When should inexperienced bonsai growers shut up and let the experts talk?

[Deleted member 32750]

Not all experience is equal. you can have practiced bonsai for decades and still have bad trees/methods and you can have practiced for 3 years and know what you are talking about.
People should learn to learn to think for themselves and think critically.

 

[Smoke]

“When should inexperienced bonsai growers shut up and let the experts talk?”​

hmmm...I have been active (no longer) on Bonsai discussion forums since typing on keyboards was done in DOS. The same arguments, and the same rhetoric has been discussed ad nauseum. I check in here from time to time, maybe two or three times a month. Last week, my name was spoken in vain several times. To that end, I have always been active in discussion forums that serve a useful purpose, much like a hands on workshop. the internet could be used for that purpose. I feel that it should be imperative that forums hold people accountable for the rhetoric the espouse. If you go into a bar and shoot your mouth off, you better be prepared to take care of yourself. I find a place like this much the same.

For instance, meaning no disrespect, in just the last several paragraphs A chap from the Netherlands seems to have a lot of disparaging comments about Americans weight, their colleges, not being woke enough and many other things. So what to do, I clicked on his name. Looked at every post made on the forum, skimmed a lot, so may have missed a tree in there, but from what I could see, there is not a bonsai in the bunch. All I saw was a couple flats of azalea's in 4 inch; sorry 10 cm cups. So....from my point of view, and decades on a forum specifically for bonsai, not politics, I read a lot of politics and nothing useful to do with bonsai?

Leatherback felt it would be a pissing match to post up your five best trees. I agree. If done in a pissing match setting, you would be correct. So I implore everyone here to add some content behind their name and start your own media, your own photo gallery. Words mean things. When there is nothing to back them up, your words mean nothing. You want to be on a BONSAI discussion forum, then be proud of your work, post up your own gallery and explain why you think its worthy. Discussion about when to shut up will solve itself when we can go to your page and see what your worth when it comes to working with your hands and manipulating Nature. Its not easy, nor is it cheap. I think most people can look at a tree and tell how long they been working on it. Hell post a before and after of your three best and explain how long you been working on it. I hope something positive can come from this, because all of my friends are no longer here, and I left way before they did so it wasn't me that drove them off. Somehow, I feel that my departure here should have made things better, but currently not much bonsai is discussed here*.


* What do I mean by "bonsai", the taking of material and transforming it over a number of years with photo documentation of the journey. Real tree work, not asking stupid questions that could be answered with a few keystrokes on wikipedia. There are always going to be stupid questions as long as humans are involved, but a place like this should be 80 percent useful bonsai work and 20 percent stupid shit. I have about twenty boxes of magazines in my garage, the whole collection of Bonsai Today, the whole collection of Bonsai Europe/Focus and most of International Bonsai.** They were the crowning jewel of bonsai learning as Rock illuded to 40+ years ago. Magazines are all but gone today due to the internet. Much like the porn industry and newspapers in general. You young people are the future of bonsai and what will set the mood for the future. Not old guys like me and Adair. You guys you should be talking about how many branches you cut today rather than have to explain what the meaning of "WOKE" is. Wake up!!!!


** I'll take two hundred for all the magazines, shipping on you.
Edit:

Not all experience is equal. you can have practiced bonsai for decades and still have bad trees/methods and you can have practiced for 3 years and know what you are talking about.
People should learn to learn to think for themselves and think critically.

This is exactly why you should post your trees. Talk is cheap! Remove all doubt.

 

[Cajunrider]

This is exactly why you should post your trees. Talk is cheap! Remove all doubt.

A long time ago, I took your challenge of posting the trees to heart. Therefore, I post most of my trees. I figure that is how I will get the feedback to improve. Good or bad, they are my experience, my learning etc. FWIW, some of the ideas I used to make them come from the members here. Others came from my own.
In the end, I doubt that my trees now are good bonsai trees, but they are mine! And when it comes to bald cypress, I think I can use an axe on it much like Peter Chan and still keep it alive. Wait! That is an idea. Some day I will split a BC with an axe and make a twin trunk. Stay tuned!

