lamont
Contributor
To be clear, the original thread asked in the OP's post:
"What is GUE's current stance on sidemount for any level of training?"
That asks very specifically about GUE and there's little ambiguity there.
Kevin, I know that you're certified by Boegarts and I attended his lecture at the GUE conference and largely liked it. If relatively grown up GUE-trained folks were interested in SM, I'd definitely suggest that they start with training by Boegarts. But he doesn't claim or want to be DIR and neither GUE or UTD endorse his training. Based on the charter of this group it is *obviously* off-topic or the utility of the whole forum becomes meaningless through extension. This becomes just another argument about being insulted by not being "DIR" and the implication that its "DIW" to do anything else. Putting on my moderators hat and dealing with a public discussion of this topic, it clearly isn't appropriate (putting on my just-another-divers-hat then I'd probably be more interested than a lot of other GUE divers in talking about it over margaritas down in MX, but that's different).
What is going on with UTD and its extension into CCR and SM is a harder semantic issue to deal with, and why I think that the DIR forum really needs to become a GUE training forum and a UTD training forum. GUE has dropped the "DIR" tag completely and distanced themselves from that term, while AG has embraced and extended the term to the point where nobody is sure what it means anymore. If I'm forced to choose at some point, then the term DIR clearly predates AG's involvement and anyone involved in UTD, so GUE/JJ/GI3/WKPP clearly win -- and I have to be able to make moderators decisions, or the forum is useless, so "who defines what it is?" claims that result in it being impossible to make any kind of decision on moderation are useless to me, so I have to have an authority to look to for -- descending into some kind of "moral relativism" over the "DIR" term again just means the forum would be impossible to moderate.
"What is GUE's current stance on sidemount for any level of training?"
That asks very specifically about GUE and there's little ambiguity there.
Kevin, I know that you're certified by Boegarts and I attended his lecture at the GUE conference and largely liked it. If relatively grown up GUE-trained folks were interested in SM, I'd definitely suggest that they start with training by Boegarts. But he doesn't claim or want to be DIR and neither GUE or UTD endorse his training. Based on the charter of this group it is *obviously* off-topic or the utility of the whole forum becomes meaningless through extension. This becomes just another argument about being insulted by not being "DIR" and the implication that its "DIW" to do anything else. Putting on my moderators hat and dealing with a public discussion of this topic, it clearly isn't appropriate (putting on my just-another-divers-hat then I'd probably be more interested than a lot of other GUE divers in talking about it over margaritas down in MX, but that's different).
What is going on with UTD and its extension into CCR and SM is a harder semantic issue to deal with, and why I think that the DIR forum really needs to become a GUE training forum and a UTD training forum. GUE has dropped the "DIR" tag completely and distanced themselves from that term, while AG has embraced and extended the term to the point where nobody is sure what it means anymore. If I'm forced to choose at some point, then the term DIR clearly predates AG's involvement and anyone involved in UTD, so GUE/JJ/GI3/WKPP clearly win -- and I have to be able to make moderators decisions, or the forum is useless, so "who defines what it is?" claims that result in it being impossible to make any kind of decision on moderation are useless to me, so I have to have an authority to look to for -- descending into some kind of "moral relativism" over the "DIR" term again just means the forum would be impossible to moderate.
