how to make advertisements unnecessary

[Epiphyte]

a while back i visited this site for the 1st time. i was on my phone and was appalled at how disturbing and numerous the ads were. wish that i had taken a screen shot. just now i checked on my phone again and the ads are no longer disturbing, just irrelevant and still numerous.

here are a couple basic facts...

1. every group needs funding
2. every group needs to make decisions

on another forum i recently joined, the default style is white text on a black background. 1st thing i did was change the style in my settings. easy enough to do but, what if if the default style is a deal breaker for some visitors? the decision should be made with donations. all the members could make a donation (to the forum) for their preferred style. whichever style won would be made the default.

on a different forum i'm on, there's a fierce debate about whether text generated by ai should be allowed. the op included a poll that received 163 votes, 67% of which were against ai text. if the decision was made with donations, how much money would be raised?

bonsai nut has quite a few categories. the categories at the top of the page, such as "site announcements", "new to bonsai" and "general discussion" receive a lot more attention than the categories at the bottom of the page "Bonsai Society / Club Forums" and "Articles and Tutorials". what if the order of the categories was determined by donations? everybody naturally wants their favorite topics to get the most attention, so this decision has the potential to generate a lot of revenue.

the more consequential the decision, the more money that people will be willing to donate. big decisions? big donations. small decisions? small donations.

it's normal to have concerns about the correctness of decisions made by donations. when we're deciding whether to give a youtube video a thumbs up, we don't have to think that hard. it's just a vote. but when we're spending our hard earned money, it's a completely different story. we consider and compare the costs and benefits. we weigh the alternative uses of our money. figuring out the trade-offs requires a considerable amount of calculation and information. so out of all the possible ways of making group decisions, the one that uses the most brainpower is donations.

right now all the members here already decide how they divide their donations between this forum and all the other forums they're in. they essentially use their money to rank/prioritize/order all their forums. this decision is bigger than any decision that could be made regarding this specific forum.

please let me know if you have any questions.

yes, i have bonsais, all ficus, which there currently isn't a category for. how much would i be willing to donate for the creation of a ficus category? that's a really good question.

 

[pandacular]

As you may have noticed by now, the ads are MUCH less numerous for users who are logged in.

 

[19Mateo83]

You can also help support Bonsai nut by donating through the link at the bottom of the home page, just under the last ad at the bottom of the page.

 

[TomB]

yes, i have bonsais, all ficus, which there currently isn't a category for. how much would i be willing to donate for the creation of a ficus category? that's a really good question.

If you'd like to make me a donation, let me know and I'll message you my bank details

 

[Paradox]

As TomB showed you, there is a category called 'Tropicals'. Ficus posts go in there. We don't need a category for every species.

I'm sure Bonsai Nut does want to have to reorder categories based on some kind of vote. Also I'd hate it as a reader who knows the order of categories to have it change every so often.

Also as pointed out, there are less ads when you log in. They really aren't that bad and do help support the site. The ones I see are almost always related to things ive searched. You can already donate to help support the site.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I'm sure Bonsai Nut does want to have to reorder categories based on some kind of vote. Also I'd hate it as a reader who knows the order of categories to have it change every so often.

Also as pointed out, there are less ads when you log in. They really aren't that bad and do help support the site. The ones I see are almost always related to things ive searched. You can already donate to help support the site.

Customization is a two-edged sword. The more you allow people to customize their view of the site, the more likely it is that something will break, or that they will change their view in a way that makes it difficult to help if something goes wrong.

I regularly get private messages from new users who are having difficulty with basic site functionality like "how to post a response" or "how to upload a photo". It is very easy for me to help if I know what they are looking at - so I can even send screenshots with circles drawn on them "press this button", etc. Much more difficult when I don't know what they are looking at.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Regardless, heck of an entrance @Epiphyte

 

[Gabler]

I enjoy the weird ads.

What is this @bonsainut

Are we branching out into "we will keep it a secret" business now.

www.bonsainut.com

 

[leatherback]

So great to have someone join and their first pots is how the forum should be changed because they do not like it.

