NACD Instructor standards violation

[kensuf]

Yes indeed, i often see the folks that claim to hate Scubaboard and the Internet for the "gossip" be the ones that are most involved in the face to face and over the phone type. I often think that maybe they are worried that doing it in a public forum would expose them for who they are and often the lies they tell.

I like this format, it leaves NO question of how I stand or what I said, if folks hate me for it...that's cool it's a big world

The problem with this format is some people hide behind aliases or create sock puppets.

---------- Post added June 3rd, 2015 at 08:36 AM ----------

because they can't. It is in their best interest to stay out of anything that could potentially come back to bite them. I didn't announce anything, it was common knowledge that they are working on the report, all I said was that they were still working on it to make sure that it was bullet proof because someone raised the question of why haven't we heard anything in 6 weeks. Well you haven't heard any news, because there is no news to give.

Similar circumstance. Deflategate. We heard nothing official until the report was released. The report sucked, there is now lots of lashing out because the report was inconclusive but punishments were doled out anyway. If they had announced that a report was coming and it was delayed, or announced that it was complete and it wasn't, they have a big problem. It is best to not officially announce anything, and anything Rick posts in this thread could be considered official.

Common knowledge? I work, live, and teach in "Cave Country". I do at least two cave dives a week. I'm friends with people that own and work at Dive Rite, Light Monkey, and Halcyon. I spent last weekend teaching a cavern course and hanging out at Ginnie and Peacock when I wasn't at CCDS.

I never heard about this report being generated until I read it on the internet this morning.

 

[tbone1004]

What you seek is there,but you won't find it from the forums since they are filled with many of the negatives intertwined with a positive. Go to the sites, meet people, fill stations too, and see for yourself.

that. What basically happens is this sport is dominated by a bunch of alpha males and when you get too many in a room they try to rip each others heads off. It sucks.

What you don't see, is that no matter what side of this specific fence you are on, each one of us will have no problem helping the others out. Go back 2 or 3 pages and you'll see Nakatomi and I acting like if we were in the same room we would kill each other. We haven't met in person yet, but despite our specific opinions on the matter, if we were at the same cave site and he had a first stage failure, I would have no problem loaning him one, or doing whatever I could to help make sure his diving wasn't ruined. *Situation has actually happened, though not with him*

Those scenarios are what you don't see on here. You have seen Netdoc and Victor go back and forth many times, they've been doing it for quite a while. A few months back at Peacock we were shooting the sh!t around a picnic table hanging out for half an hour and exploring his dive van. Now, certain opinions were certainly voiced, but they are both man enough to defend them in person. One of the wonderful things about this forum is that you can open dialogue with everyone in the room. Many may not like it, many may not agree, most of us make mistakes, no one is perfect. Without this form of discussion, progress is hindered, this thread is the second or third 50+ page thread on a similar subject starting with Cave Etiquette, then instructor quality, and now this. It is progress, and everyone here once you remove personal vendetta's, is only out to make sure that everyone stays safe. You don't always see this on the recreational side where they are more $$ motivated, but you also tend not to have the passionate opinions from divers, it is an instructor and up discussion side. With this you have the regular divers generally more involved than the instructors and despite it being awful to watch play out on here, it helps bring progress.

 

[victorzamora]

The problem with this format is some people hide behind aliases or create sock puppets.

This, to me, is one of the most sickening, spineless, weak, petty, miserable things someone can do. If you're not brave enough to say something to my face I think you almost have no right to say it at all. Not just sock puppets in the usual Internet sense, though. There's plenty of posts that occur by real posters that are parroting what someone else has told them to post.

Common knowledge? I work, live, and teach in "Cave Country". I do at least two cave dives a week. I'm friends with people that own and work at Dive Rite, Light Monkey, and Halcyon. I spent last weekend teaching a cavern course and hanging out at Ginnie and Peacock when I wasn't at CCDS.

I never heard about this report being generated until I read it on the internet this morning.

If you weren't sure another report was coming out soon with the final decision then you're lying to yourself. Maybe not "common knowledge" but certainly common sense.

 

[tbone1004]

The problem with this format is some people hide behind aliases or create sock puppets.

