NSS-CDS Effectiveness

[The Chairman]

You can't recruit new members via a site where you pretty much have to be a member to participate.

A bit less than 10% of our traffic consists of registered users.

50% of the items on this list begin with the word "educate." You cannot educate people when the you target population starts with the base belief that any lack of knowledge is a combination of crappy instruction and being a dumba$$.

That's quite the broad brush. Again, a bit less than 10% of our traffic comes from our registered users. All the other traffic comes to us via search engines where the user has queried something about caves or caving. How can that not be our target audience? Views on this thread are now over 6k. What you can't see is that at least 2,018 unique IPs have read it. I can't count VPNs so it might be higher.

Anything related to cave diving in America is tainted by the rancor within the cave diving community.

While this is true, it's not the internet's doing. In fact, we clean up a lot of that trash talk in here. It's my opinion that most of the innuendo, half-truths and slander happen spring side. Posting the actual truth goes a long way towards clearing up misconceptions. Ask @Capt Jim Wyatt about that.

I think your main point is that it's tough to do. Worthwhile endeavors are always tough to do. Look at it as an opportunity to shine rather than an excuse to do nothing.

 

[boulderjohn]

A bit less than 10% of our traffic consists of registered users.

That's quite the broad brush. Again, a bit less than 10% of our traffic comes from our registered users. All the other traffic comes to us via search engines where the user has queried something about caves or caving. How can that not be our target audience? Views on this thread are now over 6k. What you can't see is that at least 2,018 unique IPs have read it. I can't count VPNs so it might be higher.

While this is true, it's not the internet's doing. In fact, we clean up a lot of that trash talk in here. It's my opinion that most of the innuendo, half-truths and slander happen spring side. Posting the actual truth goes a long way towards clearing up misconceptions. Ask @Capt Jim Wyatt about that.

I think your main point is that it's tough to do. Worthwhile endeavors are always tough to do. Look at it as an opportunity to shine rather than an excuse to do nothing.

You missed the point of my comments on education.

The only people coming in from the general public to ask questions would be people interested in details about becoming cave divers. Those people certainly exist--I was one once--and scuba discussion sites should serve that market. It is not a huge market, though.

Cave divers are not like scuba divers in general.

• Scuba divers start out as total newbies, and the slowly, very slowly, work their way through levels of training and experience. It is very understandable when scuba divers in general have questions. Most are unafraid to ask, and most people who reply are understanding.
• Cave divers are supposed to have finished pretty much all of that. They are supposed to be at the top of the game. It is hard for them to ask a question they should not have already encountered in their training. The obvious exceptions would be things like the layouts of specific caves, conditions, etc. It is thus unlikely that a certified cave diver would feel comfortable asking a question knowing he or she would be expected to know that answer already, and knowing people are going to remind him or her of that in a most unpleasant way.

Go to Cave Divers Forum right now. Scroll through the threads and see how many of them are education related.

 

[The Chairman]

You missed the point of my comments on education.

Sigh.

You really missed my point.

Cave divers are supposed to have finished pretty much all of that.

But they don't. In spite of your preconceptions about SB, we strive to educate. Quite often Cave divers feel the pressure that they should know this stuff already. They won't ask questions of anyone, in person or online, but they will Google it and that's why we're so busy. In spite of all the rancor, some are dumb enough to ask questions, and the mods try to cut the overly harsh crap so that the questions get answered. Now, anyone who Googles their question finds it here.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, any agency that wants to EDUCATE the masses should post their stuff right here where those cavers who are too embarrassed to ask can slide on in and read the answers without being outed. Forums are not schools where people have to be here. While very few deign to actually post, the majority are looking for answers. You may not see them and I guess that's the point.

Too often people post to the person they disagree with when that's an abject lesson in futility. I certainly don't. I post for the umpteen people who will read my answer anonymously. The person I seem to be arguing with may have a closed mind to what I'm posting. They are too busy trying to win the internet and telling me I don't understand this, or I'm a moron, or that my mother wears army boots. Their mind is made up and there is nothing I can do to change that. Instead, I am writing for the guy who found the thread via Google. He's got questions and I'm going to try to stay on topic and give him a reasonable answer.