I see absolutely no need for changes.

 

[Gabler]

I appreciate that this was meant to be constructive, but remember Chesterton's fence:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

 

[ZombieNick]

I guess the take away is we should all be donating

Not a fan of OPs suggestions, but what are the options to setup a subscription model @Bonsai Nut? I'm a sucker, I'd pay a monthly fee to remove ads and get a glowy name or something.

 

[Epiphyte]

If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering. - Aldo Leopold

everything essentially boils down to the usefulness of things. it's tricky though because, what's very useful for someone might be completely useless for someone else. what's even trickier is that what's very useful for me today might be completely useless for me tomorrow.

prior to covid, a nursery based in ecuador called ecuagenera would bring 95% orchids and 5% aroids to sell at shows here in southern california. when covid hit, and houseplants became far more popular thanks to instagram, ecuagenera started selling more and more aroids. pretty quickly they brought 5% orchids and 95% aroids to shows. as a result of their ability to quickly adapt to the rapid change in the demand for plants, they got enough funding to buy big properties in florida and california.

imagine if ecuagenera hadn't initially offered a few aroids for sale and had only sold orchids. in this case they would have missed it when the demand started to change. i recently messaged my friend ivan, one of the bosses at ecuagenera, and suggested that he bring 5% tropical fruit to shows, just in case it starts to trend.

maybe a while back a member here, who we'll call vic, said that a category for ficus would be very useful. and perhaps he received the same kinda replies that i received. so he went on fb and looked for a group specifically for ficus bonsai. not finding one, he simply created it himself, which was the easiest and quickest thing to do, and now there are over 50,000 members, of which i am one.

x = the demand for aroids
y = the demand for a ficus bonsai group

we know x, but we don't know y. lots of people freely using something on a regular basis tells us that its useful, but it doesn't tell us how useful it is. the quantification of usefulness, in terms of personal sacrifice, is demand.

if bonsai nut used donations to prioritize categories, then we'd see the demand for all of them. would the demand be constantly changing? yeah. of course. would it be annoying if you had to use the find function to locate a category? probably, but by then you'd realize it would be far more annoying to be ignorant of the demand for it. "phew, can't believe we're finally out of the dark ages, good riddance."

bonsai nut does a lot of things, that aren't equally useful. which are the most useful things it does? right now you can only guess. and you're all fine with guessing, which is the #1 symptom of the dark ages. if correctly guessing demand was so easy then we'd all be filthy rich. the fact that we're not all filthy rich is proof that correctly guessing is really difficult and largely a matter of luck. ecuangera got lucky that they just happened to already be selling aroids. but think about all the individuals, businesses and organizations in the world that haven't been lucky. sucks to be them? yeah, but it really sucks for everyone, because that's 70% of society's limited resources that were wasted on something useless instead of being put to good use. of course i just made up that number. i'm sure it's a really big number though.

a while back a guy running for president said that the president at the time had drunk driven the economy into the ditch. "he wants the keys back? should we give him the keys back? heck no!" i'm paraphrasing. all over the world, countless drunk/blind captains run their ships into icebergs because they fail to correctly guess the demand, and how it will change. facebook has no clue that right here and now on this forum we're discussing an idea that could destroy them. we could all link facebook to this thread and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. if we did implement my suggestion, then bonsai nut would correctly and quickly adapt to changes in demand, and by then it would be too late for facebook. it would be destroyed, just like it destroyed myspace, friendster and other similar sites. by then everyone in the world would have gotten the memo... we're done with the dark ages of blind captains. the surviving organizations would clearly see changes in demand and they'd quickly adapt accordingly.

how many times in your life have you been told to make yourself useful? everybody has been told exactly the same number of times? of course not. we're not all equally oblivious to the needs of others. when we're out of the dark ages, the needs of others will be impossible to overlook. we will all do a far better job of meeting each other's needs, because they will be clearly visible numbers that represent their importance. kinda like maslow's hierarchy of needs, if he had stood on adam smith's shoulders.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Not a fan of OPs suggestions, but what are the options to setup a subscription model @Bonsai Nut? I'm a sucker, I'd pay a monthly fee to remove ads and get a glowy name or something.

