Did Bitwig Hire a New Marketing Person?

[Jac459]

But on the positive side, after all that, we will get the most advanced DAW modulation system on the planet .

Not from where I come from!

Are you a time traveller coming from the future?

I guess my location doesn’t show on small screens

Busted!

[Jac459]

I can't even imagine how you could realistically automate full testing of BW via the UI.

Painfully

[Jac459]

Someone linked to or revived an older thread the other day which included some responses from one of the Bitwig devs, so it hasn't always been like this. Good old times, though they probably had good reasons to step away from directly interacting with people, it's probably not great for mental health, and to be fair the entitled attitude that some people display around feature requests and roadmap transparency validates that decision.

This forum isn't worth moderating and unfortunately a few bad apples here simply stink up the forum and aren't worth interacting with.

“Never play chess with a pigeon.
The pigeon just knocks all the pieces over.
Then shits all over the board.
Then struts around like it won.”

No reason for Bitwig to interact here.

Dear Dionysos and Billcarroll:
It's incredibly fascinating to read your opinions on Bitwigs NON-communication with its userbase.
As defenders of NON-communication, you can certainly answer the following questions:

1 do you know what a community manager is? A community managers whole purpose is being able to EASILY deal with any kind of online-situation, especially in small-scale forums. I hope you know that such a jobprofile exists: "Managers of a community are required to know how to derive meaningful conversations and also collect actionable insights for the brand." "Excellent communication skills. Organizational and project management skills. Interpersonal skills. Analytical ability. Market research skills. Domain knowledge. Adaptability. Engagement skills."

2 You talk about SOME people who have an "entitled attitude", and a FEW "bad apples" who "stink up the forum and aren't worth interacting with." I hope you agree with me that the majority of forum users here are actually good people?
So if you agree on 1 and 2, there's no reason to NOT communicate. Why should the good, kind, and constructively arguing majority be completely abandoned? A skilled community manager would be able to deal with unfruitful community members, and engage in highly fruitful/meaningful/purposeful interaction with the majority of the community.

3 Do you really think that an absolute lack of roadmap transparency is a good thing? To the extent that you don't even know IF a feature request which got sent in via email by many people since several years (Gridlines behind clips in arrangement view, piano roll issues, etc) will ever be CONSIDERED to be implemented, or will not be implemented within the next 5 years? Or would a clear "no" or "not within the next 5 years" not be fair to hear for paying customers, in order to make a based decision to look for another software?

I don't really understand your logic (but "entitled" clearly comes to mind).

Many many companies don't communicate about their roadmap. It can be for marketing reasons, competitive advantage, or any other reasons that they find valid. I am sure you know that some companies spend a load of money to avoid this famous roadmap to leak (imagine few months before the iPhone 1 release for example)...

Some other companies prefer to make their roadmap public. For example Reason Studios, and they are crucified in various forums either because the roadmap doesn't fit the need of the various "Karens" or when they are late. This is not necessarily a positive bet for the company, far from that.

You are absolutely entitled to your own opinion of course and this transparency on roadmap is highly debatable, but the way you put it like it is a kind of lack of respect from the company is a bit simplistic to say the least.

[nowiamone]

I don't really understand your logic (but "entitled" clearly comes to mind).

You must solely be refering to point 3, since i see no arguments coming from your side about points 1 and 2?

Concerning point 3: Yes, a highly debateable topic.
Since i m coming from the mind-blowingly positive experience of Loopy Pros open roadmap, i might be biased towards thinking that its efficiancy and success is also applicable to other companies.
https://roadmap.loopypro.com/
But since this kind of totally open roadmap is quite intense, i asked for something which is almost infinitely less transparent, like a statement whether "something is even within the companies long term plans to be implemented".
Now i don't think that fixing piano roll issues or making gridlines visible behind clips in arranger could EVER be something relevant to "competitive advantage", it's exclusively a matter of engaging with paying customers.

[Jac459]

I don't really understand your logic (but "entitled" clearly comes to mind).

You must solely be refering to point 3, since i see no arguments coming from your side about points 1 and 2?