 

[rockm]

hmmm...I have been active (no longer) on Bonsai discussion forums since typing on keyboards was done in DOS. The same arguments, and the same rhetoric has been discussed ad nauseum. I check in here from time to time, maybe two or three times a month. Last week, my name was spoken in vain several times. To that end, I have always been active in discussion forums that serve a useful purpose, much like a hands on workshop. the internet could be used for that purpose. I feel that it should be imperative that forums hold people accountable for the rhetoric the espouse. If you go into a bar and shoot your mouth off, you better be prepared to take care of yourself. I find a place like this much the same.

For instance, meaning no disrespect, in just the last several paragraphs A chap from the Netherlands seems to have a lot of disparaging comments about Americans weight, their colleges, not being woke enough and many other things. So what to do, I clicked on his name. Looked at every post made on the forum, skimmed a lot, so may have missed a tree in there, but from what I could see, there is not a bonsai in the bunch. All I saw was a couple flats of azalea's in 4 inch; sorry 10 cm cups. So....from my point of view, and decades on a forum specifically for bonsai, not politics, I read a lot of politics and nothing useful to do with bonsai?

Leatherback felt it would be a pissing match to post up your five best trees. I agree. If done in a pissing match setting, you would be correct. So I implore everyone here to add some content behind their name and start your own media, your own photo gallery. Words mean things. When there is nothing to back them up, your words mean nothing. You want to be on a BONSAI discussion forum, then be proud of your work, post up your own gallery and explain why you think its worthy. Discussion about when to shut up will solve itself when we can go to your page and see what your worth when it comes to working with your hands and manipulating Nature. Its not easy, nor is it cheap. I think most people can look at a tree and tell how long they been working on it. Hell post a before and after of your three best and explain how long you been working on it. I hope something positive can come from this, because all of my friends are no longer here, and I left way before they did so it wasn't me that drove them off. Somehow, I feel that my departure here should have made things better, but currently not much bonsai is discussed here*.


* What do I mean by "bonsai", the taking of material and transforming it over a number of years with photo documentation of the journey. Real tree work, not asking stupid questions that could be answered with a few keystrokes on wikipedia. There are always going to be stupid questions as long as humans are involved, but a place like this should be 80 percent useful bonsai work and 20 percent stupid shit. I have about twenty boxes of magazines in my garage, the whole collection of Bonsai Today, the whole collection of Bonsai Europe/Focus and most of International Bonsai.** They were the crowning jewel of bonsai learning as Rock illuded to 40+ years ago. Magazines are all but gone today due to the internet. Much like the porn industry and newspapers in general. You young people are the future of bonsai and what will set the mood for the future. Not old guys like me and Adair. You guys you should be talking about how many branches you cut today rather than have to explain what the meaning of "WOKE" is. Wake up!!!!


** I'll take two hundred for all the magazines, shipping on you.
Edit:


This is exactly why you should post your trees. Talk is cheap! Remove all doubt.

Miss ya Smoke.

 

[Glaucus]

hmmm...I have been active (no longer) on Bonsai discussion forums since typing on keyboards was done in DOS. The same arguments, and the same rhetoric has been discussed ad nauseum. I check in here from time to time, maybe two or three times a month. Last week, my name was spoken in vain several times. To that end, I have always been active in discussion forums that serve a useful purpose, much like a hands on workshop. the internet could be used for that purpose. I feel that it should be imperative that forums hold people accountable for the rhetoric the espouse. If you go into a bar and shoot your mouth off, you better be prepared to take care of yourself. I find a place like this much the same.

For instance, meaning no disrespect, in just the last several paragraphs A chap from the Netherlands seems to have a lot of disparaging comments about Americans weight, their colleges, not being woke enough and many other things. So what to do, I clicked on his name. Looked at every post made on the forum, skimmed a lot, so may have missed a tree in there, but from what I could see, there is not a bonsai in the bunch. All I saw was a couple flats of azalea's in 4 inch; sorry 10 cm cups. So....from my point of view, and decades on a forum specifically for bonsai, not politics, I read a lot of politics and nothing useful to do with bonsai?

