I felt it valuable to share this with other members on this board. Recently a co-worker approached me saying her nephew had just taken up the whistle and did i have any information on it that would be of use to him. Now im not a regular poster here but i do read the odd review to see whats new in the world of whistles or to trade them etc. I must say that its been a little while since ive sat down and just read threads. Anyhow I recommended the whistle board to her in an instant and she said she would pass it on to him. I asked her today if he ever had any luck with the board and to summarize this is what i was told. “Being only 11 years old his mum kind of checks the sites,chatrooms and msg boards that he goes to. After reading through the threads his mum determined that she didnt really want him getting involved in some of the banter that goes on and the swearing (ex words disguised like:f…ing etc i mean come on kids arent dumb, might as well just say the word.) was not acceptable to her as a parent”. Needless to say she would not let him get involved.
Definately something to think about.
Well, also for what it’s worth, this board isn’t really aimed towards young children. I think the youngest people who really come here on a regular basis are high school-aged at which point they’re more than aware of the fact that words like f— exist, and I guarantee you that 11 year old already does too, whether or not his mother wants to believe he’s still completely innocent or not. But then, parents are weird. Heck, I’m 19 and my dad was mystified last summer that I knew what a fetish was. Claimed I “wasn’t even supposed to know that word.” Go figure…
I do support her descision to keep her son off this board if she wants to, and in fact it does my heart well to know that there are still some parents out there who are actually parents instead of asking the media to raise their children for them.
In the same vein, I also firmly believe that it is not the media’s (or chiff and fipple’s) duty to raise anybody’s child for them.
Whether this board is appropriate for children or not, there is really no reason to use profanity. There are plenty of words in the English language to express oneself without resorting to gutter language.
Maybe the mom would let the lad use GC. That site has always seemed squeaky clean to me, but of course I don’t go out of my way to look for f____ words and such, so maybe they’re there and I just don’t notice them.
Ridseard, I’ve missed you; and here we have
a whistling mathematician, too!
GC recently got polluted.
Cran, drop it. Seriously.
Well here’s a theory. He didn’t mind that you knew what a fetish is. He just didn’t want you to go around talking about them. 
What’s wrong with talking about fetishes? I have one on my Native American Flute…it’s a rather nice turtle, actually.
When I get the NAF out for a twootle, I find that once friends have finished talking about the wonderful tone of the instrument, they all wanna talk about the fetish… Go figure… 
And these friends include your dad Gary? Very interesting. 
I’m not the one who’s polluting GC right now. I’m not the person you should be asking to stop it. I haven’t ran up GaelicCrossings with a bunch of ******(fill in the blank) posts, with all due respect.
Fine, Cran. Do whatever you want.
I don’t think he’d object, but though he’s always been a keen fan of 'The Duke’s" movies, I don’t think he’d know a NAF if he saw one, and wouldn’t know about the fetish and its function/significance.
Without the fetish, the NAF is a bit like a whistle without a fipple…it just don’t work.
Main Entry: fe·tish
Variant(s): also fe·tich /'fe-tish also 'fE-/
Function: noun
Etymology: French & Portuguese; French fétiche, from Portuguese feitiço, from feitiço artificial, false, from Latin facticius factitious
Date: 1613
1 a : an object (as a small stone carving of an animal) believed to have magical power to protect or aid its owner; broadly : a material object regarded with superstitious or extravagant trust or reverence b : an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion.
Do whatever I want? I’m not doing anything at GC. I haven’t even posted there in months. I just read.
I’ve noticed very little on this board that would pass for PG-13. Most of it is G or PG. If a kid is allowed to watch network television between 8 and 9 p.m., they’ve seen and heard worse language and innuendo than what I’ve seen on this board. I’d have no problem with my 14 year old reading and posting to this board.
That being said, I do think most of the O.T. discussions here are intellectually over the head of the average 11 year old. We’re nearly all adults and we post for each other as such. I’m not sure I’d want the board scaled back to a level acceptable for 11 year olds.
As far as swearing goes, I really haven’t seen that here, either. Maybe I’m oblivious to it from 20 years in the printing industry. I post to a couple of other boards that have swear-bots, and I think having the 'bot only encourages people to swear. Then once you decipher the code, it’s just as offensive as if they didn’t have the 'bot. It is kind of funny when the 'bot does something unintentional, though. Like whenever someone types “association” on one of the boards, it comes out “friendociation”. The other board puts in the names of famous poets in place of certain words. While some might consider drawing these parallels complimentary, you definitely don’t want to be called a Carroll, Coleridge, Emerson or Nash over there!
I agree it is nice to see a parent actually involved with a childs well being but i just never thought we would poss need to rate the board like an adult movie. Maybe i just remember back in the good old days when it was more of a family atmosphere in more way than one. Who expects to come here and read about religion, abortion sexual preferences etc.
Can i suggest a seperate board on this site “ADULT OT COMMUNITY” (or whatever those in power wish to call it) on which all sorts of issues can be posted and debated, issues that have nothing to do with whistles. I mean this seriously, looks to me like an obvious step.
p.s im not saying i want this board censored to the hilt either but lets label things as they are so those interested in whistle can read about just that.
I wasn’t talking about GC Cran.
Forget I said anything.
Telling Cran to forget you said something is like saying the sun doesn’t rise in the morning! 
~Larry
Now if you label a board ADULT, guess where the underage kids are going to be headed first.
There is almost nothing on this board that would be likely to offend that even a protected teenager wouldn’t already know about, whether topics or vocabulary. The only things I can think of that might shock or surprise a teenager are coded to the point where most of the adults here don’t pick them up. And no, I’m not going to give you examples.
Just curious how many folks have looked over their teens’ shoulders and read some of the blogs posted by their buddies. And these are relatively squeaky clean band kids. Or the little 11-12 year old punkaloids I carpool to my youngest’s school once a week…trust me that these guys know the words, and only the most protected don’t hear them in every dvd they rent. Still and all…I’d be bored here if I were 11, but he could still pose questions and get respectful answers I would think.