thoughts on an open water diver in a technical diving forum

[kaylee_ann]

so, basically, I got my open water cert last year. though my goal eventually is to go tech (and cave diving...someday I would love to see those crystal caves. bucket list!), it's not going to be for a long time, especially the latter. I need the okay from a good tech instructor friend, more experience and a bit more confidence to pursue even AOW training. now, this hasn't happened lately, but sometimes when I'd comment on different technical diving threads, people would get so irritated. very irritated, even though I explicitly stated that I was not a technical diver. on one thread, a moderator actually stepped in.

ETA- one of my comments that seemed a bit crazy, it was not advice at all like people construed- I was messing around with different wild gradient factors on subsurface to see what deco stops it would give me for a theoretical dive that I had and have no plans on doing.

basically my question is, do you guys care if I'm participating over here? or are you like "this girl needs to step back and stop talking about things she knows nothing about"? I would literally get scolded for wanting to learn things "way above my level" (like deco theory!). naturally, I don't think it's an issue at this point, because everyone seemed nice on my last thread, and I think most of the rude ones aren't active anymore. but I didn't know if I was irritating anyone

 

[BlueTrin]

Can you link to the post where you got negative feedback?

 

[Wibble]

It’s great to see enthusiasm and a thirst to learn. Your decompression calculation thread was very educational for us all.

Many of us enjoy delving into the theory of diving. That can be learned even if your skills are still developing.

 

[kaylee_ann]

Can you link to the post where you got negative feedback?

yeah. some of it was deserved, a little went entirely too far ( I gave like 50 disclaimers)

Modern research/thoughts on Ascent Rates

You mean the guys in their trucks on oxygen and eating handfuls of Motrin were not doing it for fun? Dr. Kepper at the TCH chamber and several of us were on a first name basis. :)

scubaboard.com

to clear up my first comment, by the way, I was saying having literally all your deco at 10 and 20 feet doing a nearly hour and a half dive at 60 feet looks weird LOL
apparently I put something in wrong on the software, which is why it did that weird crap, but ah well

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I think it is smart for newly certified divers to ask questions so that as they progress, they have knowledge beyond the course they are taking and are better able to flush out good instructors versus not so good.

The advice I will give my daughter is this. Ask questions, stay curious, never stop learning, and when it comes to people who want to put you down, fυck 'em.

 

[LFMarm]

If somebody feels that your question is not interesting, they should move on and leave others to answer. I really like the concept that no question is stupid so feel free to keep asking

 

[BlueTrin]

Maybe start your post by saying something like “I am not technically certified, but out of curiosity I tried doing X, Y, Z and that’s what I got”

Also, you’ll find that people have strong opinions and some will be quite inflexible … maybe just ignore people who are too unhelpful even when you explain yourself?

You don’t have to do this, but I found that a common technique to defuse a situation and being able to ask questions to people with more knowledge is to show that you did some research: say something like “I wanted to learn about how to plan a dive, I tried to do X Y Z because I found a resource A B C” and follow up with your questions/comments.

You can play candid by asking links/resources and apologise in advance if that sounds “too simple”

The last technique (playing candid and showing you did a bit of research) is very helpful for me at work: since I am an idiot and I need to work with people much smarter than I am, and these people love to show to me how smart they are

Personally I don’t think you did anything really wrong

 

[kaylee_ann]

I think it is smart for newly certified divers to ask questions so that as they progress, they have knowledge beyond the course they are taking and are better able to flush out good instructors versus not so good.

The advice I will give my daughter is this. Ask questions, stay curious, never stop learning, and when it comes to people who want to put you down, fυck 'em.

the weirdest thing about this is that I have a few in-person technical diver and technical diving instructor friends- and they're SO NICE. like they had absolutely no issues discussing deco theory with me and actually seemed super excited about sharing their passion. tbh, it seems like it's just people online with no balls that wouldn't dare say it to my face, but hide behind a screen.

 

[kaylee_ann]

Maybe start your post by saying something like “I am not technically certified, but out of curiosity I tried doing X, Y, Z and that’s what I got”

Also, you’ll find that people have strong opinions and some will be quite inflexible … maybe just ignore people who are too unhelpful even when you explain yourself?

You don’t have to do this, but I found that a common technique to defuse a situation and being able to ask questions to people with more knowledge is to show that you did some research: say something like “I wanted to learn about how to plan a dive, I tried to do X Y Z because I found a resource A B C” and follow up with your questions/comments.

You can play candid by asking links/resources and apologise in advance if that sounds “too simple”

The last one is very helpful for me at work: since I am an idiot and I need to work with people much smarter than I am, and who love to show it to me

Personally I don’t think you did anything really wrong

yeah, I've tried that. unless I say it 5+ times, it seems like everyone ignored it, even when it was at the top of the post. nobody has any damn reading comprehension LOL, they get mad immediately. they only see what they want to see.
on my calculation question I must've said at least 5 times I'm not going to use this for actual dive planning, I'm not a tech diver, I'm just curious...
literally every time I use gradient factors for any random planning, it's always 75/95. and every time I do, I have to put 10+ disclaimers on the post saying it's just for fun, I don't ever plan on using these.

 

[kaylee_ann]

Maybe start your post by saying something like “I am not technically certified, but out of curiosity I tried doing X, Y, Z and that’s what I got”

Also, you’ll find that people have strong opinions and some will be quite inflexible … maybe just ignore people who are too unhelpful even when you explain yourself?

You don’t have to do this, but I found that a common technique to defuse a situation and being able to ask questions to people with more knowledge is to show that you did some research: say something like “I wanted to learn about how to plan a dive, I tried to do X Y Z because I found a resource A B C” and follow up with your questions/comments.

You can play candid by asking links/resources and apologise in advance if that sounds “too simple”

The last technique (playing candid and showing you did a bit of research) is very helpful for me at work: since I am an idiot and I need to work with people much smarter than I am, and these people love to show to me how smart they are

Personally I don’t think you did anything really wrong

OH and I forgot to add. People have gotten mad even when I'm right. (has happened several times on another diving forum). just because I'm not tech-level. maybe they're mad cause they don't understand lol. I've been called arrogant. like no? I said "I think, but not sure..."