Should SB be required reading in OW classes?

[fjpatrum]

For me, it would have been great to find Scubaboard before I started OW. As it is, I found SB in between my classroom and OW dives because I did my dives as referral. I ended up buying gear before my dives, primarily based on research I did here on SB.

I don't think it should be mandatory reading, though. I am an information sponge, I like having dynamic discussions that weigh the nuances of a particular topic. Some people really don't filter those nuances as well though and get bogged down in the details without really getting anything out of it. Those people should probably never read Scubaboard.

As with any learning endeavor, there is no one magic bullet. Different people learn in different ways. I think letting OW students know about SB is a great thing for any instructor to do. It invites discussion (even if it's a sidebar) that probably wouldn't otherwise come up in the regimented curriculum that an OW course absolutely should be.

 

[KevWind]

Absolutely not (required) That is buy no means to say that SB is not a valuable and extremely good source of information, because it is. But no public internet forum that I know of is ever used as standardized training platform. Nor should it be, there is virtually no filtration between objective fact and personal subjective opinion. And just to clarify in my PADI OW classes ,SB was in fact mentioned as a scuba diving forum. But these are completely different arenas

As an example in the Music Audio production world there are a number of schools that teach it. But none would think of requiring its students of read GearSlutzs. Which is in fact very much like SB

 

[Lead_carrier]

I got pretty much the same treatment from my LDS. I always wonder what their experience was on here that led to them giving that kind of response.

Is this one of those "tongue-in-cheek" post or not?

I'm sure this reply won't come out as clear as I'd like but I'll try to explain why a lot of shops don't love SB. As a part time shop employee, I have been called a ripoff artist, thief, dumba$$ tank monkey and various other names by any number of internet divers that have read a few post on internet boards. Do a search on this board and you'll find any number of post that implies that anyone that takes their equipment into their LDS for service is crazy, that taking any courses other than OW is probably a ripoff, buying equipment from a LDS is probably a ripoff and any other number of LDS bashes. I would dare say that you can find a lot more LDS bashes on here, than praises. That is not saying that a large number of LDS's don't deserve it but I don't think all of the shops are always bad. As a shop employee, I am nowhere close to perfect but when I mess up, I try to correct it and make it right.

I do encourage students to read SB and any number of online forums but not one in particular. I also tell them that before they take what they read as gospel, do research and ask questions. Most do. A lot don't. It usually doesn't take long to find out which is which.

 

[lowviz]

Is this one of those "tongue-in-cheek" post or not?

The OP or ChickenFried?

...//... and any other number of LDS bashes. I would dare say that you can find a lot more LDS bashes on here, than praises. That is not saying that a large number of LDS's don't deserve it but I don't think all of the shops are always bad. As a shop employee, I am nowhere close to perfect but when I mess up, I try to correct it and make it right. ...//...

I think my LDS is the bomb! Anything I've ever wanted that they didn't have was ordered in for me.

Slightly off-topic, but I'm willing to pay the 20-30% more for what I get back in immediate attentive service, favors, solid information, and general good will. They too will order anything I want. The part that I really like is that they aren't blindly driven by short-term profit. Like when I walked in to get my MK11 converted to an MK17. "Why would you want to do that?" My reasons were good enough for them to do the conversion...

 

[DivemasterDennis]

I advise all my dive students of scuba websites that I think would enjoy and from which they can benefit. #1 is scubaboard. IO also include scubadiverlife.com and undercurrent.org ( a pay subscription site. What a diver chooses to do with the information is up to them. I am a PADI guy, but am glad they and other certifying agencies stay aloof from scubaboard. That way we can be candid in our comments and criticism.
DivemasterDennis

 

[ChickenFried]

Is this one of those "tongue-in-cheek" post or not?

No, my post was not meant to be "tongue-in-cheek". Look, I've been on this board for a couple of years now and I realize that the LDS's often get a bad rap here. Reading some of the horror stories on here, some of it seems well deserved. However, in a lot of the gear discussion threads specifically, I do see individuals giving their LDS's praise. For the most part I am happy with my LDS and their seems to be a lot of people around here that are happy with them also. I guess I just wondered if there was one event in particular that turned them away from Scubaboard, or if it was the general tone of the board.

 

[fjpatrum]

No, my post was not meant to be "tongue-in-cheek". Look, I've been on this board for a couple of years now and I realize that the LDS's often get a bad rap here. Reading some of the horror stories on here, some of it seems well deserved. However, in a lot of the gear discussion threads specifically, I do see individuals giving their LDS's praise. For the most part I am happy with my LDS and their seems to be a lot of people around here that are happy with them also. I guess I just wondered if there was one event in particular that turned them away from Scubaboard, or if it was the general tone of the board.

