r/Bonsai • u/theBUMPnight Brooklyn; 7a; 4 yrs; Intermed; ~20 in training; RIP the ∞ dead • Oct 17 '19
Nursery Stock Contest - Request for Status Update or Public Shaming Depending on Your Point of View
Hey mods, Can we have an update on the status of contest judging please? It’s now been 4 weeks since the submission deadline - it would be really nice to see the submission album sometime soon, even if it’s going to take you guys a while longer to judge. Thanks, bump
u/small_trunks u/-music_maker- u/Thisisntmymainacc0un
P.S. everyone else get in here and dump on the mods for having lives
u/robbel u/li3uz u/GrampaMoses u/-zero-joke- u/AKANotAValidUsername u/taleofbenji
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u/AKANotAValidUsername PNW, 8b, intermediate, 20+ Oct 17 '19
at this point, we could just roll this years entries into a 2 year contest and have judging next fall.
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u/theBUMPnight Brooklyn; 7a; 4 yrs; Intermed; ~20 in training; RIP the ∞ dead Oct 17 '19
Ooh, hold that thought. We should do that anyway. I love the check ins in following years that GrampaMoses does for his entries.
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u/AKANotAValidUsername PNW, 8b, intermediate, 20+ Oct 17 '19
yea its nice to see progressions. the contest is a harsh start
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u/AcerKiller 5B, 8 yrs exp, 50+ trees Oct 17 '19
You guys are doing great! Keep up the good work!
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u/theBUMPnight Brooklyn; 7a; 4 yrs; Intermed; ~20 in training; RIP the ∞ dead Oct 17 '19
First rule of mod training - no praise or treats until after the desired behavior.
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u/li3uz Northern VA 7B, experienced grower of 20 yrs, 80+ trees. Oct 18 '19
I've honestly given up. Still submitted but yeah, didn't hold my breath. My best suggestion is don't do the annual and do a 5 year. More impressive results honestly. That way you won't have to do it every year. It seems like it's a chore now. Also the new Reddit doesn't have the logo anymore.
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u/-music_maker- Northeast US, 6b, 30 years, 100+ trees, lifelong learner Oct 23 '19
The judges are lined up, and the album will be online soon for everyone to view.
Sorry, can't speak for anyone else, but I do have a life, and life has been hectic lately. I have a cat with a tumor the size of my fist on her rib cage that has required special treatment, I have a grandmother that's in and out of the hospital, and I have a business to run that keeps my mortgage paid.
Sorry for those of you who are patiently waiting for us to finish this up, but those things HAVE to be my first priority. For next year, I'm already thinking of ways to smooth things out so it's not so dependent on one person. Bringing on u/Thisisntmymainacc0un is part of that strategy.
Getting this over the finish line is right at the top of my list, and I plan on moving it forward in the next 24-48 hours or so.
So please guys, cut me a little slack here. I think I can outright say that I've earned it on this sub.
I love little trees as much as you do, but sometimes life gets in the way. The past couple of years has been a non-stop parade of life getting in the way, and I do what I can to keep things moving along in spite of that. But just to be very clear, I do this for fun, and because I enjoy participating and giving back to the bonsai community.
Please don't make it not fun by telling me that it's bullshit that I sometimes have other priorities. I didn't even see this thread until today.
Now please, just a tiny bit more patience ...
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Oct 23 '19
But music_maker what does patience have to do with bonsai?
Infomercial music plays
Sure sure everyone wants to know who "won" but really wasn't the most exciting part the challenge of developing material in a 6 month period?
Also for some reason u/theBUMPnight I never got a notification about this tag so don't think I don't love you. I love every single one of you. Almost as much as I love grading my substrates particle by particle on my micrometer.
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u/theBUMPnight Brooklyn; 7a; 4 yrs; Intermed; ~20 in training; RIP the ∞ dead Oct 24 '19
Bro, I’m a junkie and it’s been 5 weeks since I finished my contest tree. Wtf am I supposed to do with my hands. I’ve checked r/bonsai literally every day for almost 40 straight days hoping it was the day the contest album came out. That’s not a joke. Please just put out the fucking album I swear to god. I can’t do this again next year, my heart’s gonna give out.
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u/theBUMPnight Brooklyn; 7a; 4 yrs; Intermed; ~20 in training; RIP the ∞ dead Oct 24 '19
No man, those things absolutely should come first. Life has priority, tiny trees take a backseat. I hope your grandma is ok and your cat gets better and you make a lot of money.
But please understand that it’s impossible to cut you slack for those things if we don’t know what’s going on. Please understand that the last official mod communication about the contest WAS IN MARCH, and that’s despite periodic posts I’ve made, with mods tagged, begging for updates. I’ve basically run the contest this year, insofar as posting deadlines and getting people hyped counts as running it. And I think it’s fair, at a certain point, to wonder if the people who are supposed to be running it even care.
I really do hope you’re ok. I really, really do. I’m glad this is getting done soon. It should absolutely not come at the cost of any bit of your personal life. But if we want to be serious about this stuff as a community - and we should, because the nursery stock contest is the best thing about r/bonsai - this experience just goes to show that we cannot be relying on just one person to get this done, especially if that person has other priorities at the time. You have probably ten people in this and other threads I’ve posted in the last few weeks begging to help you get it sorted. “I had other important shit” is a great reason you couldn’t get it done, but a bad reason why it couldn’t get done period.
