Chip and Fiffle

[Greenfire]

"It's worth noting here that there's a popular tin whistle forum called Chip and Fiffle - so now you know how it got its name."

I'm not entirely certain I want fiffles with my chips though.

[fatmac]

Did I miss something?

It isn't April 1st......

[ecadre]

Oh dear, how embarrassing.


Edited to add:
For anyone wondering where this is: https://www.oaim.ie/tin-whistle/learn-tin-whistle/

[Nanohedron]

Apart from them apparently having no expert oversight in the editorial department, it's a pretty nice website.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EDIT: I just had another look and started laughing out loud. Well, it was more of a long snickery chuckle, but you get the idea.

[Katharine]

"It's worth noting here that there's a popular tin whistle forum called Chip and Fiffle - so now you know how it got its name."

I'm not entirely certain I want fiffles with my chips though.

Now look, you've never had that moment when you're fiffling away and think, "Gee, I'm feeling a bit peckish, but I don't really want to stop and run out to get something..." Clearly someone has come up with a one-stop-shopping solution to this problem... and apparently they have a website!

[Nanohedron]

Sort of gives one's confidence in them a kick in the shins, doesn't it.

[stiofan]

Oh my... As a former copy editor, I have to say this makes me cringe more than just a wee bit. I can't begin to imagine who could have made such a mess of things.

I've been using OAIM for flute instruction over the past several months and have found the site very user-friendly and professionally designed, so this seems to be an anomaly.

Anyone like to volunteer to inform the OAIM webmaster?

[pancelticpiper]

I wonder if they have a section about the Uilleann fifes.

[Nanohedron]

... this seems to be an anomaly.

I would certainly hope so.

I've been using OAIM for flute instruction over the past several months ... Anyone like to volunteer to inform the OAIM webmaster?

I'd say you just volunteered yourself.

I wonder if they have a section about the Uilleann fifes.

I think an overall website inspection is called for. It's impossible to tell whether this was a prank or someone's ignorance slipping through the cracks, but either way this sort of thing does them no good, and if there's one instance, there might be others. Not to steal their thunder, but for Pete's sake, even with the bad whistle anatomy overview's correct spellings right in front of them, they still couldn't get our name right.

[busterbill]

HaHa. I bet we all have at least one spell check horror story, though few of us will ever be so public. When my kids were in school I had them learn the fresh eyes proofreading method. Proof you paper yourself, then get someone else to read it. Mom, Dad, brother, sister, friend, whomever happened to be handy. I am not sure if anyone got through a whole paper without one widow=window type typo spell check ignored, often caught on that second read.

Now with autocorrect on my phone I find myself sending some hilariously incomprehensible sentences in otherwise coherent messages.

[Nanohedron]

HaHa. I bet we all have at least one spell check horror story, though few of us will ever be so public. When my kids were in school I had them learn the fresh eyes proofreading method. Proof you paper yourself, then get someone else to read it. Mom, Dad, brother, sister, friend, whomever happened to be handy. I am not sure if anyone got through a whole paper without one widow=window type typo spell check ignored, often caught on that second read.

Now with autocorrect on my phone I find myself sending some hilariously incomprehensible sentences in otherwise coherent messages.

Yeah, but this isn't a matter of mere typos and Spellcheck comedies; it's dead-wrong information. Well, in all fairness, they got the fipple right, but still: it's not the sort of thing you want on a legitimate tutorial website.

It occurs to me that the writer might even have gotten the word "chiff" first from this very board. I mean, ask yourself: Where else does anybody other than pipe organ makers ever talk about chiff? Sessions? C'mon. Then the writer has the nerve to say as if in afterthought, "Oh, BTW, there's this whistle site called ...". All very sidewise.

Someone's due for a spanking.

[ecadre]

... this seems to be an anomaly.

I would certainly hope so.

I've been using OAIM for flute instruction over the past several months ... Anyone like to volunteer to inform the OAIM webmaster?

I'd say you just volunteered yourself.

I wonder if they have a section about the Uilleann fifes.

I think an overall website inspection is called for. It's impossible to tell whether this was a prank or someone's ignorance slipping through the cracks, but either way this sort of thing does them no good, and if there's one instance, there might be others. Not to steal their thunder, but for Pete's sake, even with the bad whistle anatomy overview's correct spellings right in front of them, they still couldn't get our name right.

"Chip and Fiffle" is a funny typo, the "whistle anatomy" is the greater embarrassment.

[bigsciota]

I can all but guarantee that they outsourced this to someone who has little to no familiarity with Irish music and may very well not be a native English speaker. The rise of freelancing sites like UpWork.com and content mills like Constant Content has led to a race to the bottom when it comes to bidding, and you can contract someone to write something for you for as little as 1 cent a word. The people you're getting to do that spend very little time on any given word, making up for the low pay with high volume. They're also often from low cost-of-living countries where $5 or $10 is a lot more money than to an Irish copywriter, which is great except in situations where specialist knowledge is needed and may not be as easily found outside of a particular culture.

The upshot of all that is that unless you're very precise with your specifications and expectations, you get a blog post like this, which is a mix of reworded Wikipedia and barely comprehensible phrases. That's not to say that there aren't plenty of really good copywriters out there it's just that you generally need to pay decent money to get them. Even the ones in low cost-of-living places know to charge more if they do high quality work, so if you're paying 1 cent a word, well, you get what you pay for.

I've sent an email; I don't do a ton of copywriting, but I could definitely do better than this if they needed someone!

[Steve Bliven]

Has there been any serious thought given to changing the name of this forum to comport with OAIM?

Best wushes.

Steve

[Nanohedron]

Has there been any serious thought given to changing the name of this forum to comport with OAIM?

Best wushes.

Steve

What, we haven't caused enough confusion already?