Benefits and drawbacks of the A&I Forum

[ScubaSteve]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

This thread has been split from a discussion in the Accidents and Incidents forum. The original accident discussion will be found here. http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/accidents-incidents/465125-death-dutch-springs.html Marg, SB Senior Moderator

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...................However if they are not to be shared I am not sure what purpose such a post serves other then add fire to rumors and speculations.

(I have removed your name from the quote because my reply is not directed specifically at you)

Ya know, if you stick around here long enough you eventually learn that there is almost never any information released to specific incidents that end in a fatality. Sometimes there is a person that was close to the incident with some knowledge of what happened but the one with all the information always ends up dead unfortunately. People that argue back and forth about information coming out and people withholding information kind of make me giggle. Almost everything that matters in this forum is speculation (meaning facts are almost never available). People make terrible witnesses. For this reason, I trust almost nothing in this forum and consider it all speculation where it pertains to an incident itself.

Adding fire to rumors and speculation?? Tru Dat. How dare RJP post anything that might lead people to jump to the conclusion that they were already jumping to. This place is all about rumor and speculation. People THRIVE on rumor and specualtion. I do see a theoretical (this is an important distinction) benefit with speculation in trying to learn from incidents where the facts will never been known. But do not kid yourself for a nanosecond. Nothing RJP said has led anybody down the path towards rumor and speculation. They were already at that destination. That is just reality around here.

 

[HIGHwing]

I'm really curious why there is even an accidents & incidents section on scubaboard. It's like a pointless process:

1. Incident reported, no information available
2. 12-hours later, people who where there acknowledge being there and knowing what happened
3. Someone speculates which creates some meaningful conversation
4. Someone says it's inappropriate to speculate even though people are learning from highly useful content
5. Moderator reminds us what the forum is for
6. Witnesses make a few leading/guiding comments for the thread
7. A secondary thread spins off
8. Accident cause is never revealed
9. Thread is lost into obscurity by new accidents where we anxiously await the cycle to repeat.

 

[openmindOW]

People THRIVE on rumor and specualtion. I do see a theoretical (this is an important distinction) benefit with speculation in trying to learn from incidents where the facts will never been known.

That's why getting facts out matters. When facts are missing, people fill in the gaps with speculation.

The point of this Forum is for the dive community to learn from Incidents.

There is another issue here: Has there been a Silencing effort?

If so, that in itself is problem for this Forum.

---------- Post added September 23rd, 2013 at 08:45 AM ----------

I'm really curious why there is even an accidents & incidents section on scubaboard.

Sometimes we learn facts. I have seen posts where witnesses have said, "I was there and I saw ________ ." There are gaps to be sure, but we have learned some facts in some incidents.

 

[ScubaSteve]

That's why getting facts out matters. When facts are missing, people fill in the gaps with speculation.

The point of this Forum is for the dive community to learn from Incidents.

There is another issue here: Has there been a Silencing effort?

If so, that in itself is problem for this Forum.

"Fact vs speculation" only matters to those that are emotionally close to the deceased.....and LEO/Lawyers. We (ScubaBoard members) can learn just as much from speculating about scenarios and what-ifs as we can from factual information pertaining to a specific incident. In fact, we can learn more because we are not restricted to just one situation if we speculate. The problem is, that people get caught up with the need for facts......when in reality this is the forum where we should be speculating....thinking of different situations and what we would/should do.

---------- Post added September 23rd, 2013 at 08:50 AM ----------

I'm really curious why there is even an accidents & incidents section on scubaboard.

It drives up thread/post count for BS statistics, keeps Moderation staff feeling important and enables a couple people to start an incredible number of threads.

 

[HIGHwing]

It drives up thread/post count for BS statistics, keeps Moderation staff feeling important and enables a couple people to start an incredible number of threads.

I hadn't considered these possibilities. I mean really there are only a couple threads that really spin off any new or novel ways to ace yourself underwater.

 

[ScubaSteve]

I hadn't considered these possibilities. I mean really there are only a couple threads that really spin off any new or novel ways to ace yourself underwater.

Agreed, but in the defense of ScubaBoard, with new members joining all the time, the new threads with the old ways to "survive" are actually new to new members that are not likely to search anything.....

 

[doctormike]

When have you ever seen "official facts being released" (whatever that means) after a death/incident? Much less just "several weeks" afterwards? I can think of less than a handful of incidents, worldwide, where results of any official investigation were made public, and those were typically up to a year or more afterwards.

That's true for the most part, and it's a shame. I guess it's a natural reaction to a litigious society, but thorough analysis of an accident or fatality and sharing of that information widely really does save lives.

Interestingly, the Ontario Underwater Council routinely (and fairly quickly) releases reports on fatalities. Maybe it's a Canadian thing..? I was surprised to see someone post the report on a rebreather death in the St. Lawrence summer, and then I corresponded with one of the OUC people out of curiosity. She was very helpful and takes this responsibility seriously.

In my field, we have morbidity and mortality conference every month, in which surgical complications are presented, root cause analysis is done, and an attempt is made to prevent future problems by recognizing patterns of error. Autopsies, which used to be common, have become very rare - despite the fact that misdiagnoses are frequently uncovered in this way. I guess doctors don't push them on families for many reasons, but just like M&M conference and the A&I forum on scubaboard, they have a great potential to save lives going forward...

I know that people are reluctant to share what they know here out of respect for families, litigation issues, or just the fact that these are hard topics for us to think about as divers. And you certainly don't want to pass along questionable information as fact if you weren't there.

But knowing what happened really helps make us safer in the water.

M

 

[RJP]

But knowing what happened really helps make us safer in the water.

M

Funny, the Ontario Council and M&M conferences were the two things I had in mind when writing the post your referenced. However, having sat through my share of M&M conferences in my youth, I don't recall them being an open forum where the presenter says "Someone died - who can guess what may have happened?" and then the floor is opened for people not involved in the case to propose theories, and then others chime in as to what ELSE could have happened if the baseless supposition were in fact true, etc.

 

[doctormike]

Funny, the Ontario Council and M&M conferences were the two things I had in mind when writing the post your referenced. Of course, having sat through my share of M&M conferences in my youth, I don't recall them being an open forum for people not involved in the case to propose theories, and then others chime in as to what ELSE could have happened if the baseless supposition were in fact true, etc.

Right, they are obviously different things, and there are reasons other than just CYA and litigation why M&M isn't a public forum. But the point is that accident analysis is a good thing, and it should be done by people with access to the most complete and accurate primary source information possible.

So I guess if we are going to have an A&I forum at all, we have to tolerate some conjecture and speculation, as long as we all (as you correctly pointed out) understand the difference between (1) proposing and analyzing hypotheticals and (2) laying specific blame in cases where the facts aren't known. Since most of us who participate in these threads don't ever have the facts, I just assume that it's mostly #1, but it's still a useful exercise...

I wonder how the Ontario council got started, and if something like that would even be feasible on this side of the St. Lawrence..! Kind of doubt it...

 

[RJP]

Yeah, my objection to the conjecture/hypothesizing in this thread was the "build" aspect of things like one person asks "Was he diving solo?" and someone else says "Supposed he didn't have a light?" Then a third person says "So, he was solo diving at night, without a light?" Then fourth person says "If he was solo diving without a light then..."

That's not "accident analysis" that's rumor mongering.