I hadn't really thought about it, but let me look into this.

 

[Epiphyte]

I appreciate that this was meant to be constructive, but remember Chesterton's fence:

And since then, one of the central principles behind my philosophy has been “Don’t destroy all existing systems and hope a planet-sized ghost makes everything work out”. Systems are hard. Institutions are hard. If your goal is to replace the current systems with better ones, then destroying the current system is 1% of the work, and building the better ones is 99% of it. Throughout history, dozens of movements have doomed entire civilizations by focusing on the “destroying the current system” step and expecting the “build a better one” step to happen on its own. That never works. The best parts of conservativism are the ones that guard this insight and shout it at a world too prone to taking shortcuts. - Scott Alexander, SSC Endorses Clinton, Johnson, or Stein

Further progress requires recognising that America’s economy is an enormously complicated mechanism. As appealing as some more radical reforms can sound in the abstract — breaking up all the biggest banks or erecting prohibitively steep tariffs on imports — the economy is not an abstraction. It cannot simply be redesigned wholesale and put back together again without real consequences for real people. - Barak Obama, The way ahead

Voters, activists, and political leaders of the present day are in the position of medieval doctors. They hold simple, prescientific theories about the workings of society and the causes of social problems, from which they derive a variety of remedies-almost all of which prove either ineffectual or harmful. Society is a complex mechanism whose repair, if possible at all, would require a precise and detailed understanding of a kind that no one today possesses. Unsatisfying as it may seem, the wisest course for political agents is often simply to stop trying to solve society’s problems. — Michael Huemer, In Praise of Passivity

it's important to understand that my suggestion isn't one of subtraction but of addition. the captain would still be there. his compass would still be there. his map would still be there. but now he would also have a crystal ball of sorts. he'd be able to see things that exist, but are currently hidden from view... the demand for things. this would allow him, and the rest of us, to make far better informed decisions.

 

[Gabler]

everything essentially boils down to the usefulness of things. it's tricky though because, what's very useful for someone might be completely useless for someone else. what's even trickier is that what's very useful for me today might be completely useless for me tomorrow.

prior to covid, a nursery based in ecuador called ecuagenera would bring 95% orchids and 5% aroids to sell at shows here in southern california. when covid hit, and houseplants became far more popular thanks to instagram, ecuagenera started selling more and more aroids. pretty quickly they brought 5% orchids and 95% aroids to shows. as a result of their ability to quickly adapt to the rapid change in the demand for plants, they got enough funding to buy big properties in florida and california.

imagine if ecuagenera hadn't initially offered a few aroids for sale and had only sold orchids. in this case they would have missed it when the demand started to change. i recently messaged my friend ivan, one of the bosses at ecuagenera, and suggested that he bring 5% tropical fruit to shows, just in case it starts to trend.

maybe a while back a member here, who we'll call vic, said that a category for ficus would be very useful. and perhaps he received the same kinda replies that i received. so he went on fb and looked for a group specifically for ficus bonsai. not finding one, he simply created it himself, which was the easiest and quickest thing to do, and now there are over 50,000 members, of which i am one.

x = the demand for aroids
y = the demand for a ficus bonsai group

we know x, but we don't know y. lots of people freely using something on a regular basis tells us that its useful, but it doesn't tell us how useful it is. the quantification of usefulness, in terms of personal sacrifice, is demand.

if bonsai nut used donations to prioritize categories, then we'd see the demand for all of them. would the demand be constantly changing? yeah. of course. would it be annoying if you had to use the find function to locate a category? probably, but by then you'd realize it would be far more annoying to be ignorant of the demand for it. "phew, can't believe we're finally out of the dark ages, good riddance."

