I don't know if this needs to be in W&C. It's a reasonable question, why people get so heated and so personal about differences in diving style and procedures.
I think just about everybody here knows I'm a DIR diver, or at least the best approximation of what one would be if there were such a thing (OK, Jeff?) I'm deeply convinced that there are major benefits of the system of diving I've adopted, and I try to present them pleasantly and tactfully where it seems appropriate on the board. In general, I think the vast majority of people who come here to ask questions honestly want to learn something -- I remember being one of them. Presenting your opinion in a calm, rational, organized and readable fashion gets your message across, and beyond that, you can only clarify or expand, but not convince.
I think occasionally, there is someone who comes on the board who is proposing or contemplating something desperately unsafe, or who has come through some near miss and simply isn't demonstrating a good attitude or appropriate learning from the experience. Then, after tactful input has clearly failed, it may be necessary to be briefly somewhat harsh. But these cases are rare, and in general, I think we all end up in agreement that gentler means have failed, and that we don't want to read the accident report we fear is coming. (I'm talking new divers wanting to do 200 foot dives on single tanks, or cave dive without training -- things like that, that we can all agree are foolish, and dangerous.)
But when it comes to diving with or without a pony, or a snorkel, or split fins, or a long hose . . . there's really never any need to become unpleasant or insulting or personal about these things. I have seen some very good divers, in their environments, dive with all of these things. They may not be MY choices -- but I'd rather conduct my internet discussions as though I were sitting in the bar after a dive with the guy with the pony bottle, and having an honestly curious exchange of the reasons why each of us is doing what he is doing, rather than become dismissive or patronizing in my conviction that my way is better.
In the end, we are all divers. We all share a wonderful thing that not very many people ever get to do -- we get to see the whole world that stretches off the coasts, and under the lakes, and in the quarries, and in the caves. It makes us far more alike than different.
I think just about everybody here knows I'm a DIR diver, or at least the best approximation of what one would be if there were such a thing (OK, Jeff?) I'm deeply convinced that there are major benefits of the system of diving I've adopted, and I try to present them pleasantly and tactfully where it seems appropriate on the board. In general, I think the vast majority of people who come here to ask questions honestly want to learn something -- I remember being one of them. Presenting your opinion in a calm, rational, organized and readable fashion gets your message across, and beyond that, you can only clarify or expand, but not convince.
I think occasionally, there is someone who comes on the board who is proposing or contemplating something desperately unsafe, or who has come through some near miss and simply isn't demonstrating a good attitude or appropriate learning from the experience. Then, after tactful input has clearly failed, it may be necessary to be briefly somewhat harsh. But these cases are rare, and in general, I think we all end up in agreement that gentler means have failed, and that we don't want to read the accident report we fear is coming. (I'm talking new divers wanting to do 200 foot dives on single tanks, or cave dive without training -- things like that, that we can all agree are foolish, and dangerous.)
But when it comes to diving with or without a pony, or a snorkel, or split fins, or a long hose . . . there's really never any need to become unpleasant or insulting or personal about these things. I have seen some very good divers, in their environments, dive with all of these things. They may not be MY choices -- but I'd rather conduct my internet discussions as though I were sitting in the bar after a dive with the guy with the pony bottle, and having an honestly curious exchange of the reasons why each of us is doing what he is doing, rather than become dismissive or patronizing in my conviction that my way is better.
In the end, we are all divers. We all share a wonderful thing that not very many people ever get to do -- we get to see the whole world that stretches off the coasts, and under the lakes, and in the quarries, and in the caves. It makes us far more alike than different.
