ScubaBoard's Policy Regarding Posts Dealing Advocating Diving in Caves without Traini

[boulderjohn]

There are plenty of posts about how dangerous those guided cenote dives are for OW divers on other forums. Are posts about people's recent experiences going to be deleted now? "Hey, I just got back from Mexico and did a great dive in Dos Ojos. Caves are really beautiful to dive in." Did that cross the line yet? If it also said, "I think I'm going to find some caves to explore here," would that part be deleted? Or the whole post? Or should it allow people to say "I'm glad you got to experience the beauty and serenity of cavern diving. There is a lot more of that available once you get the proper training."

There is a difference between what you describe and cave diving.

True Cenote diving in Mexico is done in caverns rather than caves. In dry caves, the only difference between a cavern and a cave is that a cavern has the letters r and n in the name. In wet caves, there is an important difference. Different agencies define it in slightly different terms, but the main point is that in a cavern, there should always be daylight from an exit visible at all times. In most cases, a cavern is the first section of a cave, and a sign will be posted warning divers that going beyond that sign takes them from the cavern portion and into the cave.

Taking a guided cavern tour is very different from diving in a cave on your own. Many of the people who are strongly opposed to diving in caves without proper training will also serve as guides for cavern dives. This policy only relates to cave diving and does not address guided cavern dives at all.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Anyone who wants to know about diving in caves without training should listen to the words of someone who's actually been there ...

“Open water scuba diving, by its very nature, involves certain known and unknown risks to its participants. Proper training, equipment, and experience manage and lessen the risks of each dive to a large extent. By contrast, diving in an overhead environment such as in cave diving increases those risks almost exponentially, where many years of open water diving experience alone do not offset those risks.

Although we followed my certification agency’s rules regarding overhead diving (i.e. do not dive past natural daylight, and never pass the posted warning sign), on that near tragic day in August of 2012 conditions existed where those agency rules became fallible. In short, we were neither properly trained nor properly equipped for the hazards associated with an unfamiliar overhead environment.

Anyone contemplating entry into an overhead environment without proper training and equipment should ask himself or herself whether it is worth the price of death. Having nearly lost my daughter in a Florida underwater cave, I cannot emphasize enough that there is no dive site so irresistible that is worth more than life itself.” – Raymond Clark

The Miracle in Merritt?s Pond « CBS Miami

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[boulderjohn]

Anyone who wants to know about diving in caves without training should listen to the words of someone who's actually been there ...

Pretty good article.

It accurately mentions that Edd rescued 4 cave divers in 2012. What it does not say is that according to the best information I have found, in the entire history of cave diving throughout the entire world, there have been 8 rescues total--including the 4 Edd rescued in 2012.

 

[ucfdiver]

ScubaBoard feels very strongly that diving in caves without proper training is extremely dangerous, and it does not allow posts that advocate such a thing. When such posts appear in any forum, please report them so that they can be deleted rather than respond to them, since it will be necessary to delete the responses as well. An unfortunate consequence of this policy is that many fine responses that explain why cave training is necessary will be lost, so this post will include an all too brief summary in the hope that those who read it will understand.

In the 5th edition (1979) of his important work Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint for Survival, pioneering cave diver Sheck Exley wrote "In 1974 no fewer than than 26 perished in underwater caves in Florida" (p. 4). That is a staggering number. In response to the high number of deaths in caves back then, Exley studied the causes of cave diving fatalities and devised the basis for modern cave training. Today, the overwhelming majority of divers who enter caves have been properly trained, and as a result, it takes many years for all the cave diving deaths in the world to combine to the total of the 26 who died in Florida alone in 1974. Even though it has become very unusual for untrained divers to enter caves, approximately half of all cave diving fatalities come from those few untrained divers. With the remainder, almost all fatalities occurred with divers who for some reason intentionally violated at least one key principle of their training. When divers follow their training, cave diving is a safe sport; when divers ignore training or have not had the training in the first place, it is extremely dangerous.

In cave training, divers learn the many things that can go wrong in a cave. They learn how to prevent them, and they learn how to overcome them should they occur anyway. It is not possible to make all of that evident to someone who has not had the training, so an open water diver who is convinced that he or she can dive in caves safely will not be easily persuaded otherwise. Because things do not always go wrong in a cave, and because some caves are safer than others, such a diver may successfully dive in caves without training a number of times, creating a false sense of confidence. That diver is, however, taking terrible risks.

