I'm pretty new at bonsai
I learned a lot by perusing a few forums (mainly BT and the french equivalent). The wealth of knowledge shared by the "masters" is amazing. It would have taken me ages to find out what works and what doesn't by myself. A few months ago, I was killing my trees by using junk soil passed as "bonsai soil"... now I'm experimenting with different mixes that give nice results in my climate. Some of my twigs have actually visibly increased caliper thanks to the soil discussions
The french equivalent of BT has taken a different approach to share the knowledge. For example, they currently have multiple "workshops" (threads) going on. The subjects are quite broad: our work on trees, soils, feeding, watering, going from potensai to bonsai, jin & shari, traditional japanese pottery making, ...
Those threads are not made in one go, they are interactive (and sometimes anarchic). The "master" starts the thread and leaves some blanks, then the members try to fill those blanks, he then checks back when he feels like it and steers the members back on track when necessary. Everybody can contribute, but if you want to ask questions you'd better do some research and provide pictures
It feels more like a class than a thread and forces everyone to do some research. All of those workshops are steered by one person and two assistants. In real life, that person does bonsai (including a lot of yamadori), pottery and workshops full time.
Maybe a similar concept could be used here on BT
Mike