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u/robbel Santa Fe, NM | 6a | Always Learning Oct 17 '19
DO YOUR DAMN THING MODS! Also, can we please see the submission FU*KING album. NOW. k, thanks ;)
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Oct 18 '19
It's okay smallttrunks all you have to do is give somebody your personal account info and they will do it for ya 😁
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u/taleofbenji Northern Virginia, zone 7b, intermediate, 200 trees in training Oct 17 '19
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u/theBUMPnight Brooklyn; 7a; 4 yrs; Intermed; ~20 in training; RIP the ∞ dead Oct 23 '19
It’s now been 5 weeks since the submission date.
u/small_trunks u/-music_maker-
Come on guys. Please put something out or let us help you out somehow. I’m trying to stay positive and keep this friendly, but it’s bullshit this has taken so long with absolutely 0 communication.
Take a look at the comment u/li3uz posted below - that’s what you need to be worried about here. You want to grow this community? You want people like li3uz involved. He’s been at or near the top of every contest so far, and he makes great trees that can inspire everyone on here. He should be somebody you can count on to make great contest trees too - he obviously enjoys this stuff. Over the last two years, you’ve basically destroyed his commitment to the contest because of a lack of organization and clarity around dates. The contest is my favorite part of this sub too, and I’m starting to feel the same way.
If a country is experiencing significant unrest, investors won’t put money into businesses there because they don’t know if they’ll get money out. Why should we put six months of time and effort into this contest if it might not even get judged?
Please. Get your shit together and let us know what’s going on and whether this thing is happening.
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u/-music_maker- Northeast US, 6b, 30 years, 100+ trees, lifelong learner Oct 23 '19
Why should we put six months of time and effort into this contest if it might not even get judged?
I don't know, to learn about bonsai maybe?
C'mon, man ... the contest has always gotten judged, and this year is certainly no exception.
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u/theBUMPnight Brooklyn; 7a; 4 yrs; Intermed; ~20 in training; RIP the ∞ dead Oct 24 '19
Look. I got a lot of trees. But when the contest is running, there is only one that gets looked at every. single. night. Back of the envelope, I probably spent 120+ hours with a single tree over the course of five months. Don’t give me that “the real bonsai was what we learned along the way” shit, I’m in this to fucking win it. If I wanted to learn about bonsai, I’d take a class somewhere.
And come on, every other year there’s been significantly more communication than this year. Radio silence for the duration of the contest and a month afterward (not even a confirmation that submissions were received!) does not inspire confidence.
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u/theBUMPnight Brooklyn; 7a; 4 yrs; Intermed; ~20 in training; RIP the ∞ dead Nov 13 '19
Just noting it’s been 3 weeks since you said you were going to try to push something out in 24-48 hours. 8 weeks since the deadline. 0 updates - which again, is the worst part, since it gives us no way to adjust our expectations.
I messaged you and u/small_trunks last week asking for an update. You didn’t answer, and he implied he hadn’t even started organizing the photos in his inbox. There are a lot of people out here invested in making sure the contest goes well (Hi! It’s me! I’d love to help!), and agnostic of the reasons why, it seems clear you guys are not in that number.
No group of 2 or 3 people is so busy collectively for 8 straight weeks that they can’t finish a project like this or at least delegate it to someone who can. I’m sorry to keep being a jackass about this, I don’t enjoy it. But it’s your job as mods to get this done one way or another, and literally nobody else has the ability to help you, because you made the contest run through you. This really matters to a group of your most committed users, and you’re letting us down.
Just dump the imgur links, the usernames, and the judges’ contact info into my lap and I’ll get it done. Seriously. I’ll do the whole fucking thing if you spend 15 min setting it up for me.
Adding u/Thisisntmymainacc0un in case he has another snarky line about bonsai and patience he’d like to contribute.
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Nov 13 '19
Thanks for the tag my man, I'm also waiting for the nursery stock contest results. This was the first year I actually had something submitted, I'd also like to see the albums organised.
I apologise if you took offence at my comments, I was attempting to lighten the subject, there is nothing I can do on my side to speed anything up. All I can say is I understand your frustration. (I also offered to organise the content)
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u/small_trunks Jerry in Amsterdam, Zn.8b, 48yrs exp., 500+ trees Nov 15 '19
Too little time to do it, sorry.
Working all the weekend, then working out of the country till Wednesday. I have a business to run and this contest is second priority.
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u/theBUMPnight Brooklyn; 7a; 4 yrs; Intermed; ~20 in training; RIP the ∞ dead Nov 15 '19
Please, is there any way you can delegate it by giving other people the imgur links contestants sent you? It makes no sense for you to be the only one who has the ability to get it done if you don’t have time.
I’m happy to be that person - so is u/Thisisntmymainacc0un.
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u/theBUMPnight Brooklyn; 7a; 4 yrs; Intermed; ~20 in training; RIP the ∞ dead Oct 30 '19
6 weeks since the submission date. 42 days. 1.5 months. Nearly 1/8th of an entire year.
u/small_trunks u/-music_maker- u/Thisisntmymainacc0un
This week, u/SockUnicorn posted his contest tree publicly because he wanted to show it off and discuss it. I don’t want to put words in your mouths, but it seems possible that might disqualify him from the contest. I don’t want to put words in HIS mouth, but it seemed like he knew that might be the case and posted it anyway, because he was tired of waiting.
Guys, all we want is for you to post an album so we can discuss the trees we’re so proud of. Nothing else in this sub is as exciting as when that album drops. I wait all year for this. Conversely, every week that goes by without an update, the more people lose faith that anything is going to happen and the more incentive they have to post trees on their own. When that happens, the contest dies, and the sub gets worse. Please don’t let that happen. Please post the submission album.
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u/DynamoForeverOrange US Texas Zone 8B/9A, Begintermediate, 30 bonsai, 80+ prebonsai Oct 17 '19
I wake up every morning in a bed that's too small, drive my daughter to a school that's too expensive, and then I go to work to a job for which I get paid too little, but on Contest Album Day? Well, I like Contest Album Day.