Bitterness of Scuba Instructors

[FPDocMatt]

... and convince knowledgeable people to contribute content there while you police everyone through your filter of perceived "rudeness" ...

And that would be bad because...?

 

[Mantra]

Firstly, I'm not sure it's always about observers getting their rocks off while trains wreck themselves around them. It's often more that adults don't like stepping in when they see other adults at odds. The assumption is that grown ups can fend for themselves (a basic social skill, after all) and in non-virtual environments inserting one's self as moral arbiter into someone else's conversation is problematic. We're not talking a bystander effect here - feelings might be getting bruised, and that might in aggregate be to the detriment of the community, but the stakes are fairly low.

Communication is a co-operative act (per Grice's maxims). When looking at a conversation, it is interesting to analyse the moments when co-operative behaviors cease, when people stop attempting to share information or achieve a mutual understanding. Those are markers that other personal agendas have entered.


And enter they will.


So maybe it would be useful to talk about what to do if you do feel insulted or bullied or whatnot?


I think addressing it is a good first step. Matt has done that in a broad sense here, with the result that awareness has been raised around the issue. Addressing it firmly and fairly when it happens to you would seem to work also. I think noting it when it happens to you also gives other people the opportunity and permission to step in. I'm sure the vast majority of people here are decent enough to dislike seeing someone in distress.


The 'victim' is playing a role in the event also, it should be noted. We are talking a lot about bullies and observers here - perhaps we should also be talking about unhelpful victim behaviors. What makes being politely assertive hard here? A genuine question. Perceived expertise of others is perhaps one factor.

 

[lv2dive]

I'm sorry. I just don't get it. I lurked on SB for the longest time before I posted and in the process:

• learned a lot by reading through old threads
• learned what the cultural mores were, and what was generally accepted and what wasn't
• started out posting slowly but surely

I'm not saying that is/was the only/correct way to do it - but I will say that by doing it that way, I don't see SB as this cutthroat board where people are mean or even disingenuous to one another. Every once in a while people get snarky, but I noticed that when I was reading through historical posts and a) determined how to avoid it or b) knew it was going to come (and chose to move forward anyway). It never crossed my mind to expect SB to change because *I* thought people should behave differently!

I have re-written this post several times trying to be as gentle as possible but at the end of the day I feel like I have to just voice my confusion. This is one my posts that probably falls in the b) category (above), and I'm ok with that.

 

[ferris213]

People who are rude are quick to tell people whose feelings they hurt that they're too sensitive.

If the majority of members of SB feel that the harshness of some of the posts here is not severe enough to warrant taking offense, then perhaps those of us who do should just start a separate, kinder and gentler scuba forum.

I try hard to be as polite as possible on this board (sometimes overly so) because ,as others have mentioned, context and expression can be hard in print.

To me, the fact that this thread is 18 pages and you're still following/posting shows that you might be a bit too sensitive with these things. No one likes dealing with rude people, but if you walked into a shop and the salesperson was rude or arrogant, would you still be worried about it days later? If you had to talk to that person everyday, and they were rude everyday, would you not just accept the fact you don't get on with them and just move past it?

You have to remember when you post you are basically standing up in front of thousands of people and saying something. They then get to reply to you one by one. In a group that size, most people are going to be great... but some are not.

I know no one likes to hear the old chestnut "your training was lacking" but when it was said to me I got to thinking and realised yeah, that's true.

 

[boulderjohn]

... if the majority of the people on this forum accept a certain level of what I would call rudeness, then that's what the majority wants. We shouldn't try and change it. If those of us who are thinner-skinned want a kindler and gentler forum, we'll just have to set it up and run it ourselves.

When the U.S. constitution was created, part of the thinking was to make citizens free of the "tyranny of the majority." In the first half of the last century, the overwhelming majority of the voters in the south were perfectly content with Jim Crow laws, but the supreme court ruled them unconstitutional. About 15 years ago a majority of the voters in my state voted for a law that restricted the rights of homosexuals. The courts ruled that this was unconstitutional as well. What the majority wanted in those cases was not an issue.

While Scubaboard does not have a constitution, it has an owner, Pete (NetDoc). Pete has a vision of what he wants the board to be like, and to the greatest extent he can, he will make it happen. He wants it to be a friendly and inviting place, and he is trying to make it that way. It is not an easy job. What the majority wants is not an issue.

 

[mathauck0814]

And that would be bad because...?

Because your definition of rudeness is subjective to say the least. Though I do suppose that it would fill a gap. We have the deco stop, where you'll get probably the most comprehensive advice and where folks get eaten alive just for saying "hi", we have Scubaboard which is open to everyone and broad in its scope while also being pretty reasonable in its policies and ability to police itself, but we don't have the independently censored dive forum where everyone must use little kid gloves with one another, "or else".

I wonder why that is?

 

[MMM]

i was having a few 'Rita's with some dive professionals here on the island and eventually the conversation got around to ScubaBoard. One had a good analogy. she said it is like going to a cocktail party. you will meet some great people and some who aren't. You will hear interesting things and some things that are not. Apply the same filters you would in any social setting. I kind of liked that view. And it sure won't stop me from going to cocktail parties and especially when the booze is free!

You have to remember when you post you are basically standing up in front of thousands of people and saying something. They then get to reply to you one by one. In a group that size, most people are going to be great... but some are not.

 

[FPDocMatt]

Communication is a co-operative act (per Grice's maxims). When looking at a conversation, it is interesting to analyse the moments when co-operative behaviors cease, when people stop attempting to share information or achieve a mutual understanding. Those are markers that other personal agendas have entered.

I just looked up Grice's Maxims. Interesting. Essentially, it says that people tend to cooperate in a conversation to further the collective purpose of the conversation.

I really like your idea, about analyzing the moments when cooperative behaviors cease.

I'm reminded of a guy I used to know who would frequently interject something into a conversation which would stop the conversation flat, because it was just a little bit off-kilter. He had this way of saying something outlandish, and following it with a phrase like, "...as everybody knows." I kept wanting to call him on this practice, but didn't know how to do it. Now I can just say, "You're violating Grice's maxims, dude!"

 

[FPDocMatt]

It never crossed my mind to expect SB to change because *I* thought people should behave differently!

Why not? Is it inappropriate to stand up for yourself in a group? Is it inappropriate to stand up for others in a group?

You seem to feel that I am being inappropriate by observing that impoliteness exists on SB, rather than just accepting it and trying to fit in. This idea is really foreign to me; I'm kind of taken aback by it, frankly.

Let's say you're a guest at someone's house, and the husband starts yelling at the wife. I think most people in this situation would say something like, "Hey, man, chill." I don't think they'd say to themselves, "I'm a guest in this house, it's not my place to expect them to change."

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your post.

 

[TSandM]

I don't know -- I've been a guest in someone's house when the husband started yelling at the wife. What we did was excuse ourselves as quickly as we could politely do so. I never felt it was my place to tell people how to run their relationships