While I don't want agencies looking up my BC on every dive, I think Dive Ops should be in an advisary capacity, as they some times are, and not allow clearly unqualified diveres to do certain sites, which is the case with some reputable dive ops. Safe, fun diving, not dangerous diving.
Ok, here's the problem, you used the word responsible, not advisory. That makes a huge difference. Yes, they should advise
all divers about any possible hazards that may be encountered at the particular site they are going to dive. That can simply be handled by asking if the diver has ever been to the site before. If not then brief them right then and there. But the dive ops responsibility ends the second they sign the release stating that they were aware of the risks involved. Imo that makes the diver 100% responsible for anything that happens beyond that point, with the exception of things like deliberate unsafe operation of the dive boat etc.
As for log books and certs. Reviewing them may or may not be of use. In my particular case I am VERY at home in the water. I was doing fin pivots within 30 seconds during my OW class even though they had me seriously over weighted. I had no problem what so ever doing any of the skills. But that's because I had spent years in the water snorkeling as a kid, playing with neutral buoyancy, and doing crude free diving using rocks for ballast. Before I took the class I already knew how to control my depth using only my breath, how to remove and clear a mask, etc. But you wouldn't know that from my log book because I didn't have one.
Even now if you look at my log book you might question my level of competency in the water simply because of the number of logged dives I have. However, closer scrutiny will show that of my 23 logged dives, 15 have been to beyond 60 fsw with four of those beyond 100 fsw, two were night dives, two were drift dives, and 18 of them were Nitrox dives. Does this make me an "advanced" diver? Not hardly, even though I have a pretty broad spectrum of diving experiences I still have a very long way to go before I'd consider myself an advanced diver.
However, I do consider myself a fairly competent diver and here's an example why. During the first night dive that my wife and I planned and executed by ourselves we had an incident while taking photos at around 60 fsw. My wife accidently snagged my regulator hose and pulled it right out of my mouth. It wasn't her fault because we were trying to do something that required us to be very close to each other. At the time we were also in close proximity to the reef and I had both hands full with my main light and the camera. When the reg came free she got a face full of bubbles when it free flowed which startled her and completely wiped out her vision for a couple of seconds. There are a lot of people out there that would have freaked out in this situation and probably ended up doing something stupid as a result. We otoh didn't contact the reef in any way or even change depth. We simply resolved the situation and went on about the dive. That's where paying attention to your training pays off. But our logbooks don't reflect that so unless we told you you would never know. My point is that there is only one way you are ever going to actually find that out for sure how competent a diver is in the water and that's to dive with them, or to talk to someone that have dove with them. That's the problem for dive ops in deciding who should and who shouldn't be allowed on a particular dive because logbooks can be dummied up to say whatever someone wants them to say. A diver can have a logbook showing hundreds of dives when in reality they only have a handful. That means that a dive op really has no way of knowing for sure, before they hit the water, if a diver has told them the truth about their abilities or not. And that's why I feel that a dive op can't really be held responsible for a diver getting in over their head, so to speak.
As for the dive ops playing an advisory roll. That would be nice but there is an old proverb that says 'let the buyer beware'. The dive op is out to sell you a dive trip. But it's up to the diver to ask the right questions first though. They and they alone must make the decision if they are comfortable with going ahead with the dive. This is where being an independent diver comes into play. If someone isn't capable of asking the right questions and making their own decisions then maybe we should be questioning whether or not they should be certified divers in the first place.
As for telling a new diver that they can do a dive that is beyond their training, that's fine,
as long as the operator is willing to have a DM or instructor there to closely monitor them and be ready to lend assistance if it's needed. But again, it ultimately comes down to the judgement of the diver as to whether they should go ahead with the dive or not and as to whether they should turn the dive or not. And once again, it all comes back to our training where we were all taught that anybody, for any reason, can end the dive.
