Martin Milner wrote:
Hmmm. I honestly believe it's the seasoned posters who are contributing to the ratio of OT posts.
Just how much can you say about a bit of pipe with six holes?
After people have got over the "Wow, isn't whistling fun?" stage and the
"What other makes are there" stage and the
"How do I do a roll/cut/cran etc" stage, it's only natural that they move on to the
"So, er, what's the weather like in Winsconsin" stage, followed by the
"Fancy meeting up for a session somewhere?" stage, and eventually the
"Is MurphyStout really Sideshow Bob in disguise?" stage.
There's always room for musical discussion, and whistle discussion. Granted, once you get past all of the technical questions, there's not a lot to discuss about them beyond "listen, practice, refine". Though there's certainly technical discussions that can occur about specific tunes (which does still happen)...for instance, I have discovered that I can play the D part of Farewell to Ireland a lot easier if I leave the bottom holes closed when hitting the C# and 1st octave B's in the first 3 measures. I haven't mentioned it, because, well, who here would care enough to keep it on the front page for more than a day? It has nothing to do with cats, politics, or anything like that, after all. It may just
seem like that there's not much to talk about to those folks who aren't really playing the whistle much any more...case in point:
Martin Milner wrote:I touch my whistles so rarely they are dusty.
Beyond technique, there's still whistle news to discuss, and that news generally gets out of date fast in this place...SBZE whistles (newish from japan, i think) were posted recently, and rolled off the first page in something like 24 hours. If you didn't religiously and daily check the board, you'd have never heard about them at all. There's news about new bands, things happening with record labels (such as the problems with Green Linnet), new whistles, etc. Makers change their designs, take on apprentices, stop taking orders, etc.
Granted, a topical whistle board wouldn't be nearly as prolific as this place. I, for one, don't judge the quality of a thing by the quantity of that thing. And for me, this forum jumped the shark a while back, when post counts became an item of more importance and got more feedback than topical posts about whistle news or things of real import like someone going to a session for the first time and giving their impressions.
Given that it seems like a great many of the off-topic posters primarily don't play whistle any more, or hardly play at all, I'm unsure what the objection is from that quarter to having a whistle board spun off....
(edited to note that I posted before I noticed Coloman saying much the same thing I said, only better)
"It might be a bit better to tune to one of my fiddle's open strings, like A, rather than asking me for an F#." - Martin Milner
And I have been less active here lately, although in my case it's due to personal, real-life stuff: The arrival of our second child means I have much less time to play music, and with music not being as central in my life as it used to be, I consequently have less reason to frequent the board intensively.
:roll: 
Thanks for your concern