Bombay High
Contributor
. ...... or been divers for years, and bounces along the bottom on the reef .
Sounds like me
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
. ...... or been divers for years, and bounces along the bottom on the reef .
See - a smiley so you know I'm just having a little fun and not being a meanie-beanie! Kumbayah, and all that!
It was more hostile than it needed to be, but I don't think we could ever be considered "very hostile". That would be rec.scuba and even the deco stop. We've had our POV warriors from time to time, but name calling has always been against the ToS. Of course, some thin skinned folk take that to the extreme but we will always have those. It's a fine line to be friendly without becoming irrelevant. Disagreements, sometimes even sharp disagreements are what fuels our forum. If everyone thought and dove the same, there would be very little need for ScubaBoard. Sometimes people express their opinion of the person rather than the idea and that's when the ToS is usually crossed. Again, some people feel that any criticism is against the ToS (especially when it comes from me ) and that's just silly.Someone posted in this thread that Scuba Board used to be a very hostile forum,
Matt, sometimes it's a matter of perception ... in fact, I'd say more often than not. Some of us like to tease people ... especially people we like. If our comments are aimed at someone we know, they usually know how to take it, and often respond in kind. To an outside observer it may look like hostility ... particularly on internet conversation where tone and body language are missing. To someone new to the forum, what's also missing is context ... and so comments that are meant to be joking or teasing are often mistaken for something they are not meant to be.Your point, I suppose, being that posts which are not mean are mis-interpreted as mean by the reader?
Someone posted in this thread that Scuba Board used to be a very hostile forum, that the current SB members are pussy cats by comparison. While I'm sure that's true, I think that there is still quite a bit of hostility and arrogance disguised as humor and sarcasm.
I think Scuba Board is a fabulous forum, by the way. It's just that the few people who are condescendingly sarcastic could be nicer, that's all.
And I've always wondered why some people think it's okay to be that way, and why others reading their posts give them a thumbs up. It's always the same people posting the denigrating remarks and the same people giving them the thumbs up.
Ah, that's one of those useless cliches that comes up here way too often ... very similar in fact to the "Do a search" thing you mentioned in another thread. But it isn't just aimed at the inexperienced ... I used to get that one regularly before I turned off my Posts display ... and I have over 3,000 dives. But I've been here 10 years, and have averaged about 3,000 posts per year. Comparing number of posts to number of dives is silly ... I've already got a half-dozen posts just this morning ... and I ain't even had breakfast yet.For those who have cast aspersions on my lack of experience, I would have to agree with you. Someone said I've got more than 10 times more posts on SB than actual dives. Perhaps an even more telling statistic, I just realized yesterday, is that I've read almost as many books about scuba diving as the number of dives I've done.
We're a big community, Matt ... most will welcome you, some won't. That's true for all of us. Again, the nature of the Internet is such that there will always be a vocal few who come to these forums specifically to get a rise out of people. If you take their bait, they'll target you specifically ... not because they don't like you, but because you are providing them the "entertainment" they came here for. That's true no matter what forum you go to ... and the bigger the forum the more likely you're going to be to run into those people. Don't feed the trolls ... if you do, they keep coming back for more ... if you don't, they eventually wander off in search of someone else who will.I've thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the nice people on Scuba Board. I hope that I will continue to be welcome here. I hope that my expressed concerns about negativity do not make me a persona non grata here.
And hopefully in the interim you'll have picked up on something here that will help you have an even better time ... that's what most new divers come here looking for, after all ...In 3 weeks I go on my third scuba trip. Counting down the days!
It was more hostile than it needed to be, but I don't think we could ever be considered "very hostile". That would be rec.scuba and even the deco stop. We've had our POV warriors from time to time, but name calling has always been against the ToS. Of course, some thin skinned folk take that to the extreme but we will always have those. It's a fine line to be friendly without becoming irrelevant. Disagreements, sometimes even sharp disagreements are what fuels our forum. If everyone thought and dove the same, there would be very little need for ScubaBoard. Sometimes people express their opinion of the person rather than the idea and that's when the ToS is usually crossed. Again, some people feel that any criticism is against the ToS (especially when it comes from me ) and that's just silly.
And there are a few idealists who are bitter that the world doesn't match their nirvana and see internet forums as places to complain about how nothing is perfect even though in their minds everything [-]should[/-] used to be.
Talk about being out of touch with reality... I am not wearing a Santa Suit. However, sometimes Santa wears a NetDoc Suit. Stop embarrassing yourself by posting such stupidity! (I probably didn't even need the smileys here, but it's safer that way!)ditch the Santa suit. It's mid-March