Leatherback felt it would be a pissing match to post up your five best trees. I agree. If done in a pissing match setting, you would be correct. So I implore everyone here to add some content behind their name and start your own media, your own photo gallery. Words mean things. When there is nothing to back them up, your words mean nothing. You want to be on a BONSAI discussion forum, then be proud of your work, post up your own gallery and explain why you think its worthy. Discussion about when to shut up will solve itself when we can go to your page and see what your worth when it comes to working with your hands and manipulating Nature. Its not easy, nor is it cheap. I think most people can look at a tree and tell how long they been working on it. Hell post a before and after of your three best and explain how long you been working on it. I hope something positive can come from this, because all of my friends are no longer here, and I left way before they did so it wasn't me that drove them off. Somehow, I feel that my departure here should have made things better, but currently not much bonsai is discussed here*.


* What do I mean by "bonsai", the taking of material and transforming it over a number of years with photo documentation of the journey. Real tree work, not asking stupid questions that could be answered with a few keystrokes on wikipedia. There are always going to be stupid questions as long as humans are involved, but a place like this should be 80 percent useful bonsai work and 20 percent stupid shit. I have about twenty boxes of magazines in my garage, the whole collection of Bonsai Today, the whole collection of Bonsai Europe/Focus and most of International Bonsai.** They were the crowning jewel of bonsai learning as Rock illuded to 40+ years ago. Magazines are all but gone today due to the internet. Much like the porn industry and newspapers in general. You young people are the future of bonsai and what will set the mood for the future. Not old guys like me and Adair. You guys you should be talking about how many branches you cut today rather than have to explain what the meaning of "WOKE" is. Wake up!!!!


** I'll take two hundred for all the magazines, shipping on you.
Edit:


This is exactly why you should post your trees. Talk is cheap! Remove all doubt.

There goes Smoke again. Maybe you should try to READ, because you are lying just a tiny bit. I'm not even going to entertain you anymore. Also USE MY NAME.
I never used your name. Others did. But you have a history here. Not my fault.

And yes, YOU have brought up your far right crazy ass US politics many times vs European users every time you were being argumentative about bonsai and losing your bonsai argument.

Ever since DOS you HAVE NOT LEARNED A SINGLE THING.
Literally nothing.

Start learning!

And yes, the people that left because of YOU, because Klytus, because of Greerhw, are FAR SUPERIOR to yours. So even the 'show the trees' argument you are LOSING.
And all this happened TEN YEARS AGO. And you learned NOTHING.

Not to mention the beginners that left because of these three clowns.

 

[johng]

All of that is to ask, do you have any suggestions for a rule of thumb to ascertain when it's time to shut up and wait for an expert to chime in?

If you've only read about or watched a video and not personally tried whatever the topic/subject/question is...hold back please... If you are of those that feels like it is your "right" to answer every question because this is a public forum, at the very least qualify your answer with "I haven't actually tried this" or "I read about this technique". Those of us that have been around here for a good while know just how many amazing bonsai artists have been run off due to this exact issue from public bonsai forums including Nut.

 

[leatherback]

Ah well..
Another thread derailed thanks to someone on weed.

 

[pandacular]

Wait! That is an idea. Some day I will split a BC with an axe and make a twin trunk. Stay tuned!

Bonus points if you leave the axe!

This thread got personal and stupid. I'll add an addendum: as your mothers said, all of us should shut up if we only speak to put others down.

 

[Colorado]

This place would be pretty boring if left to “expert-only” discussion. What would we have, 2 posts a month?

For some reason, most (not all) of bonsai professionals have little interest in engaging with the online community.

