@Kehaulani
It’s interesting that you bring this up. The 800 pound gorilla is now in the room. Trumpet Board started in response to the untimely death of Trumpet Master. Trumpet Master, like Trumpet Herald, had many members who were consummate professionals or semiprofessionals. It also had many members like myself who are comeback players and hobbyists that enjoy playing but never will play at a professional level, but enjoyed the camaraderie that Trumpet Master offered. Trumpet Master was a much friendlier atmosphere then Trumpet Herald and much less contentious. Trumpet Master had a lounge section where less serious issues and non-trumpet issues could be discussed among people who had similar interests. This included humor and many other subjects. This was not available on trumpet Herald.
I think with the collapse of Trumpet Master those of us that felt too intimidated to post on Trumpet Herald migrated to Trumpet Boards for participation when the opportunity arose. If the opportunity didn’t arise many of us would still be on Trumpet Herald, as I am now, but would primarily be lurking and not participating in the discussions. Frankly, there is little that I as a three and three-quarter year come back player could add to any discussion on the serious nature about trumpet playing. I think that they were many other people like myself that also lurk on Trumpet Herald. So the question is why is there so much more discussion on Trumpet Herald about serious trumpet matters then there is on Trumpet Boards? The answer I think is based on the numbers of registrants and participants. To my understanding, Trumpet Herald has literally tens of thousands of registrants. It is common to see the same names over and over participating in the discussions. If only 1% of every 20,000 registrants regularly participated in the serious discussions there would be 200 names you would see on a regular basis and a few other rare participants scattered in with them. I would contend that this is what you see, the same core group of discussants over snd over again.
Consider that Trumpet Boards is only six months old, not decades old. We have 208 members. Of those 208, 88 (42.3%) have never posted. Another 53 (27%) have posted 1-10 times, 28 (13%) posted 11-20 times, 5 (2.4%) posted 31-40 times, snd 9 (4.3%) posted 41-50times. 26 (12.5%) of us have posted 51-575 times If you look at these figures, including the 88 members who haven't posted, 182 (86.5%)of the 208 members have been inactive or minimally active. That means that for the most part 26 of us, most of whom are hobbyists with similar interests have been having nice relatively non contentious conversations in the lounge. There are a few professional players and technicians among the group and they have been very generous with their time and knowledge. The majority of the time they agree, thus limiting discussion and debate. However, until our young group grows, which it will eventually will, the posts will be dominated by the vast majority of us who like to hang out with people of similar interests, but are not knowledgeable enough to discuss the technicalities of trumpet playing at a high level. Growth will come with time and the distribution of discussion topics will change, but it will probably take a few years to do so. Can we effectively speed this process up? I don’t think so. What could we do to possibly speed this up? We could send invitations to respected teachers at the University level, their students, well respected professionals and private teachers to join, but I doubt that many will have the time or desire to participate. Perhaps however, it would be worth a try.
For what it is worth, that is my two cents.