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

[uncfnp]

I enjoy reading and appreciate the Near Misses and Lessons Learned subforum of A&I. The death posts less so. Part of the reason is obvious and for this same reason I rarely participate in those threads.

But over the years I have benefited by reading the A&I threads and it is usually the side topics that are the most instructive. Rescue techniques (one thread actually got me to finally sign up for a rescue course), medical considerations, emergency equipment and response, dive considerations, etc. And also the speculation. There is so seldom factual information that it is the speculation that provides the insight to possible problems that leads, ideally, to ways to avoid or deal with the speculated events.

Prehaps additional subforums, such as an accident analysis section that allows only fact based posts and another section for ideas and speculation without the need to even mention specific names.

 

[Bennno]

This often depends on who is doing the speculating.

Other than a username, with which you may or may not be familiar, every post is simply somebody out in the cloud. Is that somebody a cave instructor with decades of experience and several body recoveries under their belt? Someone who is right at that 50-dive high where they've got 500 posts about how they know everything about the sport and haven't been humbled yet?

I'd say speculation by the later just causes more confusion and noise. Folks who don't know better should be listening, not offering up opinions on issues about which they know little. But no one is capable of holding their tongue at that point. I know I wasn't.

Yes, I think you're right, I don't think there is a good way to regulate that though. IMHO it's better to let people post stuff and leave it for the reader to decide. If it's gets too much, you can still spilt the thread and move one part, like it was done when the docdeep accident was discussed.

 

[KevinNM]

• Why do you come here?

To try to figure out how not to get posted here.

• Why do you post accidents and incidents? (This is especially for you, @DandyDon!)

I think I've posted one ever, and it just seemed like a good idea.

• WHAT IS OUR MISSION? (in your words, please)

To see how things have gone really wrong for other people and think about how to avoid that.

• Are we meeting your and the community's needs?

In general. A lot of these look like some sort of catastrophic medical issue to me and I think we sometimes go down a rathole when that isn't accepted.

• What are we missing and why?

Often enough relevant details to see what really happened. Expert input is really helpful, a few comments by them can really help.

• How can we add that?

I'm not sure how we can gather those in most cases. Expert input might be better solicited, part of the issue may be people not recognizing them as experts. For example, I know there are a few very experienced cave divers who regularly do very deep and long dives who regularly post here and a few other who occasionally do, but I'm not sure it's obvious to everyone that they really do know what the hell they are talking about. Not that you can't disagree with experts, but it should be done respectfully.

There are others who have lots more experience then me, but not the same level as the group above. And I think that is a useful distinction to be able to make.

• What needs to be eliminated and why?

I think posts that are pretty much exclusively condolences are not ideal, if it adds something else to the discussion then that's a not a problem. Speculation that isn't somehow related to the facts that are known is also not ideal. If the poster can't say what known facts makes them think this is why this happened it's pretty much pointless speculation. Basically if it doesn't advance in some way finding out what happened or how to prevent it in the future it's not really useful.

• How can we be more respectful to friends and survivors?

Sometimes we can't. Sometimes the root cause is that the diver did something that a "reasonable diver" would not have done. But in general people don't set out to dive deciding that "today is good day to die", so understanding how they ended up doing that is useful even if what eventually happened seems totally nuts.

• Can we be more respectful without harming our mission?

Maybe

• Currently, we don't allow names to be used unless released publicly first. Is this fair for the family? Is it fair for us? Is a change needed?

I think so. Having the thread title edited into some standard to make searching easier seems useful and that might include the name of the diver when it's released.

 

[oya]

The forms DAN uses, the questions they ask and do not ask, show that some areas receive greater scrutiny than others. Overall I like the work they do and consider it valuable, but their approach has inherent limitations.

I suppose you're right. People trained in dive accident analysis and knowing which relevant questions to ask using the following incredibly limited form
https://www.diversalertnetwork.org/...on-site-fatality-investigation-checklists.pdf
is far less effective than people arguing whether or not it would have benefited a cave diver to carry a Spare Air.

Yes, I think you're right, I don't think there is a good way to regulate that though. IMHO it's better to let people post stuff and leave it for the reader to decide.

I agree it's hard to regulate, but in this conversation about the "rules of engagement" it is my firm belief that a free-for-all does a great disservice to the community at large.

People do have an inherent bias and we crave being told what confirms our preconceptions. Because we are all goddamn morons.