 

[KikurageOtomo]

While there is a bit of levity to having a body of work to evaluate the weight of your statements, that also has its own tremendous fault. Is the sort of individual who exclusively purchases expensive, refined material from Ryan or Bjorn inherently knowledgeable or a skilled bonsai artist because they have a massive bankroll and can afford to visit their tutor a few times per year for personalized guidance on their material? Obviously there are a number of extremely skilled members on this site, but if you're going solely on possession alone then inevitably you're going to take advice from somebody who is wading into the deep end with the assistance of a flotation device.

 

[Paradox]

While there is a bit of levity to having a body of work to evaluate the weight of your statements, that also has its own tremendous fault. Is the sort of individual who exclusively purchases expensive, refined material from Ryan or Bjorn inherently knowledgeable or a skilled bonsai artist because they have a massive bankroll and can afford to visit their tutor a few times per year for personalized guidance on their material? Obviously there are a number of extremely skilled members on this site, but if you're going solely on possession alone then inevitably you're going to take advice from somebody who is wading into the deep end with the assistance of a flotation device.

While I agree with this statement, you can usually tell who has actually done the work because there should be a progression of the tree's development and a description of the work done. As some here have been saying, critical thinking takes a role when evaluating who knows their stuff and who doesnt.

 

[SWfloirda]

I try to never post in thread like this but never say never. I have noticed that people will post transitioning prebonsai trees, myself included, and no one ever really says much. But then other times someone posts a straight from the shelf Walmart tree and there's 2-3 pages of discussion, sometimes with the OP never to respond. And then of course other times someone posts discussions like this and we get pages and pages of entertaining but frustrating dialogue because there is simply no way a bunch of strangers on the internet are going to come to some sort of consensus.

My unsolicited thoughts on the term woke. I think it's a ridiculous term that somehow has become some culture war buzzword. But teaching high school in Florida there is no doubt I work in a state where the governor said "Florida is where woke goes to die" The FLDOE has to vet each and every book available in a K-12 classroom and this is how the law is playing out. Our criminal justice teacher retired a couple of years ago and left behind close to a thousand books related to the subject area, some of them straight up reference books. The new teacher, who happens to be a former student, was told to get them vetted she would have to take a picture of the ISBN and fill out a form with the title and author of each and every book she intended to keep in the classroom. But the kicker is this process could take six months to 2 years because they are starting in elementary school and working their way up so she would have to keep them out of the students' sight until the vetting process is complete. It was either that, take them to the dumpster or take them home. She took them home.

Kids in Florida have to pass a reading test to graduate, the ones that haven't have to take a reading class until they pass. The reading teacher across the hall from me has empty bookshelves. She has no room in her classroom to keep the books out of sight and didn't want to take them home. I helped her load up carts and we took them to the dumpster. A reading class with empty bookshelves. Imagine. Their curriculum is online and keeps the kids glued to their Chromebooks. Her shelf was full of old reading class books and donated novels, some of them mine, just in the hope a kid might find something interesting and read it.

I am a math teacher so they said nothing ahead of time to me but the last two days before school started our administration team had to go room to room and verify there were no unvetted books in sight, I had a "dad joke" book of my own sitting out and they told me I should keep it in my drawer. All in the name of making sure none of the books contain anything woke. Sad.

Our schools are way too easy.

I would consider leaving Florida but I've got a bunch of tropical trees, I hate cold weather and my family is here.

 

[BrianBay9]

Smoke has lost nothing in his absence. Cheers man. I agree with him on this.....if you use the term "woke", then dammit define it in detail.

 

[Glaucus]

Only far right wingers use the term 'woke' unironically. Smoke is a bully who did a lot of harm to this community. Other people brought up his name as someone who goes after new users. I pointed out that's not entirely true (he went after experienced bonsai people who were European or liberal Americans) and that Smoke didn't even leave.

As a response, he tries to viciously go after me once more. He did this 10 years ago, when I was just a teenager learning bonsai. And now he still does.
He has completely stagnated in his own bonsai, while I only learned.
Has he ever grown any of the trees he is posting himself? I have my doubts.

