Talk:Deadwood bonsai techniques

Refimprove

The article needs additional citations that are verifiable and reliable. The current references are mostly to websites that have little or no authority. Anyone can make a website and put false information in there. Try print works that have been published. --Rkitko ^(talk) 12:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I have added a few print references. I believe the web-linked references carry reliable information (that is, they are saying the same thing as the books I'm referencing) but perhaps it would be appropriate to remove some / all of them and replace them with links to the same information in books. I'm not sure whether that would be considered the proper WP approach, so I will leave all the web-linked references in place for the time being - feel free to suggest otherwise, however. Sahara110 (talk) 23:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. We need to work toward improving the sources to WP:RS guidelines.

Regardless of the format of the references (web or book), which authors/publishers are authoritative, or are known to have a "a reliable publication process?"

Providing full citation information would also help others assist. --Ronz (talk) 17:48, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

With regards to authority, you've raised a tough question for this particular subject area. Bonsai resources (whether paper-published or web-written) are tricky to evaluate, in part because the practice of bonsai combines a concrete set of horticultural practices on the one hand, with an ambiguous or sometimes opaque aesthetic component on the other. The horticultural technology is beneath the dignity of the artists to research or elaborate, and the aesthetic element is near-invisible to the scientific horticulturists. You need reliable information from both teams, however, to understand bonsai in practice and as an art form.

I work under the quasi-rule that if five to ten written bonsai books agree on a definition, a tool, a technique - then it's WP material. But I don't think I can make a very strong case for the "authoritative publisher" or "authoritative writer" in this subject area. This rule has held back some interesting but possibly non-WP-conforming material, such as the practical and aesthetic discussion of bonsai pots, for which I have only a couple of strong (in my subjective evaluation) sources. Frustrating as this situation may sometimes feel, I don't think the rule has harmed the bonsai-related articles very much. If we cannot use reproducible results as a benchmark, strong consensus among published authors may be an adequate substitute.

I will be glad to provide a fuller set of books as sources in this article, though, as your point about helping others assist is compelling. Sahara110 (talk) 21:09, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

That's actually very helpful from my perspective. It looks like we're discussing an art that isn't well-documented. We do the best we can...

It would be helpful to find some Wikiprojects that would apply to bonsai or to similar arts to see what good article criteria might apply. I'm not finding any that are an obvious fit at the moment. Maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject Arts --Ronz (talk) 00:55, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I've added several new references to printed resources - I'll have to leave the larger questions for later. Sahara110 (talk) 03:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

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Propose change or removal of recent edit introducing chrysanthemum species without reference to Deadwood bonsai techniques

An editor (User:Gryffindor) recently updated this article with a paragraph and photograph introducing the idea of chrysanthemum bonsai:

Bonsai chrysanthemum

"A form of bonsai chrysanthemum also exists, called mum. The cultivated flower has a life-span of about three to four years and can be kept in miniature size. The method is to use pieces of dead wood and the flower grows over the back along the wood to give the illusion from the front that the miniature tree blooms."

Roughly the same material has been introduced elsewhere in Wikipedia. In Chrysanthemum we find:

[Revision as of 10:36, 23 January 2018|https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chrysanthemum&oldid=821916664] from User:Gryffindor

"In Japan a form of bonsai chrysanthemum was developed over the centuries. The cultivated flower has a life-span of about five years and can be kept in miniature size. Another method is to use pieces of dead wood and the flower grows over the back along the wood to give the illusion from the front that the miniature tree blooms."

Note: The same photo with a slightly different caption also appears in the same edit.

The reference in the Chrysanthemum article may be a suitable place to make this observation. It does not seem on its face to be appropriate to the Deadwood Techniques article, however, at least not where it's currently placed.

• None of the Deadwood Techniques contents introduce particular species (with the well-explained exception of juniper in the section on tanuki). This edit seems to exist mainly to introduce the chrysanthemum as a bonsai subject, not to address Deadwood Techniques.

• If the edit was made to introduce a species or related group of plants as potential bonsai, it should be noted that chrysanthemum is a short-lived subshrub like thyme. As such, it is too far removed from the bonsai ideal of a tree in miniature to be accepted in major Japanese bonsai competitions, notwithstanding its appearance in the chrysanthemum flower displays at Nagoya Castle. The Asteraceae (chrysanthemum) flowering plants are nevertheless noted in List of species used in bonsai, so the fact that they are associated with bonsai can be seen there and may not need to be repeated under Deadwood Techniques.

• Most of the other photos in the Deadwood Techniques article reference and illustrate a specific deadwood technique. This photo does not, so it does not seem to contribute to the article's discussion.

• If this material on Chrysanthemum bonsai is meant as an example of a tanuki, then it is incorrectly placed in the article. The tanuki section is a few paragraphs below. This material may in fact be unnecessary, as it seems to introduce no new information about tanuki (or any other deadwood techniques).

I propose removing the text and photo from the Deadwood Techniques article, and leaving the related material in the Chrysanthemum article where it seems to fit. An alternative may be for an editor to find the right place in the Deadwood Techniques article for this material and perhaps rewrite it a bit so that it seems more relevant to the topic of the article. I will contact the editor involved once this posting is up.

