Separating MD & HD Beginners Forum

[Dan Landrum]

I'd like to know what you all think about having a separate discussion beginners area for HD and MD.

I think I'd just close the old one to anything other than replies (no new topics, but you can still reply, search, etc.) and create two new areas. Thoughts?

[folkfan]

sounds like a good idea

[forums]

ditto.
could save some of us time who don't have a lot.
in the beginner's forum and jam session the topic titles don't reflect the topic itself more often than not.
by splitting the beginner's forum, we can zero in on the instrument that we can help most with.
(can't do much with the jam session, which ends up being about MD topics more often than not.)
might as well start where you can make a difference.

[KenH]

If it takes more than 20 minutes Dan, I wouldn't bother. Over the years we've never gotten very many Beginner HD player queries, and IMHO it's not worth the effort, except for the political aspect of making HD players feel more welcome. Same thing in the Making forum - not many queries from HD makers.

[kwl]

Sounds good to me. I live in both worlds. While I primarily play and build MDs, I have built four HDs and occasionally play one. At this point I have no plans to build another HD, but if one of my relatives requests one, I may tackle another one.

[daffytaffydulcimer]

Edited post

[mrchips]

I feel seperating them would probally be more useful for the new people. It usally dont take long to figgure out which "dulcimer" the question is about with a read asuming you know the difference to start with. Many dont.

It could be helpful for insterment speciffic things like double melody strings.. For things that are not insterment speciffic such what notes are in a given key It dosent really matter if the 2 are together as thes are more a music speciffic question that is the same on any insterment.

Dosent matter to me at all if theyre seperated or not.

[Dan Landrum]

Thanks for the responses. I should have stated in my original post that the purpose is to help newbies. That's what the beginners forum is about and the majority of new folks joining here on a daily basis are new players. Remember how exciting it was when you discovered that you too can play an instrument!?!

IMHO the demographics of who plays, and is starting to play, dulcimers (HD and MD) hasn't changed much over the years. The average person is, however, at least a little bit web savvy these days, and one of the first things they do when they get bitten by the dulcimer bug is put the word dulcimer in google. More times than not they end up here, and the people here make this a good and friendly place to be.

(Ken, it only takes a couple of minutes.)

(Lisa, I'll make it clear that there is a legacy forum full of great information. I'm pretty sure I can easily make it a permalink at the top of the new sub forums.)

Anyone have any other thoughts about how we can help new players along?

[KenH]

Dan - spell out "Mountain Dulcimer" and "Hammered Dulcimer" when you create the titles. Many newcomers don't realize there are two kinds of dulcimer.

[AutumnStrings]

I think it's a great idea because there aren't that many newer HD questions. This would allow the experienced players to see when there was a question pertaining to their instrument.

[Dan Landrum]

Ken, certainly. I'll spell them out.

[SingingChef]

Relative newbie HD player chiming in here (since July)--I would have LOVED to have had a separate place to look for HD-specific questions when I first started. Yes, I knew the difference between an HD and an MD at that point, but you have to go through 15-20 MD-related posts in the "beginners" area to find one about HD...got kind of frustrating and I gave up on that thread...

I don't mind it so much on the main forum, but when you are first starting out, sometimes you don't even KNOW what it is you need to ask! And when some of the more experienced players can see that there have been posts/questions by new HD people, it will quickly become the "go to" thread for those just starting out to be able to get specific question answered relative to their instrument...