Concerning point 3: Yes, a highly debateable topic.
Since i m coming from the mind-blowingly positive experience of Loopy Pros open roadmap, i might be biased towards thinking that its efficiancy and success is also applicable to other companies.
https://roadmap.loopypro.com/
But since this kind of totally open roadmap is quite intense, i asked for something which is almost infinitely less transparent, like a statement whether "something is even within the companies long term plans to be implemented".
Now i don't think that fixing piano roll issues or making gridlines visible behind clips in arranger could EVER be something relevant to "competitive advantage", it's exclusively a matter of engaging with paying customers.

I felt the other part of your post was more to argue with other people, I felt it wasn't my business.

I don't own loopy pro but I am aware of their "success story". This is indeed probably a very good way to do, I am just saying this is not the only one (and competitive advantage is not the only reason).

Another example is the U He or Avenger thread in KVR. You can agree with me that the software creators interacting here are very often insulted and their work diminished. I clearly understand why they don't want to expose themself too much (and we are talking of 2 extremely popular companies).

Just look at your interactions with the previous persons. We can clearly see that KVR is a very violent place where people get very easily insulted. That's fine for us because we have no stake here. Said differently, I can get insulted, I don't give a s....., I even find it funny.
But for people who are getting insulted for their day job, the one they are putting all their energy in a daily basis, I guess this kind of distance is difficult to get... and I understand why they don't come here often or at all.
And paying a community manager is expansive, while yould I pay this salary in my licence ? I don't want to.

[nowiamone]

And paying a community manager is expansive, while yould I pay this salary in my licence ? I don't want to.

This is fascinating, because now we made a full circle, coming back to what individual users want.
All i m saying is: i love that we, the users, are able to engage in mostly constructive, positive discussion about what we want - and that it would be awesome if Bitwig itself would be part of that discussion, do moderation, polls/surveys, etc. I think it would be awesome, fruitful, good.
I see the positive side of things and don't focus on the trolls/ "bad apples". Ignore the trolls, is a wise saying, also applicable here. Oh, btw i didnt even encounter one here yet. Although discussions can get heated, i have yet to encounter anyone who was just a "troll", in the unconstructive sense. Everyone here has been constructive (enough), in my experience.

[Jac459]

And paying a community manager is expansive, while yould I pay this salary in my licence ? I don't want to.

This is fascinating, because now we made a full circle, coming back to what individual users want.
All i m saying is: i love that we, the users, are able to engage in mostly constructive, positive discussion about what we want - and that it would be awesome if Bitwig itself would be part of that discussion, do moderation, polls/surveys, etc. I think it would be awesome, fruitful, good.
I see the positive side of things and don't focus on the trolls/ "bad apples". Ignore the trolls, is a wise saying, also applicable here.

I am happy if you feel fascinated by the full circle of the discussion.

But to talk about much smaller circle, the whole point of my previous post was to say that while for us, "simple user", it is easy to ignore trolls, it is in fact much much more difficult for software developers.

And your answer is : yeah... just ignore the trolls...





I am not impressed by your demonstration...

[nowiamone]

Not sure why you think that software developers have a harder time ignoring trolls?
When we define troll as someone who clearly passes the line of community guidelines, not being constructive at all, then software developers even have a MUCH easier time ignoring trolls, as they have moderation-powers over the forum and can simply ban him/her. Literally ignoring the troll then.

[Jac459]

Not sure why you think that software developers have a harder time ignoring trolls?
When we define troll as someone who clearly passes the line of community guidelines, not being constructive at all, then software developers even have a MUCH easier time ignoring trolls, as they have moderation-powers over the forum and can simply ban him/her. Literally ignoring the troll then.

Well, it is simple human psychology... Dunno if you have kids but try this simple experiment: if somebody push you inadvertently in the street you'll probably don't mind. If the same person push your kid, you'll probably be much much more pissed.

So it is not only about what is done. It is about how it is directed.

If you (or me) get insulted here, it is based on nothing that is known about us. So if we are normal grown up persons, we shouldn't give a shit at all, nothing to brag about.

If on the contrary, as a developer, you have put all your energy on something, created a product that is your brainchild and get insulted about it, it is totally different circumstances.
I hope you can agree on that.

[nowiamone]

Oh yea, i can agree on that.
But that’s just a normal factor of our human life, that we get "triggered" more when it comes to our own brainchilds.
It's good you bring that example up!
It would be a pity to just go into isolation mode because we are so passionate about something!
Psychologically, It's absolutely understandable to go into isolation mode, but long-term, this also deprives of the beautiful engagements one can have in life. If we would never go outside anymore, we would reduce the chance to get hurt by people we don't like - but we also wouldn't experience the joy of sharing our passion with people equally passionate (=majority of the users)!.