The danger I see over and over is people deciding to listen to someone who has no idea what the hell they're talking about, and going on to repeat something which is dead wrong as gospel. ("They died because they didn't have a snorkel," "Back inflate BCs are inherently dangerous," or "You'll be fine with me, you can trust me, I'm a Divemaster."

In accident analysis there isn't always a right answer and a wrong answer, but there are right questions and wrong questions. People too often confuse those things and get mired down by irrelevant details. In the weeds of a wrong questions inexperienced readers can wind up havin dangerous preconceptions solidified.

We learn most from dive accidents thematically, not by rubbernecking single events.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

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?

No snark detected. I assure you experts DO lurk here but may not post. And it's not only because we don't get paid (as 2airishuman mentioned in #54) although I assure you that if we could bill Pete our hourly rate and get paid for opining here, we would gladly do so.

One reason (and this is also not meant to sound snarky) is that we generally truly have a desire to help people dive better. So we take our collective experience, knowledge of other incidents, investigations we may have personally done in the past, thousands of hours of dives done, or thousands of people seen diving, etc., etc., take time to put it into a hopefully thoughtful post that sheds some light . . . and then some jackalope who's been certified for six months starts trolling, speculating, mis-informing, and dismissing the underlying thoughts and at some point you go, "I have better things to do with my time."

The other reason is that we are frequently asked/told by the lawyers or insurance companies for whom we are investigating/working not to post. Their concern is that we're going to say something here that undermines the case and that this will then be brought up in court to impugn our credibility. I don 't always personally agree with this as I'd like to think that my opinion on an accident is not shaped by who's paying me for the time to develop that opinion but I understand where they're coming from. It's like getting someone through a Senate confirmation: The less of a published record you have, the less dirt there is to throw back at you. And I've certainly had ScubaBoard posts brought up at trials where I've testified and I know I've not been retained on a couple of cases because I'd already publicly commented on some aspect and they didn't want to deal with any potential fallout.

Not meaning to derail the thread but just wanted to answer oya's question because it's a good one.

One more thing to add: Someone mentioned further up about "volunteers" collecting info and reports and then finalizing. No one's a volunteer in terms of the official reports. You're dealing with police, USCG, Coroner, etc. (not to mention training agencies, insurance companies, and private plaintiff investigators). None of them are volunteers and many times their findings are not part of the public record. Generally (and LA County is a wonderful exception) official agencies are doing the investigation of a scuba accident to make sure no crime has been committed but also as CYA for down the road so they can't be accused of shirking any public duty, as well as getting closure for the family. But most of these agencies do not feel that educating the diving public about what happened is part of their job.

- Ken

 

[CuzzA]

IMO, the A&I forum is fine as is, but personally I think a couple tweaks could be made.

If I had to speculate on where any gripes come from I'd say it's from the cave community. That's not an insult so don't read it as such, but whenever there's a cave accident it seems there's more scrutiny from fellow cave divers as to who and what should be posting and posted. I suspect the latest Eagles Nest incident is in part some of the motivation for this thread.

So, an easy fix would be an "opt in" A&I Sub Forum under Cave Diving and perhaps someone could be chosen or volunteer to moderate that forum.

The one other thing I would change about the A&I forum and even a special A&I cave forum, since no one reads stickies, is to add a forced pop up click through message for any new IP session that has a special message to family and friends. It seems to me that sometimes contributors lose focus that a loved one may read what is written and/or loved ones may not understand what the purpose of the forum is for. I've seen loved one join to help correct information and others join to lash out. My guess is, in the latter case, they don't understand why this forums exists and no one reads stickies. I think that would be helpful.

Otherwise I find the A&I forum as is just fine and helpful and educational to me and others. Especially new divers. Because for any new diver who is serious about diving, the first thing you do is try to learn how not to die... Which is pretty much what scuba instruction and training is. How not to die in a dangerous sport. Unfortunately we have all learned and continue to learn from other's demise. It's a valuable resource.

 

[drrich2]

Here are a list of questions I want answered.

• Why do you come here?
• Why do you post accidents and incidents? (This is especially for you, @DandyDon!)
• WHAT IS OUR MISSION? (in your words, please)
  
• Are we meeting your and the community's needs?
• What are we missing and why?
• How can we add that?
• What needs to be eliminated and why?
• How can we be more respectful to friends and survivors?
• Can we be more respectful without harming our mission?
• Currently, we don't allow names to be used unless released publicly first. Is this fair for the family? Is it fair for us? Is a change needed?

