if the reason a person became interested in bonsai and creating bonsai is to be praised for thier efforts then perhaps thats why they lack vision. i find bonsai to be very interesting and rewarding and i don't feel any urgency to be praised. i'd rather learn than be praised for not learning.

This is a very good point and it is true. That being said, we do come to bonsai for enjoyment and it should be enjoyable both in itself and in the learning process. After all, it's not the Royal Marines.

Again, a very good point.

This is absolutely true. All people are different and respond differently. It's a reason that we can't really take a blanket approach to teaching but have to adapt our approach appropriately.

I think this is an excellent point. I hadn't considered that the search for praise might be a motive for going into bonsai. If it's true, it might well go some way to explaining why some people do choose to post mediocre trees, and then get offended over-quickly when praise is not immediately forthcoming.

Mr. Glider, or Ms. whatever the case may be. I have no idea how my editorial veered off into educating and teaching. This thread had nothing to do with that. What this thread has to do with is defensiveness when posting a less than good tree. I did not say less than perfect, less than good. Thats a pretty low bar.

On post no. 14 John, (Vonsgarden) challenged your education. It was not hard to see thru your response. It was defensive, filled with more words than a pocket dictionary and finished off with your resume. Reminiscent of some other chaps on the internet.

The positive, At least you have an education in words and that makes you pretty damn well equipped to handle most of the intelligent stuff around here.

The negative, Well this is a bonsai discussion page. I get pretty damn peeved when someone posts a tree and askes for some advice and when they get it, if it's not what they want to hear, they start getting their panties all in a bunch. It's time to sack up and take reality by the horns. If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, then it might just be a duck.

I looked everywhere, I seen in your bio that you have been in bonsai twenty years. I have seen no trees. I might ask you to post some here. I will give you my honest appraisal of what I think of them. You can weigh that against everything I have ever posted here and elsewhere. I might also say that you can weigh what others have to say based on their own body of work. You choose what you wish to embrace or dismiss based on what your peers have to say.

I might also like to add a question. Did you aquire your education via the internet? It is a very poor place in which to recieve an education in my experience. I would just as soon let someone know their tree is not as good as it could be and let them seek out their own education in making it better. There are better ways to do that other than here. I submitt a club would be a good place to start. I actively teach in two clubs at the present. Too bad that most do not actually wish to do what is necessary to improve their tree.

Everybody thinks they know it all!

Best in bonsai, Al

My name is Dave.

I agree, less than good is a pretty low bar. But ‘ideal’ (the word you used) means ‘most suitable’ or ‘perfect’, not just good. I agree also with the principle you highlight. I have noticed it too and I have never disagreed with those who have commented on it. The thread veered off after I made a simple observation on the fact that there are more and less effective ways of correcting a person’s attempts to do something.

I don’t think he did challenge my education. I think his response to my observation was simply abrasive and dismissive:

“ Seligman 75, huh? Is there a complete refrence? Or is this out of a thesis and quoted thusly? This should bring on a spathe of pseudointellectual babble about teaching methods and approaches from a psychosial perspective.”.

He presented his own evidence of teaching (which is fair enough. Evidence is good).

“I trained graduate students (and a bunch of undergraduate research students)for a long time.”.

My response was not defensive, although I will admit to being a little annoyed. Is that unreasonable? My response was to post evidence that I too was in a position to know what I was talking about with respect to teaching and so not deserving of such a dismissive response. It is also evidence that my observation was neither based on, nor likely to generate “pseudo-intellectual babble”. Why should I expect anybody to take my word if I can’t provide such evidence?

You responded to this with sarcasm (which also misrepresented my point entirely):

“ Thanks glider for the clarification. I understand now how important it is to let someone know how much I appreciate the effort they went to, to make a less than ideal bonsai according to principles laid down for centuries.”

And John, with a veiled insult to my discipline:

“ Glider, I won't go into the issues I have with the "soft" sciences, that is for another forum. Economy of bandwidth and all”.

Thank you, although my education does extend beyond words.

As I have said, I do understand your point, and I agree broadly. I just made the observation that there are different methods of dealing with it.

