Any other Bonsai forums out there that are any good?

Walter_Pall

I read around 15 bonsai forums in several languages. BT is the second most active in the world as far as I know, the first in the English speaking world.

The overall first, btw, is bonsaifachfourm.de in German which has managed to get 70,000 messages in only two and hallf years of existence.
I do not think that membership is really fery important. Far more important is the number of meaningful posts.
Regarding meaningful posts AoB is clearly the world leader, but only has around 200 members. But a thread about desert rose would not be accepted there, I am afraid.

That's it, this is the bonsai world on the internet.

__________________
best regards
Walter Pall
http://walter-pall.de
I don't design bonsai, I design trees.
Tradition is not the custody of ashes but the propagation of fire.
NEW: The endless bonsai diary
http://walter-pall-bonsai.blogspot.com/

Advertisement

TreeBay

Bonz, don't limit yourself to "bonsai" forums - especially if your question is horticulture-related like the initial post was. There are lots of resources.

Regards,

Matt

__________________

Want to be a seller on bonsaiAUCTIONS? Get authorized today!

bonsaiTALK: Over 100,005.36 Megabytes Served this Month!

TreeBay

It most be all those LongGermanWords slowing them down, Walter!

70,000 posts? Actually I think bonsaiTALK has a bit more than that, if the reported figures are accurate.

Here are the last 2 years' posting stats. It works out to 40208 posts in the June04-May05 period 57805 posts in the June05-May06 period

For a total of 98,013 in the past two years ending May 2006. If I go back another six months we'd probably have in the ballpark of 125K

BONSAITALK NEW POST STATISTICS:

Jun-04 1709
Jul-04 3536
Aug-04 3490
Sep-04 2306
Oct-04 3482
Nov-04 3080
Dec-04 2929
Jan-05 3461
Feb-05 3526
Mar-05 3923
Apr-05 4782
May-05 3984

Jun-05 5067
Jul-05 4481
Aug-05 4234
Sep-05 5183
Oct-05 5200
Nov-05 5120
Dec-05 5463
Jan-06 5516
Feb-06 4157
Mar-06 4400
Apr-06 4395
May-06 4589

!

Regards,

Matt

__________________

Want to be a seller on bonsaiAUCTIONS? Get authorized today!

bonsaiTALK: Over 100,005.36 Megabytes Served this Month!

RonMartin(deceased)

Not exactlly a ringing endorsement fot that other site. Maybe that is why they are still a small group.

Joanie

Art of Bonsai is not for posting about horticulture, or beginners struggling with trees, or anything like that. They have a very specific focus, and that's fine. It allows them to discuss what they are interested in.

For a general bonsai forum, bonsaiTALK is definitely the largest and most active. However, sometimes things don't get answered. Lots of people view them, but no one has anything to say that will help, or the people that can add to the conversation are busy with other things. The original poster received at least one answer now, and if he wants more information, he can come back with an even more specific question. Bumping up your own thread can also help, because it may have dropped off the radar. People read here as they have time, and some people come on only once in a while.

Joanie

__________________

Walter_Pall

OK Matt,

I stand corrected. BT is the most active bonsai forum in the world then. But taking into accout that German is only really spoken by around 90 million people it is still impressive to match up to BT.
BT is clearly the forum where just about evey aspect of bonsai can be addressed and you will get some response.

One has to see that frequent readers read forums like one reads a newspaper. I have yet to meet the person that reads every single article in a newspaper. This is what the headings are for. Experienced readers see the headings and then who has started the thread. That eliminates more than 90% already if you are in a hurry. Then after a while reading the same headings and seeing the hit rates going up one gets interested an reads something that was oveseen in the first screening. That' how it works for me at least. Otherwise I could never read all these forums anyway.

To be honest, I would never ever click onto a thread which says 'desert rose'.

So why exactly would I say that AoB is the most meaningful? Because I read every single post there, which I do not at any other forum, where I read about 5%. I do understand though that this is absolutely not for everyone. It is clearly for a minority.

BT is clearly for a majority and we need something like this. I am glad that we have both.

__________________
best regards
Walter Pall
http://walter-pall.de
I don't design bonsai, I design trees.
Tradition is not the custody of ashes but the propagation of fire.
NEW: The endless bonsai diary
http://walter-pall-bonsai.blogspot.com/

Boondock

BT is the best

__________________
Washington Native Plant Society
USDA national plant database
Conifers.org

Joanie

This is an excellent point, Walter. It is how many of us read the forums. You only look at what interests you. (Which is why a good title will bring more attention to your thread!) Then, if a thread seems to be going on for a long time, you check it and see what is being discussed. So many of the little threads are asking for information which has already been given over and over, that a busy person just ignores a lot of them. You have to.

Joanie

__________________

Levon

You're forgiven for your mistake ..... ANACTIVITY !?

__________________
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bonsai Pot Signatures - http://www.yamadori.nl/Bonsai_Schalen.htm

NEW BOOK 'Bonsai Potters' - http://www.yamadori.nl/Bonsai_Potters.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------