Help me Help you - Making the Ultimate Bonsai Guide

Hey everyone,

We are new here at the Internet Bonsai Club Forums and we need your help.

Yes, you.

Firstly let me explain some background information.

Me and my colleagues want to create an epic guide about the fine art of growing a bonsai. But we don't want it to be just any "grow a bonsai" guide, there is already tonnes of great info and guides out there about that.

No. We want to create something new. Something awesome. But most of all, something useful. Something that bonsai enthusiasts can look at and say "wow".

And that's were your help comes in. We want to know what the major problems you guys are having while growing your bonsai's. Preferably problems that you couldn't find much information about or found it confusing.

Simple as that.

This is so we can find out specifically what you guys want. And then we will fulfil those needs to produce something that you'll love.

It only takes a minute to write a comment, so why don't you help us out?

Any and all info is welcome.

Have a nice day.

The Bonsai Bible team.

Who are you experienced guys?..  ..give us some names.

Kind regards Yvonne

And I hope your book has better punctuation and grammar than your post.

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Who are you experienced guys?..  ..give us some names.

Kind regards Yvonne

That is a true question that really needs a good answer.

I have been posting a lot of information on this site and a couple of others for years. I have been ripped off by several that have active web sites, and blogs that have brazenly posted my words as their own. Personally; at this point I'm simply glad the information seemed valuable enough a couple of people thought it worth ripping off. So can you tell me that this is not going to happen again? You're going to assemble all of this information from other people's experiences and efforts, put it in a book with no hands on work of your own, sell it at a premium price, be it electronic or printed, and not share the rewards or even the accreditation?

And if you knew even a little about the subject, I don't think you would use an expression like "growing a bonsai"!!

The Bonsai Bible?
There is already a book of that name published in 2008 and reprinted in paper back in 2011 by David Squire.
As an professional author and artist/ illustrator myself of published and licensed works (not bonsai related) I am very wary of anonymous knowledge seekers.This is not a straight forward way of doing things.

Agree entirely. The apostrophised plural killed it for me.   

fiona wrote:Agree entirely.  The apostrophised plural killed it for me.    

i wonder if they will have plural atrophied apostles in their bible...  

sorry... couldnt resist.   

Well, that was a nice friendly reception! Wow!  

Rick36 wrote:And if you knew even a little about the subject, I don't think you would use an expression like "growing a bonsai"!!

You don't grow your bonsais Rick? What do you do? Boil 'em?

Understand your viewpoint, Andrew, but previous experiences with this sort of approach have not been favourable. They should have approached the Admin team privately first. And indeed, I am sure we would be happy to listen to what they are saying if they do so still.

Other than that, we'd have to treat it as spam.

[quote="Andrew Legg"]Well, that was a nice friendly reception! Wow!  [/quot

i believe folks just took exception to their approach...
no personal introductions, no prior posts, just:

"Hi! you dont know me, but would you mind sharing all your info with me so i can write a book ? "

i have seen the exact same thing on the great lakes surfing forums   
(and they got the exact same reception)

i have found people here to be very free with advice when asked about a specific question, which is GREAT !
but that is different than the subject at hand...

I agree that the request could have been better phrased and backed up, but I think that could have been said by one person and kinda left at that. They are asking for questions not the answers. Sorry, but responses are in my view unnecessarily hostile, and there's nothing that winds me up than when folks make accusations or insinuations in an unfounded manner. I have no idea about who these people are or how they plan to achieve what they do, but let's ask that, and not insinuate that they are trying to steal from others and that they are clueless because they grow bonsai!

Let's hope they give us more background, but after that response I'd be surprised if they don't choose to look elsewhere.

Chill people!

fiona wrote:Understand your viewpoint, Andrew, but previous experiences with this sort of approach have not been favourable.  They should have approached the Admin team privately first.  And indeed, I am sure we would be happy to listen to what they are saying if they do so still.

Other than that, we'd have to treat it as spam.

Why should they approach the admin team Fiona? I thought this forum is an open public facility where we come to share ideas and our love for this hobby?

fiona wrote:Agree entirely.  The apostrophised plural killed it for me.    