I think it’s good that you like to base what people have to say on the evidence of their own body of work. However, I do think it strange then that when I presented my body of work as evidence in support of what I have to say, it was classed as defensive and transparent. I don’t think my posting pictures of bonsai would support anything I have to say on the subject of teaching.

I readily admit that I haven’t a single tree in my new collection that is yet worth posting on these forums (although we are working on it), but neither have I ever put myself forward as anything approaching a bonsai master. I have absolutely no issue with anything you have to say on bonsai, but bonsai is not what this is about. This is about due respect.

As I have said elsewhere, I respect your evident experience in bonsai, and it is clear that you are well respected here. As such, nothing I have presented in this thread was ever written without due respect or with the intent of causing offence. I sincerely wish things hadn’t gone this far. But, when a simple observation posted on this forum is met with such a dismissive and abrasive attitude from senior members, then I think there is an issue and it should be addressed.

You and John don’t know me. I’m just another member, nothing special. I browse the posts, and post now and again. I enjoy browsing the forums and I learn things here and there from listening to (reading) them. I try not to post beyond my ability or knowledge.

I made one short observation on the fact that there are different approaches to teaching and it was abrasively dismissed out of hand. As I say, you don’t know me and I am not a ‘known name’ in bonsai, but does that mean I deserve to be dismissed?

Given that you don’t know me, I presented evidence that I am qualified to make such an observation. This was met with sarcasm from you and (veiled) insult from John. Is this how ‘unknowns’ are treated here? If a poster is not a ‘known name’ in bonsai then they have nothing of value to say and so it is acceptable to deride their veiws?

I chose not to respond in kind, rather I chose to take the time to try and present a reasoned and structured case in support of my argument. This has been completely ignored and I am challenged to present a photograph of one of my bonsai?

Why is it so hard for you to accept that there might be people who are equally as qualified as you (although not in your field) and who might actually have something pertinent to say and some sound basis for saying it? Why, when they say it, do you consider sarcasm and dismissal an appropriate response? Are these things an appropriate response to anybody’s post if their post is not, in itself, unreasonable or abusive?

This is not about bonsai. This is about how you choose to treat people here. For the most part, you aren’t going to know who is posting, but that doesn’t matter. You can assume that the one posting is a person, and if what a person posts is not unreasonable or abusive, then they have a right to be treated with some basic courtesy. This applies to anybody who posts. It doesn’t matter who they are or what they do.

I don’t believe an expertise in bonsai in any way gives anybody an automatic right to treat other people’s views with contempt, regardless of the other's status in bonsai and particularly if they can demonstrate some expertise in the area on which they are commenting. I doubt very much whether John or yourself would treat people so abrasively face to face, so I don’t see why you would consider it acceptable here.

From reading other things you have written, I had you pegged as a much better person than that. Was I that wrong?

Did you intend this as a genuine question, or as further insult? It really is hard to tell in forums sometimes.

For the sake of diplomacy, I will treat it as a genuine question. No, I didn’t receive my education on the internet. Some time after leaving the Army I found I was going nowhere, so I attended night school for two years to gain the A-Levels that would allow me access to higher education. After that I attended University for 3 years to gain my B.Sc., and then attended University again for another 6 years to gain my Ph.D..

I doubt that, but you have to accept that some might know what they are talking about.

As I say, I sincerely wish things hadn’t gone this far, but I think that when senior members of a forum begin to think they can treat the views of another poster (whoever they may be or however junior) with contempt, then I feel it needs to be addressed, there and then.

As a teacher, I know that a teacher should never expect blind respect from their students simply by virtue of being a teacher (nor should students blindly give it). Respect always has to be earned and it is not earned by treating the views of students with contempt.

Wow,
I go to Europe for a few days and this hasn't gone away. There is nothing thinly veiled about my concern for the soft sciences. I have well founded and experience based concerns, and that is that. Not disparaging of anyone's "discipline" or the Department they and/or their tenure resides in, we work very had to support research activities in this broad cluster of disciplines (that is to fund them). I may be abrasive, I may be direct, that is who I am. I try to keep it underwraps here, but periodically I can't help myself. I just can't help it when someone pulls out an obscure (to everyone but the author or someone in his/her subdiscipline)and in this case, not easily found, wrong year, reference to add the weight of intellectual superiority to the conversation.

