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Bonsai Sites

Why reinvent the Wheel? After cruising hundreds of bonsai sites to consider listing them here, I have decided to lead you to one of the best sites to go to other sites. This a wonderful link to links, click the link below to go directly to the site. Enjoy!

Newsgroups

The most sophisticated online group in bonsai today is the Internet Bonsai Club. This is a group of dedicated internetters that read and post articles every day to the Internet Bonsai Club Mail List. The mail list is very fast. Within seconds, what you have written will appear as e mail messages to all the members. This is an active group, especially the Main Gallery where images of bonsai are displayed and discussed. They answer beginner questions, share information, post in depth articles, maintain an FAQ, wrangle endlessly over styling issues, shoot down cultural myths, and in general, have a great time. This is a very polite and caring group, so, if you want the usual 'flame' action of newsgroups, you will have to go elsewhere. For information on how to sign up for the mailing list or the newsgroup, just go to the IBC home page above and click on ABOUT.

You can also join in the action by subscribing to the bonsai newsgroup, rec.art.bonsai. This is a bulletin board and you can read or browse at leisure, and respond or post an article using your internet browser. The IBC mail list is fully gatewayed to the IBC's rec.arts.bonsai, so anything posted to the mail list will appear on RAB and vice versa. This provides another way of reading all the action of the IBC without getting all that email every day. However, there are sometimes gateway problems and you are subject to spam trollers if you use this method.

Another online bonsai group is the Garden Web Bonsai Forum. This group is not as active as the IBC, and has declined dramatically in the last few years due to overly aggressive ad support. The other sites here are much better than this one.

The most active bonsai forum today is bonsaiTALK. There are many forum categories here that can be overwhelming. General Forum is the most obvious place to start. Once you are familiar with the layout, just use the New Posts button to find all the latest posts since your last visit. This site is a bit more lively than the IBC and there are some interesting flame wars at times, but there are moderators to keep things in check. The ability to post pictures with the text easily is a real attraction here.

A forum populated by mostly young beginners is BonsaiSite. This group is often sorely in need of expert advice, but there is a commraderie of the young clearly present here. It attracts very many new bonsai owners. It also has the ability to accept photos and text.

A relatively new but promising forum is BonsaiNut. Discussions here are usually on a more advanced level. There is much less chit chat and frivolous posting. It is currently my favorite site.

Bonsai Chat

Bonsai chat is a wonderful way to 'meet' other bonsai folk. This lively group meets every week. To join in just follow the instructions below from our bonsai chat master Jim Harwood:

"Every Monday night there is a chat room open on the "#bonsai" channel at 8:00 PM eastern time or 0100 coordinated universal time (on Tuesday). You should be able to get there from one the six "StarChat" servers that are listed. There are usually about a dozen participants each night and it is most informative. If you haven't been here, I strongly urge you to check it out; I think you will be pleasantly surprised."

For more information or problems accessing the group go to the IBC Site and click on ABOUT and then CHAT.

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