Grain Of Salt

David Chauvin

Hello Everyone,

I know it should go unsaid, but....Always be cautious when taking advice in internet forums. I've seen some advice offered here lately that boggled my mind. I know that the people offering the advice had good intentions, but bad advice is worse than none. Here are a couple of guidelines on giving advice, especially to beginners;

1) Never offer advice if you have no firsthand knowledge on the subject. If you have no hands on experience but feel you have solid advice to offer, note the source of your knowledge. This gives the recipient some feel for the soundness of the advice.

2) Always give reasoning behind your advice. This takes some of the mystery out of the process.

For examples of good and bad ways to give advice, see;

http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/showthr...=&threadid=4344

Can you tell which is which?

Can anyone add to the list of do's and don'ts?

Best Regards,

David

__________________
"With the death of the Shamen, artists are the last interpreters of the Divine." Joseph Campbell

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Treebeard

Hmmm. I did not read that thread. Yes I can tell...

Can't add to your recommendations David.

It is easy for posters to get blase about advice and to just whack out a quick one-liner with no back-up or reasoning. Not good really.

When I take advice, I always bear in mind who is giving it.

Regards,

TB

__________________
"Do not be hasty, that is my motto"
-JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.
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christopherguise.co.uk

FredL

Excellent advice, David. Only problem that I can see with it is that those calm and thoughtful people that will be willing to take it are probably already aware of it and the others will no doubt just ignore it.

I went back and read the thread you referenced. Pretty stark examples!

Fred

LivingArt

since i like to learn about my self, did i give bad advice??


i did not want to tell the person not to collect an older cypress but i wanted to tell them they could also achieve something with younger cypress that would also be easier to collect.

Jay

David... yes.. yes.. a thousand times YES!

When someone new to this board sees an answer from one of us, he/she knows little about the knowledge of the writer. The newbie (or at least to this board) may see the amount of posts that this long time member has and think... 'great, I got my answer from an expert' many times this is far from the truth.

I have better than 1100 posts, and I'm sure those in the know are aware that I 'ain't' no expert. Sure I can help and try to, but I try, and all of us should try, and give a newbie an idea of where I'm going and where I have my info from. I do admit that when answering a person who should know me I may neglect to say it so... I have rated my ability by my avitar.

We have to remember that yes this is a social place but it is an information place first! Giving bad info isn't a good thing.... Taking bad info can be a harmful thing!

Jay

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A Bonsai student living with his trees at N 44.37 W 77.49...
Think before you act... then think again... no good comes from rushing

grampz

This is all very true, and something all should keep in mind when they post to threads or get advice from threads...

I would like to say though, I think the general quality of information gleened from this forum far exceeds many of the others I have visited...This forum seems to have a more experienced group of members in general...Too many bonsai forums have a large group of members that seem to only be interested in getting a large number of posts, without actually contributing to the thread, nor any concern about the validity of what they say...

I know I am certainly glad I found this forum...I checked it out every day for quite some time before registering...I must say I am really impressed with the over-all quality of posts here...Still when I read something I haven't heard of before, I try to find more info on it before I subject any of my plants...

I agree if one has back-up info on what advice they give, they should include it in their posts...It is always better to check as many references as possible...

Keep up the great effort to make this the 'best of the best' among bonsai forums...it is working...

Regards,
Behr

David Chauvin

LivingArt,

"here's my thoughts for you. make something more interesting then all the formal upright trunk chopped cypress that are so "in". try something more creative with some saplings. bsf has some great bald cypress photos in nature."

Not necessarily bad advice, but perhaps jaded. To label all formal upright bald cypress as less interesting is thoughtless. The fantastic cypress on the BSF site are but one example of the many forms growing across the southern U.S.

The point of the post was to have people put some thought and give rationale for their opinions and advice. I will try to do the same.

Best Regards,

David

__________________
"With the death of the Shamen, artists are the last interpreters of the Divine." Joseph Campbell

LivingArt

you're right, i'll try to be less opinionative in the feature. i tend to want to push my views to hard sometimes.
this has helped a lot thanks David
la

David Chauvin

la,

Being opinionated is not a bad thing. Push your views! I only ask that you give reasons for your thoughts so maybe we can all learn something here. How can we tell if ideas have merit if no justification is given.

Best regards,

David

__________________
"With the death of the Shamen, artists are the last interpreters of the Divine." Joseph Campbell