Sahara110 (talk) 22:32, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

And, has anything been discussed or changed in the meantime? Where should this image be placed since clearly this technique exists? Gryffindor (talk) 16:11, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Gryffindor, the discussion preceding your comment does appear to explain why "Chrysanthemum bonsai" does not have a place in the "Deadwood bonsai techniques" article, barring a possible appearance under "tanuki". Just as tanuki-based potted trees are not likely to appear in Japanese bonsai competitions, tanuki-related techniques are not likely to appear in detail in Wikipedia bonsai articles. They are not representative of the subject at hand, even though they may be related to it in some way, and WP's existing bonsai articles have little room for them. I will try to make these points in more detail below.

Many things related to bonsai have been pruned from WP to support the WP norms and practices. Interesting and truthful content can be left out of the WP bonsai articles because:

• it is too distant from the Japanese practice of bonsai (e.g., "Growing Cannabis Bonsai Trees: Separating Fact From Fiction" Talk:Bonsai#Assorted_other_"bonsai"),
• it is too voluminous to cover in a general-purpose encyclopedia (e.g., "Root growth patterns in Zone 3 bonsai for 23 spp. of circumpolar evergreen"),
• it contains too much "how to" information (e.g., Talk:Bonsai#Concerns_with_"How_to"-ness_of_article),
• it is too poorly referenced (e.g., "Singhalese toilet-planted bamboo tanuki takes bonsai world by storm"),
• and many other good and sufficient reasons.

The WP concept of "notability" constrains every article. Some articles must be removed because the subject itself, or the WP treatment of it, are not notable enough to retain and manage within the WP world. Looking at a more compact scope, every sentence added to an existing WP article has to pass a notability test asking in essence "is this sentence more important than at least some part of the existing article?". Sentences discussing the temporary attachment of short-lived flowering plants to pieces of dead wood (e.g., Chrysanthemum_bonsai} are not likely to be more important to the Bonsai article than, for example, the discussion of real bonsai traditions, culture, and history.

As another WP editor said previously in Talk:Bonsai:

Bonsai as strictly applied in the Japanese use of the term has a fairly strict definition and has been exported worldwide. The positive connotation of the term has led it to being misapplied to other practices that are probably best classified as under a broad aegis of container gardening. . . . Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:09, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Respecting that broad aegis, I suggest that training a flowering vine or houseplant to twine around a piece of driftwood in a pot is more like "container gardening" than "the ancient Japanese tradition of bonsai". Chrysanthemums are not trees, so could not appear as bonsai on their own (again, in the long-standing Japanese tradition). Driftwood, no matter how beautifully carved and chemically bleached, is not bonsai. Putting the two together does not enhance their bonsai nature, but rather, further removes them from the history and tradition of Japanese bonsai.

It's difficult to know why Japanese bonsai artists disrespect carved wooden fakes so much more than (say) American bonsai artists do. The latter have often found aesthetic and commercial justifications for nailing or screwing live trees into Dremel-carved driftwood for decades. But from the standpoint of major Japanese bonsai associations, tanuki are not sufficiently close to the Japanese bonsai ideal to appear in competition or catalogs. Put another way, people stapling live trees to heavily-carved driftwood and other flotsam are not all that near the mainstream of Japanese bonsai tradition, so this WP article has not featured them.

The WP articles describing bonsai are primarily about the Japanese art of bonsai. Chrysanthemums do not feature strongly in the Japanese bonsai tradition, because (i) chrysanthemums are not trees and therefore really miss the basic point of the bonsai traditions, and (ii) tanuki mixed-media carving projects are not bonsai. WP articles are necessarily brief and seek to be authoritative ("WP presents correct content" - and it does) rather than comprehensive ("WP presents all possible knowledge on this subject" - which it does not).

There is little or no space in the WP presentation of Japanese bonsai history and culture for fringe topics (e.g., Bonsai_Kittens) to be given floor space equal to, say, the 20th-century internationalization of bonsai traditions and products (Bonsai#Modern_bonsai) or the role of the traditional Japanese "styles" in bonsai development and appreciation (Bonsai#Bonsai_styles). Not coincidentally, these two sections of the Bonsai article are actually distilled notes from full WP articles for each (History_of_bonsai, Bonsai_styles).

Other bonsai-related subjects have been given their own dedicated articles, for example, Penjing (China), Saikei (Japan), and Hòn Non Bộ (Vietnam). You have yourself generated a relevant article based your interest and research in chrysanthemum tanuki. Your subject is best handled in its own article, as you have now done, and not shoehorned into articles already subject to space and content constraints as they convey the complex topics of the authentic Japanese bonsai tradition.

To sum up, WP now contains good reference articles at an appropriate level of detail and with a sufficient number of acceptable references for almost all aspects of Japanese bonsai, barring perhaps the current slight weakness in description of bonsai containers. I hope to see to see the new chrysanthemum tanuki article become as successful as the existing bonsai articles at some point in the future.

Sahara110 (talk) 21:19, 11 November 2019 (UTC)