bonsai nut does a lot of things, that aren't equally useful. which are the most useful things it does? right now you can only guess. and you're all fine with guessing, which is the #1 symptom of the dark ages. if correctly guessing demand was so easy then we'd all be filthy rich. the fact that we're not all filthy rich is proof that correctly guessing is really difficult and largely a matter of luck. ecuangera got lucky that they just happened to already be selling aroids. but think about all the individuals, businesses and organizations in the world that haven't been lucky. sucks to be them? yeah, but it really sucks for everyone, because that's 70% of society's limited resources that were wasted on something useless instead of being put to good use. of course i just made up that number. i'm sure it's a really big number though.

a while back a guy running for president said that the president at the time had drunk driven the economy into the ditch. "he wants the keys back? should we give him the keys back? heck no!" i'm paraphrasing. all over the world, countless drunk/blind captains run their ships into icebergs because they fail to correctly guess the demand, and how it will change. facebook has no clue that right here and now on this forum we're discussing an idea that could destroy them. we could all link facebook to this thread and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. if we did implement my suggestion, then bonsai nut would correctly and quickly adapt to changes in demand, and by then it would be too late for facebook. it would be destroyed, just like it destroyed myspace, friendster and other similar sites. by then everyone in the world would have gotten the memo... we're done with the dark ages of blind captains. the surviving organizations would clearly see changes in demand and they'd quickly adapt accordingly.

how many times in your life have you been told to make yourself useful? everybody has been told exactly the same number of times? of course not. we're not all equally oblivious to the needs of others. when we're out of the dark ages, the needs of others will be impossible to overlook. we will all do a far better job of meeting each other's needs, because they will be clearly visible numbers that represent their importance. kinda like maslow's hierarchy of needs, if he had stood on adam smith's shoulders.

Let's say hypothetically you're correct, and Bonsai Nut could attract all 50,000 followers of the ficus page on Facebook. It would destroy this website. The discourse here is a treasure. You don't see the sorts of progression threads, experiments, and advice that you can find here on Facebook—at least not without sifting through heaps of garbage to find it. Same goes for Reddit, etc.

Your desires do not align with most of the users here. That's fine. That's why we have both Facebook and Bonsai Nut. Everyone can be happy and get what they want, or at least pretty darn close to it.

 

[Epiphyte]

@Gabler how useful is it to be able to tag members? this isn't an option on a couple of the plant forums that i'm on. since this is their status quo, it must reflect the desires of the members? what's the difference between desires and demand? everything that there is a demand for is desired, but not everything that's desired is truly demanded.

right now you're guessing that the demand for members on facebook is for short posts, akin to tiktok, instagram and youtube shorts. everybody in the world has short attention spans, except for members of forums? if bonsai nut created a category for ficus, why would the 50,000 members of the ficus facebook group flock here? if all they truly want is to make and read short posts then facebook is already perfect for them. personally i suspect that most of them, like myself, want the best of both worlds, but i could be wrong.

a couple years ago, on a succulent forum that i'm on, a member posted in the off topic category this thread... unusual bonsai. i replied that it was nice but didn't match my personal definition of a bonsai. but then a few months ago i attended a bonsai show for the 1st time in a long time and wow, my personal definition of a bonsai was obsolete.

as your fav philosopher said, "no man steps in the same river twice." change is the only constant. what matters most is how quickly and correctly we adapt to change. the desires of the users here are constantly changing, as are their demands. trying to correctly guess them is a fool's errand. we should all be able to see and know them, which is possible with donations.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Starting to think this is AI…with the “I” being questionable.

 

[bwaynef]

bonsai nut has quite a few categories. the categories at the top of the page, such as "site announcements", "new to bonsai" and "general discussion" receive a lot more attention than the categories at the bottom of the page

Most folks use http://bonsainut.com/whats-new/posts (or similar) to view the board. Whats-new doesn't really care how far down a page things are.

Stick around. You might like the place.

 

[BrightsideB]

I think the answer is just more cowbell honestly

 

[Colorado]

I think he lost me at the part where the Bonsai Nuts trample Facebook into oblivion…