Al brings up a point- show us your trees. We might be a bit sensitive- we have had a great promulgator of bandwidth who in the end had no trees. Show us your trees, we need soneone else with your yeasr of experience to be posting quality trees.

John

(Glider, London was very, very nice today. Would have been a good day to cancel class and play hookie, at least for a while, I had to work.)

Valuehorse,

My experience and observation suggest that the vast majority of folks who express an interest in Bonsai and then try to work on a tree or two, without help from experienced folks, leave it behind within a couple of months.

Technique is the way to developing trees that have merit. Yes excellent material helps, but I have seen any number of superb Juniper (and mugo pine) bonsai that come out of nursery cans- and there are many, many, many more out there. A pathetic effort that is discussed in private in person can save someone from having their work criticized in public, however when someone posts and asks- what do you want an honest answer? A that is a really great effort, but answer?, or this doesn't work because answer?

Al hs asked a fair set of questions and hopefully noone feels like their Ox has been gored to badly.

John

Forgive me, but I just don’t think ‘that is who I am’ is a good reason for treating people with discourtesy. It’s fine amongst people who know you; friends and family and so-on, but new people coming here will have no reason to know that is who you are and just as little reason to accept being on the sharp end of it.

We have to realise this is a public forum when we post, we could be talking to anybody. I think a youngster, new to the art and all bouncing with enthusiasm, but less able (or willing) to defend him or herself would have been badly discouraged by such responses from senior practitioners of the art. I just don’t think it’s a good introduction for them, or an effective way of promoting bonsai in general.

That being said, I do take your point and I do appreciate that at times you may not be able to help it. We all have foibles and flaws (it’s fair for me to assume that my own must be just as apparent).

Presenting in-text citations is just a habit. It stems from the fact that most of the forums in which I participate are science forums and most of the writing I do is academic. It is standard form for supporting an argument and its purpose is to add the weight of evidence, not ‘intellectual superiority’, and should only be taken as such. The wrong year, as I said, was a typo (6 & 7 being next to each other) for which I have already apologised.

Well, if you have had bad experiences in the past, I can understand your reservations. As I said in my previous post, I have nothing in my new collection that qualifies as a ‘quality tree’, although, as I said, we are working on it (for the most part, I’m currently at the trunk-development stage). But if it’s just evidence that I have trees you’re asking for, then I’m happy to oblige. The caveat is that my ownership (or otherwise) of trees and their current state or quality is irrelevant to anything I have said in this thread. Is that acceptable?

I shall take some pictures of the handkerchief sized patch of mud I euphemistically call ‘my garden’ later today. Can you tell me how I can post these pictures? I can’t seem to find out how the thumbnail feature works.


PS. As for ‘soft science’, the term is a colloquial one more often used derisively and as a pejorative (so you can understand why I might be sensitive to it?). Science is a method (neither ‘hard’ nor ‘soft’) and where the method is applied appropriately (i.e. the process of hypothesis testing based on quantitative analyses of reproducible experimental data producing reliable results), it is just science. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding coming from a lack of familiarity with current research areas in psychology?


Yes, it was a really good day (yesterday). Unfortunately I had to sit a conferment board so I was left looking at the sunshine over a pile of papers through an office window *sigh*.

Glider,
sorry to hear you couldn't get outside, it was nice. In western Denmark today doing university visits, was cool and windy, sigh. Work with a couple of other folks tomorrow (predicted cooler and windier) and then over to Brussels on Friday.

Cool and windy. Bummer. Ah, well, it must still be nice to get out and about to such places.

As you asked, I took some pictures of my trees which I've posted in the 'my growing area, section of the gallery. There are 47 in all, all in different stages of development. As you can probably see, most are still in the trunk development stage. The larger trident (the first tree in my new bunch, and the longest in the ground before moving house) is nearly ready to begin branch formation.

All bar one of these are my new collection, and most of the maples I have grown from 1 year old seedlings. Only the English elm survived from my original collection. All (bar five) of the azaleas I got this year from a specialist rhododendrom nursery in Surrey and are cutting ranging from 1 to 3 years old (they'll go in long-pots in the spring to grow on).

If there's any of them you'd like a closer look at, let me know.