Newbies are worthless!

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Instructors quite often live vicariously through our student's experiences. I can't say how many people I've trained who were heading off to some exotic place for vacation/ honeymoon, or whatever. The feedback from them is good to hear.
 
I don't know anywhere near as much as many members of this board. However what I do know I am more than happy to share with who ever asks. I have only been a member for around 5 years and have seen many of the same questions asked over and over again I never get bored and I am happy to answer them over and over again. The fact that someone has found this board taken, the time to register and is sufficiently interested in diving to ask a question to me is well deserving of a helpful respectful reply.

My girlfriend is not very interested in diving and I don't have so many people to talk to about it, I enjoy being able to do so and many of the "newbie" questions give me the opportunity to do just that. I get something out of it and hopefully they do also. No one is born knowing everything we all were/are new to something at sometime. Many times it's the questions from newer divers that make me reflect or question why or the way I do something. As another poster said if not for the new people what would we all talk about. What's the point of knowledge if it's not shared?

I nominate TSandM as Scubaboards resident Buddha, forget her diving knowledge the way she (you) conduct your self is something I aspire to, kind, patient, thoughtful and non judgmental. Ok enough of the hippie talk.

Thanks to new and old divers alike. Cheers.
 
Cave Diver mentioned two common quotes, but there is a third that bugs me as well. It is the terse command to sue the search function.

I understand what you [-]wrote[/-] meant . . . :giggle: . . . Here's another point of view.

Sometimes, reading that "use the search function" made me realize I hadn't worded my query correctly. That line helped me to go back and say, "Let me try this again. I know "X" and "Y" from the search, but don't quite understand how . . . "

It helps me clarify my question, to wrap context. The biggest problem with being a newb is that we may have the question in our mind, but just don't quite have the words / terms to phrase the question such that you get the answer for which you seek.
 
I nominate TSandM as Scubaboards resident Buddha, forget her diving knowledge the way she (you) conduct your self is something I aspire to, kind, patient, thoughtful and non judgmental. Ok enough of the hippie talk.

+1!!!
 
The fact that someone has found this board taken, the time to register and is sufficiently interested in diving to ask a question to me is well deserving of a helpful respectful reply.

Beautifully said. This is how I feel about questions here, too.
 
Right now I feel newbies are GREAT. Recently I was to meet a group of instructors/DMs at the site. They had other business to do before, so we kind of set a time to dive. Well, 4 hours later.....So a father/daughter newbie team showed up and saved my dive day! (solo diving there not permitted). They were very thankful to have someone with experience along on their 3rd dive (plus, they had no flag). Their rental gear was a challenge with at least 5 problems. But it gave me a chance to practise some divemastering. They did very well in a mild current. We parted with thank yous--Them for my help and me for them saving my day.
 
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Here's something some people might think about.

Sometimes I see a new diver ask a question that has been asked many times before. I go to the thread to see what is going on, and I see 5-6 people have already done a pretty good job answering it. Fine. There is no point in my repeating the same information that is already there. Perhaps people might get less annoyed if they didn't feel an overwhelming compulsion to respond in a thread that has already served its purpose several times over.
 
I'm kinda in this limbo between a complete newbie and advance diver. I have advanced diver training but just shy of 50 dives still a bit of a newbie.

I remember coming to SB for the first time when I started researching a BC to purchase. I love reading customer reviews on products and the Internet search led me here. It was really interesting to see the back and forth between posters. I would come to SB and read the threads, but for the longest time felt too intimidated to post. I finally posted for the first time when TSandM had a thread why students didn't call their instructors more often to dive. I didn't think that as a newbie other more experienced diver's wanted to dive with beginners. I started with a dive club because they specifically said new diver's welcome.

Now, I can see the wonder and amazement of a newbie in my daughter's eyes. She fell in love with scuba after her intro to scuba in Turks n Caicos. She has been braving cold California waters in full exposure wetsuit to dive kelp. Recently she has been reminding me I promised to take her on a dive boat to Anacapa to dive with the seals. We are both looking forward to upcoming vacation to Hawaii.

For the most part I've found the entire dive community open and friendly. Almost all posters here friendly and willing to share their knowledge. After all, that's why we keep coming here, to make our own diving safer. This is a potentially dangerous sport and deaths do happen. Anything we can learn to avoid problems is why we ask even seemingly stupid questions as newbies. No one wants to become a statistic.

To all the experienced divers who take their time to educate thank you. If you take the position that newbies should be seen and not heard, well, I have as much right to be on the boat with my daughter as you. We are probably going to have more fun than you. And if you still don't like it then take a long dive with a small tank.

And tell Matt you can always push back against rude posters.
 
And if you still don't like it then take a long dive with a small tank.

:lol: :thumb:
 
Without us newbies the veterans wouldn't look so cool!! But seriously ... this thread has made me think of the many things I never said for fear of looking like an idiot. Most of my questions eventually got answered without me having to step out there, but this board can be a tough audience! And btw, the search function is great, but if you don't phrase your question just right or use the correct word then you're not going to find the right answer. I.e., for the longest time I really didn't know what people meant when they said "trim". I was thinking about having all my stuff strapped and tucked up so it didn't drag along the reef - but you guys were all talking about being able to stay in a horizontal position (something that I still can't do). I was referring to trim as "buoyancy control" - and these skills are connected but not interchangeable. (I sure hope I got that right!)

I really would like to know what the veteran divers wish they had known back when they were newbies. Especially skills - but any bit of wisdom is always appreciated. I love the support and information I get here - and I can usually tell within a few words if I'm reading a response that I'm not gonna like - and skip it. (Not that I couldn't learn something from that person, but the delivery may be offensive to me.) I'm happy to use my own mental filter as needed.
 

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