---------- Post added June 3rd, 2015 at 08:36 AM ----------



Common knowledge? I work, live, and teach in "Cave Country". I do at least two cave dives a week. I'm friends with people that own and work at Dive Rite, Light Monkey, and Halcyon. I spent last weekend teaching a cavern course and hanging out at Ginnie and Peacock when I wasn't at CCDS.

I never heard about this report being generated until I read it on the internet this morning.

Common knowledge being those that are involved with the NACD.
Note. Lamar et al stay out of cave politics. Corey/Joel et al stay out of it, JJ et al stay out of it. They have no stake in this game, and do a very good job of staying out of it. That doesn't mean they didn't know about it, just didn't want to talk about it because it doesn't effect them, but I do believe that at least someone in Halcyon/GUE/Dive Rite were aware of it. I can understand LM staying out of it obviously, gear manufacturers are touchy when they have to appeal to everyone. I can almost guarantee that Lamar knew about it though, but when a statement is published 6 weeks ago and has 500+ posts on the subject, it should be known by anyone on here, and anyone in cave country that doesn't know, likely is associated with another agency or just wants to stay out of it.

This is going to come off so wrong, I apologize. You're a NAUI/TDI instructor IIRC, so if you aren't a NACD member, then you aren't part of the "community" that would know per definition of common knowledge. Similar discussion to my realization that PADI has been requiring demonstration of safety sausage use in their OW class for a while. I'm not with PADI, I don't talk to people who are involved with PADI on a recreational level on a regular basis, so while it was common knowledge to that "community" I'm not part of it, so I was late to the game.

 

[DeepSea]

The management authority says no one but full cave. So while your agency might not care, the local cops can charge you with trespassing and probably seize your gear

I am curious what forum you learned that on as those statements are 100% false. Eagle's Nest is in a Wildlife Management Area; the management plan says NOTHING about diving at all (for or against). Feel free to look it up or contact the WMA manager (it used to be Victor Echavez).

Theat not withstanding, I personally believe EN is a full cave dive. The misleading statements regarding 130', mound, etc. are just that -- misleading. If a diver has a problem, narcosis, etc. at "the mound", the diver could quickly find themselves at 200% with no line or light.

I have a similar belief regarding Buford as well.

 

[kensuf]

This, to me, is one of the most sickening, spineless, weak, petty, miserable things someone can do. If you're not brave enough to say something to my face I think you almost have no right to say it at all. Not just sock puppets in the usual Internet sense, though. There's plenty of posts that occur by real posters that are parroting what someone else has told them to post.

That too.

If you weren't sure another report was coming out soon with the final decision then you're lying to yourself. Maybe not "common knowledge" but certainly common sense.

Honestly, the guys I hang out with are too busy talking about diving and less time about politics. One of the owners of a better known cave diving shop and I are doing a 3 hour dive this Saturday, there's a large contingent of people heading to Belize in ten days, another group going to the DR in a month, some active exploration being conducted in a few different places, the Madison blue mapping project (and the new pressure gauge collection), Charlie Roberson is now diving sidemount, etc.

These things are more interesting to us than the agency politics.

---------- Post added June 3rd, 2015 at 09:10 AM ----------

Common knowledge being those that are involved with the NACD.
Note. Lamar et al stay out of cave politics. Corey/Joel et al stay out of it, JJ et al stay out of it. They have no stake in this game, and do a very good job of staying out of it. That doesn't mean they didn't know about it, just didn't want to talk about it because it doesn't effect them, but I do believe that at least someone in Halcyon/GUE/Dive Rite were aware of it. I can understand LM staying out of it obviously, gear manufacturers are touchy when they have to appeal to everyone. I can almost guarantee that Lamar knew about it though, but when a statement is published 6 weeks ago and has 500+ posts on the subject, it should be known by anyone on here, and anyone in cave country that doesn't know, likely is associated with another agency or just wants to stay out of it.

This is going to come off so wrong, I apologize. You're a NAUI/TDI instructor IIRC, so if you aren't a NACD member, then you aren't part of the "community" that would know per definition of common knowledge. Similar discussion to my realization that PADI has been requiring demonstration of safety sausage use in their OW class for a while. I'm not with PADI, I don't talk to people who are involved with PADI on a recreational level on a regular basis, so while it was common knowledge to that "community" I'm not part of it, so I was late to the game.

