Just about every week on this forum the same questions are asked and the long time members here like I most likely tend to get annoyed with it. Most the time, we don't reply anymore. There is a search button to this website that I suggest you use first and read through many of the posts before posting your question as chances are it has already been discussed. Some of the common topics are:

"What brand is good?"
"Is my flute brand any good?"
"I have a problem with my flute."
"B foot verses C foot."
"Open hole verses closed hole"

There are more that I am sure I am not thinking of at this moment. If you think of any more please post them. This will help new comers and some of us regulars on here.

How about these "golden oldies":

"Is this XYZ flute (or piccolo) on eBay for $99 OK?"
"I like red/purple/black/blue/green/pink flutes. Which is your favorite?"
"Silver plated, solid sterling silver, or gold?"
"My flute won't play. What do I do?"
"My flute key is sticking. What do I do?"
"How do I clean my flute?"
"Is it OK if I use silver polish on my flute?"
"If I get a new XYZ flute, will I make first chair?"
"Can somebody email me a copy of the music for _________?"

How about "Why does my tone sound weird?" and "My hands/back/arms/legs/toes hurt after playing, what am I doing wrong?"

The answer to these and many many other questions relating to the specifics of your playing is GET A TEACHER. Strangers on the internet have no idea how you play and can't really help you in that regard.

I'm afraid that if we leave all these subjects out, just because they have been discussed before, we might end up with very little left. Also, new members may be interested in giving their own opinions, no matter the subject could have been discussed in deep before the new question was posted.

But it is true that performing a good search is useful, even to help a newcomer in formulating the right question.

But the search function here is not the best in the world, unfortunately. The few times I have tried to find any old post it almost always failed to produce the proper results.

<Added>

And teachers do not and cannot solve most of these questions. Wish they could, but it is not the case

Suzie wrote: "Case and point."

I believe that should be: "Case in point."

Suzie's comment about the "sticky notes" is exactly the way that at least one other flute forum helps to reduce repetitive message threads. On that forum, I usually respond to the repetitive questions by posting a link to the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and asking them to see if the FAQ will answer their question.

http://www.fluteland.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=2411

This FAQ, which several forum members contributed to, answers most of these repetitive questions. When their question requires more specific details than provided in the FAQ, then additional followup responses can be provided by the participants.

In the four and half years I have been following and posting at this site, I have only seen one significant improvement: the voting system. And this happened only after the site was brought very close to supernova-ing by continued and sophisticated troller attacks.

Not that we had not suggested several other various improvements, we did indeed, but the site is quite static and in general any suggestions or requests for changes are not taken into account.

So I am convinced by now that this is what we have and most probably we will have in the future. So that we must live with it; IMO not so bad after all:

Personally, I do not like sticky notes, not even FAQ sections. I find them to be too much dissuasive and they represent a sort of superior level that dictates how things should be made, what is allowed and what is not.

It is not the style of this Forum, with almost complete freedom to express opinions and questions -and to refrain from answering- if anyone considers it superfluous or not interesting enough.

jose_luis: I totally agree with you

I know that we have lost many knowledgeable long time posters simple due to what I have addressed. If you would like to continue on losing more and more and that doesn't bother you, then more power to you. BUT, it bothers me, so I don't see anything wrong with posting what I did in hopes to only help. I am going to keep on bumping it to the top so it acts like a sticky note.

And Musicman, I have visited that site before and think their system is a great idea.
Suzie, maybe the world IS becoming too lazy. You know who the biggest percentage is though. I would like and hope to think that our generation was a little less lazy and more savvy. :O

I know that we have lost many knowledgeable long time posters simple due to what I have addressed. If you would like to continue on losing more and more and that doesn't bother you, then more power to you. BUT, it bothers me, so I don't see anything wrong with posting what I did in hopes to only help.

Kate, I do not know if you are referring to my post. Just in case it is so,

Losing valuable members -but, are there members of different categories here?- due to repeated subjects or for any other reason does bother me also. We may not agree on the possible solutions to this problem, however.

But I do not understand the "more power to you" expression, maybe my limited English at fault. If I take it literally, I must say that I have no power here and I am not asking for any more.

I could assume you took my replies as statements that your first post was wrong and this was not so. I did not say such a thing and I was only expressing my personal opinion, the same you did with your initial post.

If I could make a final reflection, I suspect that some old posters are no longer active or have left for the simple reason that since long, there have been very few interesting subjects being floated. Not even repetitive subjects. Just close to nothing.

Coming a little late to the discussion. I fully understrand that it can be slightly disturbing to see a lot of repetitive questions on the forum. However, this would hardly be a problem if there was a lot of other interesting posts to contribute in instead. Different posts will always be intersting to different people. A topic might seem repetitive, but might include a different angle or get a different discussion going because new people are contributing.

To sum up, I think that a part of the solution is posting more, not posting less. There is no need to read topics that are uninteresting for us, but we cannot really be sure that there is no value at all for anyone in a post, repetetive or not. According to me there should be a wide variety of topics discussed so that different categories of flutists can find something thet enjoy.