1.) I come to engage/enjoy the scuba hobby topside, to learn and try to contribute, to enjoy the community of fellow divers.

2.) I haven't posted in A&I. I have posted 2 similar threads; one on a dive a buddy & I did that 'went south' but wasn't real foolish to try, and one on a dive that went south and was foolish to try. I wanted to share and warn others, but not invite the 'heat' (however 'deserved') putting in A&I might've brought.

I appreciate Dandy Don's postings; many aren't all that pertinent to me, but they serve sort of an obituary function for the dive community, and bring up cases that may be of interest. For example, from them it seems to me a lot of deaths are in people in their 50's & 60's, and I'm 47 and chubby so it's something to be mindful of. His posts also remind me people die doing what I'm doing, not a bad reminder before I jump off a boat or shore and drop 60 - 100 feet under a pressurized environment hostile to human life, which as Dumpster Diver pointed out often has the dangers downplayed.

3.) Bowl of Petunias noted:

The Mission of SB? To provide a way for divers from around the world to connect, share and learn.
or SB A&I? To provide a way to learn from scuba incidents and thereby promote dive safety

I can't improve on that.

4.) Yeah, if I have unmet scuba forum needs, I can post questions.

5.) Not sure what you're missing. Seems some people object to some of what you have (e.g.: speculation, blaming, etc...) more so than something 'missing.'

6.) What to eliminate? Not much; delete condolence posts, but I'm not keen try to discipline people for trying to be kind. Just delete the posts unless someone's obviously being willfully defiant.

I like Diver0001's metaphor of finding a point on a line, in determining a position on a matter where there is a continuum of views.

Scuba Board is not CSI for the scuba community. If you want that, you've got to have professional investigators with access to a level of info. & evidence we usually don't see, willing to present it (which as Johonoly pointed out also faces barriers - Post #40) and that's rarely going to happen. Trying to make it happen without adequate infrastructure to support it will lead to mistakes.

On the other hand, each A&I thread starts with a report of an actual event, so we can't completely divorce our discussion from the real world event that's supposed to be a basis for the discussion. I think speculation/theories are okay, as long as they are obviously such rather than misrepresented as fact, and at least theoretically pertinent to the event. At what point a speculative discussion gets too far out there I can't say.

7.) Friends and survivors who become aware of a thread discussing their loved one's incident are going to read it, perhaps hoping to gain some added knowledge/perspective from other divers. Warning them these discussions are candid and might upset them is probably not going to ward many off. We should be civil and ideally compassionate, but I don't see excessive demands for candy coating, either. There will be times the question becomes 'Was that a foolish thing to do,' and 'Did they prepare properly' or even 'Should they have done that dive?' For an example, consider the Doc Deep death off St. Croix.

8.) Don't even think of publishing the alleged name of a dead person before it's publicly released. Imagine the crap storm of consequences if we ever get it wrong, and post the wrong name? What if someone heard their loved one died, sees a different name on the forum and is relieved, then finds out no, it's really your loved one who died? Or let's personalize it. Peter Guy, Lynne's husband, posted & told us about her being lost at sea, and she was subsequently presumed dead. Now, try to imagine what if someone else had heard it was Lynne, posted here she died, but later we'd found out no, it was some other woman none of us ever heard of.

Richard.

 

[oya]

@Ken Kurtis
Great answer and thanks.

I was also the one who brought up volunteers and was thinking specifically of the IUCRR which is an all volunteer organization. But your point about official agencies is also a valid one.

 

[Storker]

Don't even think of publishing the alleged name of a dead person before it's publicly released.

A-men!

 

[Bob DBF]

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.

Point taken. Separate Near Misses... and keep as is, change Accidents... to an opt-in to post, with each rule of the TOS on a subsequent page with an ok on each to emphasize that this may not be the best place for loved ones to post, and the rules are important.

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

I understand the complain to moderate and have found it to be quite reasonable for moderation on ScubaBoard. I'm more of a lets see where it goes fan, and haven't reported anyone, yet. That being said, I have no problem with a moderator taking preemptive action, on this particular forum, when the forum rules are violated.

The other answer would be to encourage members to lower their threshold
to report a post on the A&I forum.



Bob