If that diver chooses to take those foolish risks, there is nothing ScubaBoard can do about it. On the other hand, ScubaBoard can prevent that diver from persuading other ScubaBoard readers to follow that same path. It is for that reason that we do not allow anyone to advocate diving in caves without appropriate training in this forum.

Honestly, every post advocating diving without training has been met with factual reasons why not to do it, and links to who to contact if you wish to receive training. If anything it's served as a one sided debate in favor of going and getting training.

Was there an incident that sparked this change?

 

[boulderjohn]

Honestly, every post advocating diving without training has been met with factual reasons why not to do it, and links to who to contact if you wish to receive training. If anything it's served as a one sided debate in favor of going and getting training.

Was there an incident that sparked this change?

As NetDoc indicated above, there was no change. The policy has been in effect since at least 2002. The problem is that it was not well advertised, and no one knew about it. I was one of them. As a moderator, I participated in several discussions such as you describe. You probably noticed. I suspect we were on the same side in a number of arguments. Then I found out I was supposed to be moderating such discussions, not participating in them. That led to a discussion in which we decided to put the policy out more plainly so that everyone understood. That is why the policy was posted now.

Your argument that such discussions allow the points in opposition to be stated clearly is valid, and you can be sure it was given its due weight in back room discussion. It was absolutely not dismissed out of hand. The final decision, however, went the other way.

Was there an incident? Yes, there was. It is not visible to the masses.

 

[John_B]

Sheck would have been "moderated" under this policy. Just sayin'...

---------- Post added July 1st, 2014 at 10:14 PM ----------

As NetDoc indicated above, there was no change. The policy has been in effect since at least 2002. The problem is that it was not well advertised, and no one knew about it. I was one of them. As a moderator, I participated in several discussions such as you describe. You probably noticed. I suspect we were on the same side in a number of arguments. Then I found out I was supposed to be moderating such discussions, not participating in them. That led to a discussion in which we decided to put the policy out more plainly so that everyone understood. That is why the policy was posted now.

Speaking as someone who spends an inordinate amount of his work life dealing with policies, procedures and standards. You guys might want to review how it is that policies exist that the staff know nothing about.

 

[shoredivr]

Sheck would have been "moderated" under this policy. Just sayin'...

QUOTE/]
an argument for the sake of arguing

 

[LiteHedded]

Sheck would have been "moderated" under this policy. Just sayin'...

QUOTE/]
an argument for the sake of arguing

as sheck basically invented cave training I dont think he'd want to see any posts advocating diving without it...

 

[boulderjohn]

Sheck would have been "moderated" under this policy. Just sayin'...

Speaking as someone who spends an inordinate amount of his work life dealing with policies, procedures and standards. You guys might want to review how it is that policies exist that the staff know nothing about.

as sheck basically invented cave training I dont think he'd want to see any posts advocating diving without it...

A agree with LiteHedded and wonder what you meant by saying Sheck would have been moderated. Sheck was the father of modern cave training. He helped create and direct the PADI cave diver course back in the mid 1970s. (PADI later dropped the course.) My bet is that he would have been fully in support.

 

[The Chairman]

Sheck would have been "moderated" under this policy. Just sayin'...

Nope. That's a wonderful red herring, but he would be liking the posts about not allowing others to discuss learning diving in an overhead environment on their own.

Speaking as someone who spends an inordinate amount of his work life dealing with policies, procedures and standards. You guys might want to review how it is that policies exist that the staff know nothing about.

Speaking as one who refuses to be like you, ie spend an inordinate amount of his work life dealing with policies, we prefer it like it is. The interwebs, in spite of being over 21, still has a lot of maturing to do. That makes our job pretty fluid in terms of dealing with trolls and troll wannabes. We are not now, nor will we ever attempt to become a bureaucracy. We are a community, a loose federation, a family if you will. We are not a gubbermint. Ergo, we allow a lot of leeway in what and how we discuss family matters. Mods who were around in 2002 probably remember the Genesis controversy that resulted in this unwritten rule. He spammed every thread about cave diving and turned them into yet another debate about why he wasn't allowed just to dive certain places with only a C-Card. Karl just couldn't get past himself on that issue, and most of us were happy to see him take his toys and go home. His most infamous opus was ***************.com, a domain which I now own and that remains dormant. He also started a "competing" forum which like most others, is now defunct.

Again, most of the rules are in the ToS. For those of you who want the Reader's Digest version it can be summed up as "Be nice. Respect others. Don't advocate silly crap. Did we mention to 'Be nice'???" Everything else is derived from this.