OK, if it's not "anything goes", what would the new boundaries need to be?
For those people that have never been in the Surface Interval and/or the MOF come take a look before you judge. Like it says at the top of the Surface Interval page:
Surface Interval Welcome to the Surface Interval, where divers are free to chat about anything within the TOS and feel free to let the conversation drift from topic to topic, much the same as chatting aboard the dive boat in between dives. While the rules here are a little more relaxed than in the regular forums, we do ask that you keep the conversations "
workplace friendly", and to keep in mind that we have people from different countries, cultures and temperaments here. Thank you.
We are not asking that it be anything that goes. We do not want it to become an internet sex chat room. I do not think that would be appropriate. What we would like to see is a slight loosening of the restrictions since it is an 18 and over Opt-In forum.
Yes there has been a Hot Chick Friday (or 2
) where pictures of women in bikinis have been posted. The reason this started was to point out a perceived (and I feel real) double standard when it came to things like this. Women that posted pictures of men in speedos had no problem doing so. When a bicture of a woman in a bikini was posted it was removed.
Since then Hot Chick Friday (HCF) has been kept alive to keep the conversation on the subject of censorship, and equality, going. I believe that had there not been such actions as the deleting of post, and the shutting down of the MOF for a weekend, HCF would have fizzled out. Then again maybe it would not have, but we keep it alive because of the resistance.
The MOF is a tight knit group. From time to time members leave the MOF, and new ones come in. We talk about a lot of topics that are not diving. But, you might be suprised by how much we do talk about our diving in the thread.
We are a family. We give each other crap from time to time. I have dyslexia. I am constatly mis-spelling things. I get crap for it, but it does not bother me. When one of us is in need the rest of us rally together. We console each other through the worst of problems. We give each other grief if someone hasn't been diving recently. When MOF people travel they there are always offers from other MOF members to stay with them if they are from that area. We also go diving together.
This is the largest on line diving community. It is made up of people from all different walks of life and cultures. So is the MOF. I have worked as a divemaster since 1980. I have always said that diving brings together people that normally wouldn't give each other the time of day otherwise. SB and the MOF do the exact same thing. It gives us a common bond. Diving.
However, we can not talk diving 24/7. That is where the Surface Interval comes in on SB. Just like we can't stay underwater all the time. We have to do surface intervals in between dives to off gas. The Surface Interval, and the MOF, are our way of "off gassing".
These forums already exist. They are 18 and over, and they require you to Opt-In. If you are not interested in going into the Surface Interval to talk about "non-diving" topics then don't go in. But to think that these discussions will not take place with or without you, is like asking that all conversations on a dive boat must be diving related. If that were the case then it would quickly be a quiet, and boring boat ride.
