Input on our Accident and Incidents Forum... What do you want? How do you want it?

[Diver0001]

I don't think the debate in Andy's scenario needs to be hidden. I believe the debate can be open. The cloud mind has an ENOURMOUS IQ so you don't want to block that. However you want to keep the back-seat drivers, the narcissists and the internet "Kings of the Castle" out of the discussion so people understand that what is being said has some meaning.

What I think could work is something like the old instructors forum where members could submit questions about ongoing threads but the answers to those questions were made public.

Once again we're looking at a continuum from totally open to totally closed and I'm seeing the more weathered members more toward the closed end of the spectrum, DDM, who is an expert, taking the middle ground and some people on the open side.

I do not envy Pete's task here in deciding where to pin the tail on this donkey.

R..

 

[wgw04024]

Ok, I'm going to be brief.

I don't notice anything alarming that I think should be changed.

I come here to read what details are available from incidents. I think about it in terms of my diving, and how I may of been, or might be in an incident similar.

I feel I have learned so much from reading these threads. It has certainly made me a more conscientious in all aspects. Gear choice, evaluating conditions, dive sites, who I dive with, etc. All these events make me think and give me pause to try and take everything from start to finish into consideration.

-edit-
"In my mind, if we assume that we should learn from the discussions then threads should only be started by people with 1st hand knowledge of the incident. As it is, there are a lot of discussions (and opinions) and very VERY few meaningful ones because nobody has the foggiest idea what actually happened, let alone what went wrong."

I disagree with this. Many times info never comes out. The open discussion, even if it's speculation on what 'might' have happened, is also extremely useful. imho-

Keep up the good work.

Bill

 

[The Chairman]

People that wanna be mods

Aren't even considered for being a mod. I think there was one exception and they are working out beautifully.

Since I am not a fan of change for change sake,

Bob, I am hearing criticisms from a few, mostly cavers. Being an open person, I felt it was time for the SB family to have a conversation about it.

Make it black.

It's simply not that easy. Doing that could cause the demise of SB. A goodly portion of our traffic and subsequent users are due to the openness of this forum. I don't want to go the way of the Deco Stop and others. Is it financial? Some. But I love our community and don't want to hurt it.

Have the mods more vigorous in enforcing the TOS.

We need the readers to report more. SB is a bit different from most forums in that we let the community tell us what is appropriate. Let isn't the appropriate word: we rely on the input. Very, very rarely do the mods act without a user reporting a post. @Bennno wants it to be a free for all like alt-scuba. SB users report him consistently and we listen to them. The majority is going to win. I'm way OK with nice being the "law of the land".

Someone needs to bring the news here for discussion

It's good enough for me Don. I just wanted to know. If you posted it before I either missed it or forgot all about it. If I have a problem with someone, I usually just initiate a conversation with them.

I'd be very uncomfortable with naming victims

Ditto, but I am open to listening to other's points of view.

Speculation is acceptable when it's about car crashes. But in diving it's all of a sudden difficult to accept speculation.

Ain't that the truth. I've heard that analogy from critics twice today. When I pointed out that many fatal car crashes ARE covered by the media, in gory detail and with all sorts of speculation, they insisted I was wrong.

Many times info never comes out.

It's pretty disingenuous when the PTBs tell us not to speculate until the facts come out and then they repress the facts because it's their buddy/diveshop/whatever that had the accident and they want control the spin. The easiest way to control it is to stifle it. Moreover, I get the feeling of territoriality. People who loudly proclaim that "only the experts" should have these discussions usually see themselves as being the expert. I'm reminded of that scene with Jack Nicholson screaming with spittle flying all about: "You can't handle the truth!" That's for me to decide, but thanks.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Wow so far Pete seems to be getting a B+ (from the members) on the existing configuration. Even when novice divers ask "stupid" questions, it still has value in that it gives us insight into the perspective of new divers. If a common theme of misunderstanding prevails, addressing these erroneous perception has considerable value.

Relying upon moderators to define acceptable versus unacceptable speculation is quite likely to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think over moderation is worse than under.

 

[oya]

People who loudly proclaim that "only the experts" should have these discussions usually see themselves as being the expert.

Yet many of the people who actually ARE experts will often not show up here to discuss.

This is going to sound far snarkier than I mean it, but, why is this?

 

[The Chairman]

Wow so far Pete seems to be getting a B+

I may own the Domain, but I don't own the community. It's not called "NetDocBoard".

Yet many of the people who actually ARE experts will often not show up here to discuss.

Some of them are skeered of their expert credentials being sullied. Some of them just don't understand the interwebs. Some just don't care.

FWIW, it didn't come across as snarky one bit. I feel the same frustration.

 

[kelemvor]

Yet many of the people who actually ARE experts will often not show up here to discuss.

This is going to sound far snarkier than I mean it, but, why is this?

One of those experts posted their thoughts on the matter already. No speculation required: Input on our Accident and Incidents Forum... What do you want? How do you want it?

 

[tursiops]

Perhaps each thread (accident/incident) could begin with a "living sticky" that summarizes the facts that exist. It is hard-to-impossible to wade through pages of off-topic and uninformed speculation to find out if any new fact has emerged. That sticky could be a a very simple, bulleted format: Who, what, where, when, why. how sort of thing. there will be blanks for a while, perhaps forever.

The A&I forum is valuable as is, but could be more valuable without the condolences, the personal attacks, the rants, and the tangential sidetracks; that is what needs to be moderated.

I learn from the facts and from thoughtful speculation. The purpose of the forum is to enable learning, so as to mitigate making the same error twice.

 

[kelemvor]

Perhaps each thread (accident/incident) could begin with a "living sticky" that summarizes the facts that exist. It is hard-to-impossible to wade through pages of off-topic and uninformed speculation to find out if any new fact has emerged. That sticky could be a a very simple, bulleted format: Who, what, where, when, why. how sort of thing. there will be blanks for a while, perhaps forever.

The A&I forum is valuable as is, but could be more valuable without the condolences, the personal attacks, the rants, and the tangential sidetracks; that is what needs to be moderated.

I learn from the facts and from thoughtful speculation. The purpose of the forum is to enable learning, so as to mitigate making the same error twice.

That's a great idea, if someone would volunteer the time to manage it for every accident. I suspect that's a decent sized task.

 

[Johnoly]

...Some of them just don't understand the interwebs. Some just don't care.....

In my case, it's because I don't want to be added to the lawsuit. In about a half dozen incidents, there are MAJOR items known to the legal parties that were never published on SB. As an example, I'll maybe see the computer download of the dive and it's a big shock. But I'm not publishing it here.