There is a reason why this place has only a handful of veteran European users.

 

[Nybonsai12]

Only far right wingers use the term 'woke' unironically. Smoke is a bully who did a lot of harm to this community. Other people brought up his name as someone who goes after new users. I pointed out that's not entirely true (he went after experienced bonsai people who were European or liberal Americans) and that Smoke didn't even leave.

As a response, he tries to viciously go after me once more. He did this 10 years ago, when I was just a teenager learning bonsai. And now he still does.
He has completely stagnated in his own bonsai, while I only learned.
Has he ever grown any of the trees he is posting himself? I have my doubts.

There is a reason why this place has only a handful of veteran European users.

shutup and let the experts talk

California Bonsai Art

............ Live from the Bonsai Bunker

bonsaial.wordpress.com

 

[Glaucus]

You shut up!

I AM an expert. My articles on azaleas were published in several magazines. This idiot Smoke literally tried to bully me and tell me WRONG THINGS about azaleas. Why? Because he thought he could because he had a picture of a bonsai he bought from someone else.
He never apologized. And he did this because he didn't like my comments on of politics.

And after all this, and after me DEFENDING HIM in this thread, he still does the same attack he did years ago.

Smoke is a bully. His trees might be nice, but they are not great either. And he BOUGHT THEM. They are other people's work. Literal stolen glory he uses to try to bully other people with.
He should SHUT UP and ONLY POST PICTURES. No words.

Smoke shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as Adair. And even Brain 'I was at Jan6 and it was ANTIFA' van Fleet's trees are much much nicer than Smoke's.
Smoke is just another Klytus or Greerwh? Who do you ask? EXACTLY. Literal nobodies.

 

[Weta]

Feel da love ppl, lifes to short.
Here for growth not destruction.

 

[KikurageOtomo]

You shut up!

I AM an expert. My articles on azaleas were published in several magazines. This idiot Smoke literally tried to bully me and tell me WRONG THINGS about azaleas. Why? Because he thought he could because he had a picture of a bonsai he bought from someone.
He never apologized. He did this because of politics.

And after all this, and after me DEFENDING HIM in this thread, he still does the same attack he did years ago.

Smoke is a bully. His trees might be nice, but they are not great either. And he BOUGHT THEM. They are other people's work. Literal stolen glory he used to bully other people with.
He should SHUT UP and ONLY POST PICTURES. No words.

Smoke shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as Adair. And even Brain 'I was at Jan6 and it was ANTIFA' van Fleet's trees are much much nicer than Smoke's.
Smoke is just another Klytus or Greerwh? Who do you ask? EXACTLY. Literal nobodies.

My friend, while I don't really find smokes behavior particularly becoming I also can see from his blog he has a recorded body of work and logs of his creative process, it de-legitimizes ones point to overlook that (Lets be real, its very difficult to make reasonable progress in bonsai if you start all your material from seed or seedlings). As an American I can attest to the fact that there is a very specific and large group of individuals who get their jollies from getting a rise out of somebody, its not particularly worth your time to engage them in earnest.

 

[Glaucus]

Then go after Smoke, not me.

Or are you afraid of the big bad bully?

If there is one example of someone not an exert talking nonsense, it is Smoke.
His ego is so big, he has absolutely no idea where his expertise starts, and where it ends.

 

[amcoffeegirl]

Only far right wingers use the term 'woke' unironically. Smoke is a bully who did a lot of harm to this community. Other people brought up his name as someone who goes after new users. I pointed out that's not entirely true (he went after experienced bonsai people who were European or liberal Americans) and that Smoke didn't even leave.

As a response, he tries to viciously go after me once more. He did this 10 years ago, when I was just a teenager learning bonsai. And now he still does.
He has completely stagnated in his own bonsai, while I only learned.
Has he ever grown any of the trees he is posting himself? I have my doubts.

There is a reason why this place has only a handful of veteran European users.

And you wonder why people leave??