I think you'll enjoy "Eats shoots and leaves". The book, not the joke . . . Although who knows, you may like the joke too   A fun read on the joy of grammar.

Vance Wood wrote:

Yvonne Graubaek wrote:Who are you experienced guys?..  ..give us some names.

Kind regards Yvonne

That is a true question that really needs a good answer.

I have been posting a lot of information on this site and a couple of others for years.  I have been ripped off by several that have active web sites, and blogs that have brazenly posted my words as their own.  Personally; at this point I'm simply glad the information seemed valuable enough a couple of people thought it worth ripping off.  So can you tell me that this is not going to happen again?  You're going to assemble all of this information from other people's experiences and efforts, put it in a book with no hands on work of your own, sell it at a premium price, be it electronic or printed, and not share the rewards or even the accreditation?  

They are asking for questions Vance, not answers!

Andrew Legg wrote: Why should they approach the admin team Fiona? I thought this forum is an open public facility where we come to share ideas and our love for this hobby?

And my wariness is precisely because this is an amateur forum where people share knowledge, and not where people try to pick off knowledge which they can then use to turn a profit. We do not know if that is what is happening here, but had they made the honest approach through the Admin team I would have been a lot more receptive to the idea. That may sound a bit harsh but Vance has already given the reasons why we should err on the side of caution.

If I can't make no money from my paltry bonsai knowledge ain't no one else gonna either.

Fiona wrote:The apostrophised plural killed it for me.

Yeah.  I shuddered at the apostrophe, too, but it was "Me and my colleagues . . . " that turned me off first.   I hope they're not all in third grade.

As far as the overall brush off goes, I think they (or he/she) show a lot of gall and hutzpah just appearing here and asking us to help them (oh, so hopefully, of course)  without themselves having laid some groundwork beforehhand.  Like, perhaps, offering some useful assistance to some of our neophyte questioners, or even showing us some of their/his/her work here so we might make a judgement.  

And, I'm no fan of pseudonyms as registered names over real names here and in other websites, so I'd be more reluctant to offer any help to some anonymous person, place, or thing who shows up as suddenly as theis.

Same info request on the Bonsai Empire forum, with similar responses

fiona wrote:

Andrew Legg wrote: Why should they approach the admin team Fiona? I thought this forum is an open public facility where we come to share ideas and our love for this hobby?

 And my wariness is precisely because this is an amateur forum where people share knowledge, and  not where people try to pick off knowledge which they can then use to turn a profit. We do not know if that is what is happening here, but had they made the honest approach through the Admin team I would have been a lot more receptive to the idea.  That may sound a bit harsh but Vance has already given the reasons why we should err on the side of caution.  

They asked us about our problems. They asked for no great bonsai secrets, or nuggets of gold handed from father to son. They asked nobody for their 150 years of experience! Vance is extrapolating a whole case scenario based on history involving others and reacting to that, not to what they asked! I think people are over-reacting to what was really just a poorly asked question!

Anyway, I've had my say and made my point. But I guess since this is Vance and Jim's forum, who am I with a measly 250 posts to question their greater wisdom? Heck, who are these folk who dare to come on here and in their first post   ask us to share our problems to allow them to put together some thing that is bound to be filled with grammatical gremlins! They even grow bonsai!!!   Surely we can't take them seriously and must mock them. They want to contribute to folks learning about bonsai! Shame on them!  Burn them at the stake!

You know what, I probably just had a bad day at work, and I'm being unreasonably grumpy. I should lighten up a bit. Tell you what . . . . Why not delete all these posts after the first one, and just pop in a nice friendly response asking them for a bit more info on who they are, and how this brainchild of theirs is going to work. Maybe being Aussies, time zones will mean they don't have to read all this drivel of mine! That said, maybe being Aussies they'll find it amusing.

PS: who knows . . . . Perhaps a few of us could help this anonymous train wreck along and in the spirit of bonsai just pop in a few thing we've struggled with over the years. I'll sleep on it.

Cheerio,

Andrew (that's's my real name)

The "nice friendly response" has already been done in a pm, Andrew.

Well, I didn’t expect this many responses.

Sorry for the grammatical errors, I did leave school in year 10 so try not to let a few misplaced apostrophes get the better of you.

