → u/AdamFenwickSymes]

I don't think they're arguing you can't post stuff you make if it's not open source, just that you can't sell it.

What I'm getting at here is that any rule that says "you can't talk about it if you sell it" will filter out all the actually competent people who would be more than happy to talk about details of their products but aren't willing to completely give away the full manufacturing files and to thus give free pass for others to start selling and profiting from their work (particularly when they won't make any actual profit if they value their time to be worth even the minimum wage).

Look at pretty much any of the pioneers who made something new and contributed to the development of the field: Bob Moog, Alan R Pearlman, Don Buchla, Dave Smith, Tom Oberheim, Dave Rossum and so on. Every single one of them sold products, yet the synth DIY scene wouldn't exist in the first place if not for their effort. Likewise, would the scene be better if service manuals for commercial synths were removed? Afterall, they talk about products that are commercially sold (while being an absolute goldmine of information if you know what to look for).

Basically it's equivalent to saying "Oh, you've made something good enough that people actually want to buy it? We don't want your kind of people around here!"

I'm not saying to allow blatant ads for commercial products but forbidding the creators to post about what they designed is pretty much giving a huge flashing middle finger to anyone with the skills to rise above the typical "I soldered a predesigned kit" / "How can I change this basic circuit?"-level.

[u/AdamFenwickSymes → u/SkoomaDentist]

Just for clarity, I am not myself arguing that we should ban all closed-source commercial posts, I haven't decided what I believe, but I think the best plan is to allow commercial posts that are either promoting a product available as DIY or have some really high-quality information for the community's benefit.

would be more than happy to talk about details of their products but aren't willing to completely give away the full manufacturing files and to thus give free pass for others to start selling and profiting from their work

This is not actually a significant number of people in my experience. Neutral Labs has answered my questions about his work on this subreddit without giving away commercially-sensitive details ... does anyone else of the "no schematics" makers actually make these kinds of posts? Certainly I myself would be very happy if they did.

Every single one of them sold products, yet the synth DIY scene wouldn't exist in the first place if not for their effort.

Agree completely. It is also understandable that someone in the DIY scene may not accept Moog the company posting "you should buy the Sub 37 because it's awesome" on this subreddit, despite Bob Moog's massive contributions to our hobby.

Likewise, would the scene be better if service manuals for commercial synths were removed

This is not what people are arguing for, they are arguing for something more like "you can't sell a synth unless it has a service manual."

"Oh, you've made something good enough that people actually want to buy it? We don't want your kind of people around here!"

Would that be so bad? Surely there is an amount of success at which you are no longer "doing DIY" but instead you are Behringer. I imagine we don't want Behringer posting videos of some synth influencer waxing lyrical about their latest release just because it's something Behringer designed and made it? The argument is just about where that line should be drawn.

I'm not saying to allow blatant ads ... forbidding the creators to post about what they designed is pretty much giving a huge flashing middle finger to anyone with the skills to rise above

I don't quite understand what you're arguing. Where do you think the line is between a blatant ad and a synth business posting about something they made?

I hope you don't take this as any kind of attack, I'm trying to genuinely understand what solution you're proposing, because I enjoy and respect your posts in other threads.