On top of being a NAUI and SDI/TDI instructor, I'm an NACD member and an NSSCDS member.

I have had a long interest in the NACD, even though I let my membership lapse for many years. Throughout the mid-late 90s I chaired two different committees of the NACD (Science Committee chair and Accident Analysis chair) under both Milledge Murphey and Lloyd Bailey when they were presidents of the organization, and my wife worked for Judy Bauer as her assistant processing c-cards and keeping the certification records for two years.

I also went through the process of doing all of my co-teaches in order to become an NSSCDS instructor between December 2013 and June 2014, and have all the paperwork together if I ever wish to do an IE. I have my own reasons why I have decided not to pursue becoming an NSSCDS instructor at this time, which I have talked to Jim Wyatt about in detail.

I'd rather go diving and worry about things like the water quality of our springs than who is getting one on top of someone else.

 

[The Chairman]

The problem with this format is some people hide behind aliases or create sock puppets.

I call BS on this. The users quickly ferret out these people and report them. We have all sorts of tools to prevent this very thing from happening and we use them on a continual basis.

 

[tbone1004]

Ken, fair enough. What I was surprised about was the lack of involvement of the NACD members in this process. I never got an email with that report. I think that it should have gone out as an FYI to all members.

The CDS Eagles Nest comment was brought up recently, I think that should have been emailed out to all CDS members, it's easy enough for them to have a list of all active CDS members and send mass emails out to them.

For the NACD incident, I think that would have been more appropriate than publishing in here for the initial release. Post it on the website, email it to the members, and leave it. When the findings are released, then they can take that to here, CDF, TDS, etc. because that is something that I feel they should publish to the whole community to help inspire confidence that they are being proactive. Personal opinion on the matter.

 

[ucfdiver]

Ken, fair enough. What I was surprised about was the lack of involvement of the NACD members in this process. I never got an email with that report. I think that it should have gone out as an FYI to all members.

The CDS Eagles Nest comment was brought up recently, I think that should have been emailed out to all CDS members, it's easy enough for them to have a list of all active CDS members and send mass emails out to them. I think that would have been more appropriate that publishing in here for the initial release. Post it on the website, email it to the members, and leave it. When the findings are released, then they can take that to here, CDF, TDS, etc. because that is something that I feel they should publish to the whole community to help inspire confidence that they are being proactive. Personal opinion on the matter.

The CDS has made efforts, but has not succeeded getting email addresses for all members. It's not an "easy" task as you describe because so many members never update their contact information, some emails go to addresses that haven't been monitored for years (think about a yahoo, gmail, or hotmail account you have but stopped using), many are caught in spam filters, many members never even gave an email when they signed up for a lifetime membership, etc.

On top of that, sending a mass email to multiple domains is not an easy task without paying for a 3rd party service. Many spam filters now flag anything without an unsubscribe link, which means you now have to manage another piece of software. This isn't mentioning that if you're on a shared hosting account like the CDS has to be for $$$ reasons, if one single user on that server IP address is banned, it can ban your email server as well.

Also, your statement that the CDS published it here is incorrect, I cross posted it here after it has been up on their website for several days.

 

[tbone1004]

the publishing here was with regard to the NACD post, sorry for not clarifying. I still think that they need to get "up to date" with the member email.

Discussing never putting emails or putting wrong emails, CDS has a publication, it comes out to everyone, there are also ballots that go out for voting, that goes out to all members. Have the ballots request updated contact information. If they don't do it, then that's fine, you still publish on the website, but you give everyone the heads up that it is happening.

I still maintain it is easy, it's relatively complex if you don't know what you're doing, disclaimer I don't, but they have webmasters, and if small dive shops are able to maintain a list of "members" that they send email updates out to, the agencies should be able to do the same.... Cost money, sure, but when you weigh the cost of that vs. the snail mailing of ballots out to all of the members each year, I'm willing to bet that going to a web based system for org announcements and board voting is cheaper.