Concerns about moderating policies

[The Chairman]

and I am sure that Netdoc considers all of them moronic.

I've gotten off of a boat when I saw bands engaged before we even left the dock. Do it in the water where's more room and fewer bumps.

Last week, an experienced spearo handed up a loaded speargun to me

I bet if he has to chase his gun one time, he'll be a lot more careful with it. I had one captain not let them make the second dive in a case like that. That's a serious mistake and they should know it along with the rest of the boat. If you can't multi task and keep it safe, you should find another task that will enable you to keep it safe. The same can said for technical diving.

 

[redacted]

Or a
anyone" that is actually a very thinly disguised individual. As Pete describes, there are cases that are clear and obvious, and there are difficult gray areas that lead to vigorous discussions among the moderators before decisions are made.

Perhaps it would be better if the word moron only existed in the pub. It does not make a lot of sense to be able to write that anyone who accidentally shoots someone with their speargun is an moron but not be allowed to use that word should a member actually have such an accident. Perhaps we should just be using less controversial words to express a similar idea n a less offensive way and stay away from such grey areas.

 

[2airishuman]

Fourth Comment:
When you have been banned for a time and then return, you do not return with a clean slate. It takes a really, really bad post to cause a ban by itself, so people who have been banned have done so after a long list of transgressions. Believe me, in some cases the first ban does not come until the moderator discussions that lead to the ban include people fairly screaming that enough is enough is enough, already. When those people come back from a ban, they are definitely being watched closely for a return of the behavior that led to the ban. It should therefore take fewer and more mild offenses to lead to a second ban, but even that is not always true; sometimes people returning from bans seem to get away with more than they did before. I don't know what that is true.

But if you have been banned in the past, then, yes, you should expect that you will be watched more carefully. Get enough such attention, and eventually moderators will get tired of it all and make it permanent.

I would like to suggest, in the abstract, that the most successful and interesting discussion forums (regardless of topic area), encourage their moderators to weigh the extent of an individual's positive, useful, insightful, informed, well-researched, moving-the-conversation-forward, etc. contributions -- in addition to any history of problems.

I've participated in various online forums since the early 1980s and been a mod on some you'd recognize. I've seen many forums deteriorate after a controversial member was banned for one or another perceived infraction.

Including this one.

 

[2airishuman]

II bet if he has to chase his gun one time, he'll be a lot more careful with it. I had one captain not let them make the second dive in a case like that. That's a serious mistake and they should know it along with the rest of the boat.

I don't know anything about spearfishing.

I do know some people who carry firearms all the time. It is my experience that, eventually, even careful, conscientious people will mistakenly violate various safety protocols. They are, on the whole, not morons, they are human.

So, a spearo handing up a loaded speargun? Was it an isolated incident or part of a pattern? There's a difference between making a mistake and normalization of deviance.

 

[boulderjohn]

I would like to suggest, in the abstract, that the most successful and interesting discussion forums (regardless of topic area), encourage their moderators to weigh the extent of an individual's positive, useful, insightful, informed, well-researched, moving-the-conversation-forward, etc. contributions -- in addition to any history of problems.

This absolutely happens. We have had discussions about prolific posters with much good to say and much bad as well. There are some really big name examples of people who perplex us with that combination of really positive and really negative posts. In one moderator discussion I referred to them as the 5 P's--I will leave it to you to figure out what those 5 p's were.

 

[CuzzA]

Interesting discussion. Thanks for taking the time to provide an explanation.

I'm not sure I have expressed any objection to calling certain actions moronic or idiotic, but rather surprised that it was appropriate when discussing a very specific accident. I don't know the victim in the photograph, but I guess the person who shot him is a moron.

I've personally seen only one person get shot with a speargun, but I have seen some close calls. It really is a dangerous activity.

I agree that all the rules Netdoc listed (including number 5) are valid. The person who I witnessed being shot was as the result of violating at least two of the 5 rules simultaneously.

It should be stated however, that it is not that uncommon to see experienced spearfisherman loading their guns before they enter the water and while still on the boat. It makes me nervous when I see it. There are various reasons for doing this and I am sure that Netdoc considers all of them moronic. It is primarily a situation where convenience trumps safety (in the eyes of those who do it).

I have seen a speargun misfire on a boat more than once and besides the recoil and the danger of getting hit by the pointy end of the shaft, there is another hazard. If a speargun, which has the shaft tethered to a strong line, fires in the air, the shaft can go upward or outward, reach the end of the line and then come back (from the elastic force of the line, I guess) and cause potentially fatal injuries from the butt of the shaft impaling someone. I witnessed a particularly dramatic example of the "rebounding action" on one dive boat several years ago.

Last week, an experienced spearo handed up a loaded speargun to me while in the process of handing up his catch, scooter, smb, pole spear and fins etc. It can be a lot of things for the diver to keep track of, so it is important to check for the gun being loaded before you grab it from a diver. I noticed the loaded gun immediately, I took it (being extra cautious about where it was pointed) and unloaded it for him. Since we are now talking about speargun safety, I thought it appropriate to provide a another reminder that it is always good to look at the band(s) of the gun and confirm that it is unloaded before handling it. Unfortunately, the situation is not as unusual as it should be.

A diver handed me a loaded gun two weeks ago, business end facing him... I handed it back to him and told him to unload it.

In case anyone doesn't realize just how powerful a speargun is.

I also agree that in this case there appears to be a double standard. I've seen a number of posts get deleted for similar language in other accident threads. We don't know if the subjects in the video are members here. So either we accept that language across the board or we don't. For the record it doesn't offend me.

 

[The Chairman]

So, a spearo handing up a loaded speargun?

In someone's signature line, they proclaim that "Stupid should be painful". Implied in that is that it shouldn't be painful to others. Mistakes should and often result in some sort of pain. Tossing a guy's speargun overboard teaches them a graphic and useful lesson. Again, it usually only takes once for that lesson to sink in and it prevents others bearing the pain for their mistake.

I didn't invent the rule, but I do like it. Such poor judgement should be ridiculed.

 

[Marie13]

In someone's signature line, they proclaim that "Stupid should be painful". Implied in that is that it shouldn't be painful to others. Mistakes should and often result in some sort of pain. Tossing a guy's speargun overboard teaches them a graphic and useful lesson. Again, it usually only takes once for that lesson to sink in and it prevents others bearing the pain for their mistake.

I didn't invent the rule, but I do like it. Such poor judgement should be ridiculed.

Oh, yes. Darwin Award candidates. Some of my favorite sayings are "you can't fix stupid" and "play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

 

[The Chairman]

I've seen a number of posts get deleted for similar language in other accident threads.

They may not have been deleted for language. Quite often, vitriolic comments are a part of a thread being pulled off topic. We tell the offender why their post has been deleted and quite often they'll tell everyone else a different story. As a rule, we're not going to get into those kind of bicker battles. People who want to believe the worst about us will not have their beliefs altered by the truth.

 

[CuzzA]

Oh, yes. Darwin Award candidates. Some of my favorite sayings are "you can't fix stupid" and "play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

One of my favorites is, "you don't know what you don't know."