OFFICIAL POLL: SEPARATE OFF-TOPIC FORUM?

[glauber]

IMHO, this would only work if the moderators would move OT threads to the new forum.

[Paul]

Right now it's kind like a bunch of ongoing conversations between friends with the common interest being whistles. I like it the way it is.

Best,
Paul

[jsluder]

It seems like it would be worth a try, at least.

Some forum sites call their OT forum the "Pub". That seems especially fitting for a site like this. You might even be able to find an artistic C&F member who'd be willing to draw a "Chiff & Fipple Pub" sign to hang at the top of the OT forum.

Cheers,
John

[lyrick]

I'm with the separate OT forum idea. The whistle forum would become a lot thinner, but by being more focused I think it would encourage more sharing about playing the whistle and the music, which is what I come here for. Heck, we might even become better whistle players.

I sympathize with the people who want a community to be part of and the fact that these OT threads build community, but how about a focused whistle/irish traditional music community for those who want that, and an OT forum for people who want a more complete community to share in? An experiment would be worth a try, me thinks.

I'm in almost complete isolation as far as knowing other people who play the whistle and love the music, so that's the need this forum fills for me, and it does a great job of it (thank you all, and thank you moderators). But I've got a large community of friends I'm a part of who I can communicate with about all the OT things, so I don't really need all the OT stuff. I think some people are isolated, though, and need the OT part of this community, which is great. Is it selfish for those of us who don't need that to want a more focused whistle forum? Maybe.

[Teri-K]

I have to agree with Bloo. The whistle advice threads don’t tend to be multi-paged, unless a debate begins over inexpensive v. expensive They also are becoming less in number compared to OT threads. A separate forum for whistles, just as we have for flute, pipes and ITM makes more sense.

Loren had a good point about the more seasoned players not wanting to wade through the OT to offer advice to beginners. Questions tend to roll off the main page quickly and I can understand not wanting to scroll through 2, 3, or 4 pages to find on-topic posts. Plus, most of the seasoned players are involved with other instruments—those that take up more of their time and interest compared to whistles. A check of the whistle forum would allow people to address questions more quickly and would probably cut down the redundancy. As Loren mentioned, the search function isn’t always helpful for a newbie so we get the same questions over, and over, and over… That in itself can wear on those wanting to help.

Admittedly, I left the board for about a year and a half because of all the OT. Realistically, there is just so much you can discuss about whistles in one forum and not everyone is striving to be the next Micho. There are a number of members who view whistles and the music as just an entertaining hobby.

[Jerry Freeman]

If you're going to try a separate OT forum, I would recommend that you provide a link to it at the top of the whistle forum so it would be just one click away to check on what OT things are being discussed.

Similarly, a link to the whistle forum should be at the top of the OT forum so people can easily browse back and forth between the two. There should probably be links to the pipes, flute and ITM forums at the top of the OT forum and vice versa, also.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[The Weekenders]

I'm on the OSX Website Forums and they have a "Lounge" that is a complete separate Forum. But because I am basically a visitor (less conversant in OSX lore than whistles), I never check in there because I feel out of place. If it discourages newcomers from being part of the mix, I am against it. Some of the goodwill here arises from the mix of complete newcomers and old-timers, not segregated by a Forum. On the other Forum, I don't know when I will ever feel comfortable enough with those characters to join in the Lounge.

As for a separate instrument thing, face it, there is SO much more you can discuss with flutes and pipes and excuse me for pointing it out. I think this Forum has evolved the way it has, because of that fact.

As for what seemed like a jab, about wanting to talk more than actually play, I would offer the opposite. I still play and practice as hard as ever, but I often come here for fellowship, not pointers. There oughta be room for both.

I do feel that the Polit. thread, when adhered to, is the solution and I say leave it.

One compromise would be a thread(s) similar to the Political, a Miscellany thread for things like rats, teenage kids, favorite movie star to hate, other pop culture stuff etc etc. Something like Everyday Things, or another for ShowBiz or something like that. I know this is half-baked but someone else can refine the idea, as I am at "work."

[mvhplank]

What about threads that get "hijacked"?

As often happens, someone announces he (or she) got a cool whistle from @$#$@ovia and it plays pretty well for a cheap, non-tunable whistle.

