Cave Training and Etiquette Real or Imaginary?

[mdax]

NetDoc, you actively purge reports of crappy instructors on your site. If anyone owns being part of this problem you are front and center.
I chipped in money to help you out when you were sued for telling the truth on this site. Sounds like your hand got burned and you've tossed honesty into the not worth it category. I can't completely blame you, lawyers are expensive and they suck to work with.

I don't owe you or agencies a thing, you can spin under a fabricated system designed to protect instructors and the agency all you want. I am observant enough to not waste my time reporting through a system that is designed to obstruct and impede progress.

You can play verbal judo all day long, the observers to this thread (provided it isn't totally altered by you at some future point) can easily read each of our points and decide who has stronger bias and which they believe.

You wouldn't allow conversations about the incidents I stated.
A minor in peacock: you realize the instructor admitted and then explained this away yes?
Abandoning students: whatever you call the cluster in JB that required edd to save those students, that high quality instructor was not even identified publicly, still teaching...how much editing/deleting of information did you personally do on that one?
Kneeling in cave: I've personally witnessed this event, in fact i witnessed that same very respected instructor telling two young gal students that a 1.6ppo was fine in OG, during a class.

I generally find that people whining about transparency and waiting for the "official report" also want to silence dissent for their own reasons.
Your musings about my motivations belie your lack of reading comprehension. Read my posts, do they really sound like I care about you'all enough to build my ego? Do you sense ANY financial reason for my posts? I have a history of speaking face to face with people and honestly speaking my mind, ask around.
I'm just a non instructor cave diver who views people like you as barriers to real progress.

 

[PfcAJ]

#rekt

 

[kensuf]

Would it be useful to disentangle training from evaluation? If you paid person X ("trainer") to train/mentor you, and person Y ("evaluator") to evaluate your skills (and issue a C-card if you meet standards), it could be easier to avoid a conflict of interest, and everyone would benefit. Trainers would be motivated to make sure their students always pass, or else they would not have students, so they would likely not cut corners. Evaluators would be motivated to uphold high standards, or else they would lose credibility, especially given that while fewer people have a true talent to teach, apparently most people can very easily spot any major deficiencies in training. For the most advanced classes, maybe one should even require more than one evaluator to sign off before a C-card is issued. It seems that a little bit of transparency as to what a student is actually paying for (training or C-card) would go a long way...

The CDAA used to do this for cave training. I don't know if they do anymore or not, but I thought it was a brilliant approach. The other component is the evaluator has to be randomly selected by the agency.

 

[The Chairman]

NetDoc, you actively purge reports of crappy instructors on your site.

That's utter BS. We delete posts for a variety of reasons, but never to protect the instructor. If you want to post like an a-hole your posts are going to disappear. There are a number of complaints all through SB that are written responsibly and without malice, so they remain. It's funny how conspiracy theories are favored over the dull reality that mean people just get moderated. We don't like silt in the forums any more than we like it in the caves.

Sounds like your hand got burned and you've tossed honesty into the not worth it category.

So the rumor mill starts. Some troll makes a public assumption based on their faulty understanding of reality, just like you did. They might even use the word 'honesty' while they present their erroneous assumption like it's gospel, but it's nothing but rumor, innuendo and thinly disguised insults designed to bully their opponent. There's simply no honesty in your attempt to retaliate for what I wrote about you. People who post as irresponsibly as you do are THE problem with the industry and THE problem with the interwebs. Thanks for your financial support but that won't stop me from be completely blunt about this. I guess you got what you paid for, eh? Money has never been my prime motivator and hopefully never will be. I'm not going to be bought by anyone, not even you.

how much editing/deleting of information did you personally do on that one?

I never even read those threads, much less moderated any of them. The moderators very rarely go into any thread without a user reporting it first. It's going to be hard to accept, but when a thread gets moderated it's because the community has let us know it's not acceptable through the report system. More often than not there is no basis for the complaint so we simply leave the threads be. Moreover, I rarely moderate anything because I know people like you would just love to poke me in the eye for it. I usually only chime in on a report if asked by the mods. If it is moderated, you can be sure that it needed to be and often more than one moderator was involved in the decision. You might be surprised, but I am the most moderated person on SB. I know this goes against your delusions, er assumptions, so feel free to keep believing the lie.

 

[ucfdiver]

Pete, you implied people like him are simply spreading rumors through the mill. He suggested a few cases which were well documented and you didn't even acknowledge them.

What gives?

