[grouper52]

I figured the bar was the proper setting to say adios since Paul Rotweiller's thread was closed. Hopefully this one will be closed soon too.

“I really don't see a problem. If someone is going to have trouble dealing with critiques of their trees then why post it?”

“With all due respect, when you post a tree on a public forum, you open it up for comments, critiques, and discussion.”

It is indeed a curious notion that this is what posting trees would necessarily be about on the internet. In my three and a half years here, I only recall asking for styling suggestions or critiques on a handful of occasions, and never for horticultural advice, and only twice that I can recall have there been small bits of feedback that seemed useful to me.

In fact, the Bonsai-Under-Construction description here states specifically; "Post photos of your bonsai under construction here and ask for opinions on styling, or just post recent progress photos." I have always done the latter, and recently made that as clear as I could, to no avail.

I don’t post in order to get praise or criticism, nor do I post in order to solicit advice or virts. I’ve been here a long time, and in a strange way I care about this forum and many of the people here of all levels, new as well as old friends. Because all the more knowledgeable people essentially left years ago, I have found myself in the position of taking a more active role to keep the forum lively and instructive, and in keeping with that role I have spent a great deal of time grooming and photographing and posting and discussing some of my trees for others here to either enjoy, learn from, or find inspiration in. Not to “critique,” i.e. trash. I have also spent countless hours offering my meager knowledge to people who asked. Often the posts were quite lengthy and detailed. I’ve offered an enormous amount of time and effort to the people on this site through my 3622 posts and my galleries. I hope it's done somebody some good.

I would never expect someone who came over to my house, or to a club meeting or show where my trees might be viewed, to offer the sort of “critiques” that people seem to feel free to express over the net. I don’t know if the net breeds or simply attracts the sort of person one finds here making inane comments or hacking up the images someone sought to create with unsolicited virts. One of the worst examples from about a year ago had the recent virt-maker calling a posted photo of mine first “kitsch,” and, when that didn’t raise enough of a response, then “s**t.” When my response mentioned generally having to put up with “twits and nitwits” on the forum, I was then taken to task and almost banned by the site owner, who made it clear to me that the person calling my trees/photos kitsch and s**t was blameless because people are allowed to express themselves on the internet, but that my response was way out of line. Why I only quit for a while after that is beyond me.

So I believe I have been naive. My mistake. The people quoted above are entirely correct, and should serve as examples of internet wisdom for this forum. I'm beginning to see things more clearly now: The internet bonsai scene is a very twisted community, where posted trees should be seen as a source of sport for vandals to disfigure or trash. I get it. There will be a lot more bandwidth available now that I’m not playing along, so everyone else please feel free to post yours and join in the fun.

To my friends, Paul and BD Paul, Joe, Amanda, Bruce, Lonnie - thanks for your warmth and camaraderie. PLEASE don't let me be tempted to ever waste my time here again, but let's stay in touch. My cab's here now - got to go! A Dios - To God.

Will