But i m very aware of the negative-bias of our brains, it's always the same for any region of life. For example if you make youtube videos, you can have 99 positive comments, but get hung up on the ONE negative one. But that's something we (users and developers and everyone) have to deal with and overcome in the sense that we still participate happily in life, with the ability to stay open /in sharing mode, not isolation mode.

[Jac459]

Oh yea, i can agree on that.
But that’s just a normal factor of our human life, that we get "triggered" more when it comes to our own brainchilds.
It's good you bring that example up!
It would be a pity to just go into isolation mode because we are so passionate about something!
Psychologically, It's absolutely understandable to go into isolation mode, but long-term, this also deprives of the beautiful engagements one can have in life. If we would never go outside anymore, we would reduce the chance to get hurt by people we don't like - but we also wouldn't experience the joy of sharing our passion with people equally passionate (=majority of the users)!.

But i m very aware of the negative-bias of our brains, it's always the same for any region of life. For example if you make youtube videos, you can have 99 positive comments, but get hung up on the ONE negative one. But that's something we (users and developers and everyone) have to deal with and overcome in the sense that we still participate happily in life, with the ability to stay open /in sharing mode, not isolation mode.

Well, I 100% agree on every single word of that... Well said.

[billcarroll]

Someone linked to or revived an older thread the other day which included some responses from one of the Bitwig devs, so it hasn't always been like this. Good old times, though they probably had good reasons to step away from directly interacting with people, it's probably not great for mental health, and to be fair the entitled attitude that some people display around feature requests and roadmap transparency validates that decision.

This forum isn't worth moderating and unfortunately a few bad apples here simply stink up the forum and aren't worth interacting with.

“Never play chess with a pigeon.
The pigeon just knocks all the pieces over.
Then shits all over the board.
Then struts around like it won.”

No reason for Bitwig to interact here.

Dear Dionysos and Billcarroll:
It's incredibly fascinating to read your opinions on Bitwigs NON-communication with its userbase.
As defenders of NON-communication, you can certainly answer the following questions:

1 do you know what a community manager is? A community managers whole purpose is being able to EASILY deal with any kind of online-situation, especially in small-scale forums. I hope you know that such a jobprofile exists: "Managers of a community are required to know how to derive meaningful conversations and also collect actionable insights for the brand." "Excellent communication skills. Organizational and project management skills. Interpersonal skills. Analytical ability. Market research skills. Domain knowledge. Adaptability. Engagement skills."

2 You talk about SOME people who have an "entitled attitude", and a FEW "bad apples" who "stink up the forum and aren't worth interacting with." I hope you agree with me that the majority of forum users here are actually good people?
So if you agree on 1 and 2, there's no reason to NOT communicate. Why should the good, kind, and constructively arguing majority be completely abandoned? A skilled community manager would be able to deal with unfruitful community members, and engage in highly fruitful/meaningful/purposeful interaction with the majority of the community.

3 Do you really think that an absolute lack of roadmap transparency is a good thing? To the extent that you don't even know IF a feature request which got sent in via email by many people since several years (Gridlines behind clips in arrangement view, piano roll issues, etc) will ever be CONSIDERED to be implemented, or will not be implemented within the next 5 years? Or would a clear "no" or "not within the next 5 years" not be fair to hear for paying customers, in order to make a based decision to look for another software?

Bitwig is under no obligation to communicate with anyone here in this forum. I applaud Bitwig for not participating in this toxic environment.

Go make some make music.

[nowiamone]

Yea, no obligation. Would be a nice thing nevertheless. Communication is key in any relationship. Ghosting doesn't do anything.
"Toxic environment" i disagree.
Soon will make music again, thanks.

[pdxindy]

Yea, no obligation. Would be a nice thing nevertheless. Communication is key in any relationship. Ghosting doesn't do anything.

It's not a relationship...

[nowiamone]

The relationship has many layers:
It's interpersonal,
from devs to community,
from company to customers,
from passionate musicmakers who happen to also program one of the best DAWs on this planet to passionate musikmakers who use that DAW...