Now let me clear some of this up as I may have started in the wrong direction which got everyone jumping to conclusions.

Firstly, my name is Luca Samson. My partner’s (and friends) name is Harrison Tallis. Together we make up the Bonsai Bible Team.

We’re not very well known as we have both been perusing our bonsai passions as a simple hobby at home. Harry and I met around 3 years ago and since then we have been growing bonsai’s together, swapping tips and useful information we found on the web.

We are not seeking to write a book. We are not looking to steal information. Anything we write will be put up for free with proper accreditations to whoever contributed.

We want to create a unique, awesome post (NOT A BOOK) that you guys will enjoy. Harrison and I have brainstormed some topics but then we thought what better way to come up with ideas than actually ask the people we’re trying to help. So what would you guys like to learn or read about bonsai related? Are there area’s that you’ve found where there isn’t much information?

We have posted a similar request on other forums as we want to try to gather as much information as possible.

I am happy to answer all questions that people may have about this.

I would also like to thank Andrew for the support he has provided.

So please, don’t think of us as some money hungry snakes. We just need your help.

The Bonsai Bible Team

Andrew Legg wrote:I agree that the request could have been better phrased and backed up, but I think that could have been said by one person and kinda left at that. They are asking for questions not the answers. Sorry, but responses are in my view unnecessarily hostile, and there's nothing that winds me up than when folks make accusations or insinuations in an unfounded manner. I have no idea about who these people are or how they plan to achieve what they do, but let's ask that, and not insinuate that they are trying to steal from others and that they are clueless because they grow bonsai!

Let's hope they give us more background, but after that response I'd be surprised if they don't choose to look elsewhere.

Chill people!

Andrew: Have you ever spent hours researching a subject and then spent time writting about it to share with friends just to find a couple of years latter that several people have taken your words, almost verbatim, and published them on their Web sites without a single acreditation? And then (sorry for the beginning preposition) will take you to task for something you said on the INTERNET. I have had this happen more than once.

I was being cautious nothing more. When you call me on the phone and I hear a bunch of people on the phone in the background (an obvious phone bank) I find it an invite to ask more questions than they can, especially when I'm told the ubiquitous; "I'm not trying to sell you anything". My imediate reply is" yes you are otherwise; how do you justify calling me in the first place-----a public service-----the kindness of your heart?" Mostly they hang up. If it is a political candidate, I usually tell them I think their guy is a gutter-slime-dog-crap-puke-chunk and they usually hang up.

And as to looking else where? Where might that be? There are only two really viable bonsai web sites; this one and Bonsai Nut. All of the others have the activety of a hibernating bear; they are alive but barely.

experiencedbonsai wrote:Well, I didn’t expect this many responses.

Sorry for the grammatical errors, I did leave school in year 10 so try not to let a few misplaced apostrophes get the better of you.

Now let me clear some of this up as I may have started in the wrong direction which got everyone jumping to conclusions.

Firstly, my name is Luca Samson. My partner’s (and friends) name is Harrison Tallis. Together we make up the Bonsai Bible Team.

We’re not very well known as we have both been perusing our bonsai passions as a simple hobby at home. Harry and I met around 3 years ago and since then we have been growing bonsai’s together, swapping tips and useful information we found on the web.

We are not seeking to write a book. We are not looking to steal information. Anything we write will be put up for free with proper accreditations to whoever contributed.

We want to create a unique, awesome post (NOT A BOOK) that you guys will enjoy. Harrison and I have brainstormed some topics but then we thought what better way to come up with ideas than actually ask the people we’re trying to help. So what would you guys like to learn or read about bonsai related? Are there area’s that you’ve found where there isn’t much information?

We have posted a similar request on other forums as we want to try to gather as much information as possible.

I am happy to answer all questions that people may have about this.

I would also like to thank Andrew for the support he has provided.

So please, don’t think of us as some money hungry snakes. We just need your help.

The Bonsai Bible Team

Sorry guys your post here beat my last one to the post, but I am still skeptical.  One thing that always breaks the ice for me are some photos of some of your bonsai that you have made not purchased outright.  I want to know that you have more than a beginners understanding of bonsai.