 

[The Chairman]

Pete, you implied people like him are simply spreading rumors through the mill. He suggested a few cases which were well documented and you didn't even acknowledge them.

What gives?

He suggested that I actively purge reports like that. That's simply BS. What else did you want me to say? I had nothing to do with their moderation. The OPs were told why their threads were moderated, etc. None of them asked me to review the decisions so I have no reason to second guess the mods. Somehow, I trust them to do what is right far more than the conspiracy theories presented by someone who has demonstrated that he has no clue about my ethics and motivations. If you really want to know why they were moderated, you'll have to ask them what they were told. The mods aren't allowed to publicly discuss the merits of our decisions. That's between us and them and always will be.

 

[ucfdiver]

He suggested that I actively purge reports like that. That's simply BS. What else did you want me to say? I had nothing to do with their moderation. The OPs were told why the threads were moderated, etc. None of them asked me to review the decisions so I have no reason to second guess my mods. I trust my mods to do what is right far more than someone who has no clue about what I'm all about. If you really want to know, you'll have to ask them what they were told.

No, in an earlier post-- you said that people are relying on gossip. I've given you two first hand accounts that the president of the organization was made aware of, and mdax has provided 3 accounts that are known to be true by numerous people either because of Edds rescue or the instructor admitting it.

 

[divad]

3 accounts that are known to be true by numerous people either because of Edds rescue or the instructor admitting it.

Where can I read about that?

 

[Nirvana]

I can only speak through a regular diver / student perspective, as I am not an instructor. From my point of view, I don't believe that the mechanism of reporting instructors to their agencies is effective in any but the most absurd situation.

Firstly, it is difficult to know what constitutes a violation. As stated above, most agencies do not make public what their standards are. It is possible, sometimes, to infer what should be taught from the textbooks, but it is difficult relate that to how the agency considers an adequate class should be conducted.

This, in turn, leads to the fact that often the student only realizes that the instructor was doing something wrong or bellow commonly held standards after he has had a chance to learn more and evolve after the course. By this time, there is very little interest in reporting the instructor and little possibility of a report being fruitful.

Another point is that the relationship between student and instructor often does not end with the class. An instructor that teaches a somewhat poor class may be a good person and even a very good diver. Instructor and former students may have other dealings such as dive trips, sales of dive equipment and may have common friends.

It is not because you think someone didn't teach you properly that you have to dislike him. Sometimes you think he could and should improve.

So, thinking of the case of an instructor telling you to perform an exercise on your knees in a cavern course. You soon realize that was not good practice. What would reporting that instructor accomplish? The way I see it, at most he would be given a reprimand. If he would change his practices or simply hold a grudge is debatable. You, on the other hand, would compromise your relationship with that instructor and possibly many other people who know and like him, some of which you may know and like too.

This is to say that I believe another system of quality control should be put in place. Or, if already existent, be strengthened. In my opinion, reporting an instructor is a useful tool solely for the cases where the instructor clearly endangers or tries to deceive a student.

And for the record, I am of the opinion that saying phrases to the effect of "some members of the board of directors of a certain cave agency are teaching horrible classes" is to cast a dark shadow on the reputation of the whole board of directors of the agencies that can be understood to be referenced.

 

[The Chairman]

No, in an earlier post-- you said that people are relying on gossip. I've given you two first hand accounts that the president of the organization was made aware of, and mdax has provided 3 accounts that are known to be true by numerous people either because of Edds rescue or the instructor admitting it.

People extrapolate and exaggerate all the time, often to make themselves look important or for other silly reasons. Look at the way the incidents were thrown out in this thread like they alone explained everything. It was an obvious appeal to emotion. I had no idea what most were about and still don't. What did they add to in the thread??? The insinuation is that the powers that be absolutely flubbed things up. What about due process? This is beyond 'If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit!' mentality. If the case built against them is all hearsay and conjecture, no matter how strongly you feel about it, the case won't go the distance. That's true whether they are guilty or not.

To be sure, I have no idea if I'm addressing your concerns. I was made aware of one of the incidents reported to the NSSCDS in an Arizona desert by one of the people on the dive. I then got to hear four additional versions of what happened including the complainer. Imagine my distress that the complaint given to the NSSCDS was the only one that differed appreciably. I wasn't there but odds are that the accusation was completely bogus due to a Chicken Little screaming that the cave is falling. People have been known to be wrong and their testimony inaccurate. That's why we have due process. That's why we have investigators. That's why I trust them over Chicken Littles and chest thumpers.