Then, pretty soon someone else will come along and say that in @$#$@ovia all whistles are made by enslaved marmosets undergoing force-feeding of endangered beetles and how can they support such a society.

It seems to me that an off-topic forum is a grand experiment, like Prohibition, with a limited shelf life and about as easily enforced.

I'll watch with interest

M

[peteinmn]

Dale,

I have mixed feelings about this. While many of the OT exchanges are funny and intelligent, they seem to be slowly taking over the board. Most days, I would just rather quickly scan the board for "on topic" subjects rather than have to wade through a lot of other stuff. I think it would be worth a trial run. If it doesn't work out, you can always go back to the present format.

[avanutria]

I dunno...the seperate forum idea has its merits but we just got a new forum, the City Guide; not TOO long before that was the IRTrad forum. Especially now that I am on dialup, I am finding that the more places I have to go to see what's been posted, the less likely I am to go there. I far prefer being able to see everything that's new on one page. If there's a whistle board, and an OT board, and an Irtrad board, and a city guide board, and possibly even a marketplace...well, I'd probably just spend more time offline doing homework.

Seriously, though, I'd probably choose not to visit a lot of those boards, and checking the whistle-only board to see if anyone has a question about doing rolls on A or on the latest iteration of Sweetheart whistles would not rate high on my list.

Perhaps we could identify some of the main OT topics that come up, similar to the political/religious thread, and start new sticky threads as someone suggested already. Additionally, the moderators could take new threads and move them to the relevent sticky thread, when appropriate, notifying the author of the new address.

I dunno. I would not object to a new forum once it existed, but I feel that it would further fragment the community, and a lot of people would not visit both boards. How much traffic would the new whistle board get? How much of that traffic would be those 'knowledgeable old-timers' who are not so keen on answering every newbie question anymore? Would the "Hi, I'm new!" threads still get such an enthusiastic response?

Edited to add - perhaps we could ask some of the more prolific OT posters to tone things down for a while, and let the board catch its breath. Maybe people could try to rein themselves in a bit, and before posting, think about how many other OT things they;ve posted recently, and whether or not their idea for a topic would really be of general interest or whether it is just a spur of the moment thing.

[talasiga]

Dale,

I have mixed feelings about this. While many of the OT exchanges are funny and intelligent, they seem to be slowly taking over the board. Most days, I would just rather quickly scan the board for "on topic" subjects rather than have to wade through a lot of other stuff. I think it would be worth a trial run. If it doesn't work out, you can always go back to the present format.

Dale, like everyone else, can start OTs. Thats fine. No probs there.
And indeed an OT topic that Dale started is
the most popular topic on board (albeit I do not participate in it)


However, unlike everyone else, Dale can make a topic STICKY which is what he did with the above topic. That, I think, set a subtle but pretty strong direction for OT topics. Whether or not they were prolific before I do not know, but you betcha, when there is a Moderator initiated OT that the Moderator has made into a STICKY, it will be likely to encourage more OT topics.

[Henke]

I'm just thinking that, because there are separate boards for flutes and whistles and pipes and so on, then why not an OT forum. I see no problem at all with it, if people just feel like talking about whistles you go to the whistle board, your into flutes you go to the flute board etc, same with OT. Everyone doesn't like OT posts and this is after all a whistle board. Many other big forums I've seen has had separate boards for OT posts and it has worked well.

[Random notes]

And of course there is the issue of the search function. If the "Pub" (I really like that name, BTW) were a seperate forum there would certainly be some whistle related chit-chat, but extended whistle technical discussions would be seperated and more easily searched for relevant info.

But then, any extended discussion of whistles on the Pub forum would have to be labelled "OT".

Roger

[Jack]

There's no consensus on the topic; we're pretty much split.

I agree with Jerry Freeman, though, that things are pretty good the way they are right now.

[jsluder]

There's no consensus on the topic; we're pretty much split.

I agree with Jerry Freeman, though, that things are pretty good the way they are right now.

But we NEED a Pub, where we can throw around words like "craic" and "shillelagh" and act like we're Nouveau Traditional (TM) without actually knowing anything about music or instruments.