What happened to IBC?

[Stan Kengai]

I know things were slow over there, just wondering if this is temporary, glitch, hack or other. It is/was a great place to see work by international artists.

 

[Dav4]

I know things were slow over there, just wondering if this is temporary, glitch, hack or other. It is/was a great place to see work by international artists.

They all blog now. Hans Van Meer may post once or twice a year, as does Tony Tickle and Walter Pall, but that's about it. That's where I used to go for bonsai eye candy, but not so much any more.

 

[KennedyMarx]

I still check the main page, but it seems like it's always people new to bonsai asking questions and getting answers from the two or three posters. The times I've made threads there were very few if any responses so I quit bothering.

 

[coh]

They all blog now. Hans Van Meer may post once or twice a year, as does Tony Tickle and Walter Pall, but that's about it. That's where I used to go for bonsai eye candy, but not so much any more.

Yeah, that seems to be the trend on all forums. I do understand it, as you can post your trees in one place as opposed to 2 or 3 forums. Plus you can control responses, eliminate off topic stuff, personal attacks, etc. There are also a number of facebook groups that have taken some of the forum traffic.

 

[MACH5]

I switched a few years ago from IBC to here. While IBC showcases some top notch work and talent, I felt it was heavily geared towards the European bonsai scene. I wanted something that was more relatable to me as far as contemporary American bonsai. I also did not have the time to manage both sites so I picked one.

 

[Eric Schrader]

I think you might mean "what happened to the internet?" Because forums seem to be in decline generally. There were many bonsai forums that were quite active, not there are few and most are not very active. I'll go out on a limb and blame facebook. But I read an interesting article about internet trolls causing normal users to abandon forums and comments sections.

The older and more seasoned people turn to blogging because it puts them in control of the comments and the level of discourse that they are associated with. Then the forum is just a place to advertise their blog posts.