I suspect you will find the LDSes that shy away from SB are those that simply don't know how to field the questions appropriately or who want "lock in" on their customers. No one particular event really causes this, typically.

My preferred LDS doesn't really support SB, to my knowledge, but they don't discourage or disparage it either. By now, they know me as a cheapo who buys used gear and mostly services it himself but I bring my tanks to them for hydro/viz and I support them with small purchases. The previous manager, who has since moved to Puerto Rico to be a dive op, treated me like a loyal customer and created a loyal customer. He may have even been the person who suggested I search SB for buddies. The owners, who are nice people, are not like that. They treat me like a just a customer and one of them in particular has "overcharged" me ridiculously for o-rings and the like in the past. (In his defense, they were special order o-rings and I have never made a significant purchase through them so he probably shouldn't give me any breaks on whatever their standard prices are. That said, ~$1 per o-ring is ridiculous.) They also basically clam up when I mention scubaboard. As I've said elsewhere, if any of the other dozen or so shops I can get to easily were any more "welcoming" to a customer like me, I'd use them instead but the reality is I am my own worst enemy when it comes to this situation.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I'm sure this reply won't come out as clear as I'd like but I'll try to explain why a lot of shops don't love SB. As a part time shop employee, I have been called a ripoff artist, thief, dumba$$ tank monkey and various other names by any number of internet divers that have read a few post on internet boards.

I just got told I put my students in danger by not insisting they wear free-diving fins ... and accused of profiteering by pushing them into substandard gear. And I don't even work for a dive shop. So I can see how those who actually do work for an LDS and who actually do sell dive equipment might feel abused by a few vocal thugs with a superiority complex ... but such is the nature of the internet ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[freewillie]

It's the difference between standards and opinions.

For any agency like PADI, NAUI, SSI, or any other agency they have to have a standardized set of guidelines. Those guidelines have to be both broad enough to accommodate anyone who takes the class, yet simple enough that everyone has a minimum standard of skills, but not to detailed that it becomes too technical. It is one size fits most. Some divers will do well with the minimum standards. Other divers will need more time and training.

For Scubaboard it's primarily individual with their own opinions. Some opinions are based on lots of experience as divers, experience as instructors, or I just certified last week and this is what I think. Not very scientific nor standardized.

It's like parenting advice. The American Academy of Pediatrics will make a statement about parenting. The statement will be based on an actual study with scientific evidence for their opinion. Parents will read that and say, "that never worked for me. I never did that as a parent. They must be wrong." Not based on fact but on opinion.

Same thing here on Scubaboard. You'll get good advice, you'll also get bad advice. You are a brand new diver asking for gear advice invariably someone will say by the 5th post you need a back plate with wings. You ask about dive training someone will say you need to learn cave diving and run lines or you are not a real diver even if you never intend to dive caves. You need to take the advice with you own judgment.

 

[Lorenzoid]

You who advocate making it mandatory (or suggested or whatever) for OW students to read a forum like SB don't seem to believe that most OW students are not like you. It's been said many times that the participants on SB are not representative of recreational divers as a whole. You people are by and large inquisitive, motivated, serious, thirsty for knowledge, and you feel the more information you have on any subject the better. But it sure feels like many new divers I've come into contact with just wanted to get through the OW course so they could do that trip to Cozumel where they had so much fun on the Discover Scuba outing a few years ago, and they wanted everything spoon fed to them and made as unambiguous and easy as possible. Even some who have a few dives under their belts have given me blank stares when, in conversation on the dive boat, I dropped some nugget that I picked up on SB, and then went right back to discussing what restaurant in town they should go to for the best ocean view. Are most OW students really aiming for diving the Atlantic or California coasts, or diving deep wrecks or cold quarries/lakes? It seems to me a whole lot of prospective students just want to see the pretty fishes, and they will never be the type to find an introspective forum like SB to be interesting. Rather, I think they are more likely to be turned off by it. Is that what instructors want? Granted, some instructors here on SB sometimes sound like they'd be just as happy if that type of diver didn't come to their class. Maybe by pointing them to resources like SB you will weed out the ones who don't want to take diving as seriously as you do. You may say "I really don't get many of that type in my classes," but maybe that's by virtue of where and how you work. Most of you are not working resorts (let alone "certification mill"-type of outfits). With all due respect to those with more experience than I have, I think some of you have a narrow view of who's out there learning to dive. From what I've seen (admittedly not a statistical sample), it's mostly not people like you.