Interesting stat in Accident and Incident Forum

[ptyx]

Are those views or viewers?

If it's the former, another factor (on top of the valid reasons above) is the content of the OP.

For incidents, posters are direct participants: all the info is there (or close), there isn't much room for speculation. A single view is often enough.

For accidents (fatal or serious), information can be trickling in over several day. A few informed reports here and there, and a ton of speculation. Trying to obtain the facts can take a lot of 'views'...

(I'm not saying that divers are immune to the attraction of death, just that it's probably not the only reason for the different figures).

Edit: damn - K girl beat me to it. I guess it proves there is so much noise usually in the accident forum I go through half the posts way too fast?

 

[mikemill]

What would be more interesting then just number of views is the view/reply ratio.

 

[BigHarryDiver]

And like Mark Twain said:

There are 3 types of lies in the world: Lies, Damn lies and Statistics.

 

[msmith304]

morbid fascination is human nature i suppose.

 

[HowardE]

What does this say about us as a diving society?

This says that we all respect diving as a sport, passion, hobby, what have you - as something that can kill us. There is a chance every time that we get into the water, that we may not get out of the water. We are in an environment where we don't belong. We don't have gills. So this means. We as a society are concerned with other divers dying. I am sure that on a skydiving forum, you may find the same thing when a skydiver dies? It's not a morbid obsession, but rather a grim reminder that we are taking risks with our lives when we enter the underwater environment, and we want to analyze and rationalize what happened to those who either

a) made a big mistake and ended up dead
2) had an equipment failure that caused them to die
c) had some extenuating circumstance that caused them to die while diving

Do we really want to learn about safe diving, or do we really want to just read about how others screwed up and died?

Whether or not people want to learn about safe diving. Learning about how people screw up to kill themselves is one way to learn how NOT to do it yourself.

Are there some members who just have a morbid fascination with death? Maybe. But I would say that the vast majority of people read these threads where the result is death, to satisfy their own feelings of mortality, and as ways to justify in their mind, "I hope that I would never screw up like that"... or maybe even, "poor guy... had a heart attack under water... at least he didn't screw up" - there is a lot to learn from understanding how people die while diving.

And I will say this... as the Sales and Marketing guy for ScubaBoard. The A&I Forum is one of the top 10 (most page views) sub-forums on ScubaBoard. It's no secret to me that this is one of the most popular to read forums; and not just from ScubaBoard members, but for non-registered members, who use Google or other search engine to search threads.

 

[Web Monkey]

I just did a quickie average on the first two pages in this forum and noticed that in views where someone is noted as dead or disfigured, there is a greater than 8 times viewer rating than on non-fatal/disfiguring posts.

On average views with a dead/disfigured person within the first two pages of this forum: 9,690

On average views with no obvious dead person results, but perhaps a lesson could be learned: 1,174.

What does this say about us as a diving society? Do we really want to learn about safe diving, or do we really want to just read about how others screwed up and died?

It says that when I see that someone died or was injured while doing the same thing I do, I want to know what happened so it doesn't happen to me.

Terry

 

[Uraluni]

It says that when I see that someone died or was injured while doing the same thing I do, I want to know what happened so it doesn't happen to me.

Terry

Ah! But the same thing could be learned from the non-fatal posted as well. I'd want to learn from both type of posts.

It still doesn't detract from my 8:1 fatal vs. non-fatal OP.

 

[Web Monkey]

Ah! But the same thing could be learned from the non-fatal posted as well. I'd want to learn from both type of posts.

It still doesn't detract from my 8:1 fatal vs. non-fatal OP.

Probably some sort of biological advantage. People are also fascinated by train wrecks, car accidents, plane crashes, etc.

Terry

 

[Uraluni]

Probably some sort of biological advantage.
Terry

I like that idea.

 

[gcbryan]

Ah! But the same thing could be learned from the non-fatal posted as well. I'd want to learn from both type of posts.

It still doesn't detract from my 8:1 fatal vs. non-fatal OP.

Go and read some of them and you'll have your answer.

We may be concerned with dying and want to avoid it as much as possible but most of the near misses don't seem near at all.

"Close Call In The Dressing Room", "I Intentionally Ran Out Of Air", "Uncontrolled Ascent".

These just aren't topics that would appeal to as wide an audience.