Split from: Are you AFRAID to Post?

[The Chairman]

Link? I can almost bet it was one of five posters.

 

[boulderjohn]

And you would be right. I commented on it when it was reported.

EDIT: I was not the one who reported it.

 

[ScoobaDood]

I'm just curious about something, why all the PADI hatred? I mean I's sure there are bad instructors from every agency. I was trained at a PADI site, and I can tell you that from what I saw, they took it very serious, to the point that one student was not at the OW dives because he needed more time in the pool to satisfy the instructor. I certainly don't want to get in the middle of a "bloodbath in progress" but I think Mike said it right, if you are against PADI you are against the majority of the Divers out there. If PADI is that bad, I would think the better use of energy would be to address PADI and encourage some changes be made.

I personally spent months calling LDS' to find out about the different Instruction agencies, and they all tooted the horn about the one they were with, and bashed the others....that is until I found the one I used. They told me that any of the agencies is going to have it's share of bad instructors. That my best bet was to ask them lots of questions and find out what kind of instructors they are. Are they "Rubber Stamp" or do they certify upon demonstration of good skills. I found an LDS' that was SSI that bashed the rest, PADI and NAUI especially, and boasted of their solid training methods. They also informed me of how they limit classes to 10 students per instructor as a safety meassure. Some safety meassure. In the end I went back to the LDS' that encouraged me to check out instructors not agencies and signed up. Turns out that they are a PADI 5-Star. When we did OW dives we had 6 students, 1 instructor, 2 DM's and a DMC. Safety was clearly #1, and the time was taken to make sure that everyone was getting the instruction they needed. Could the same have happened at an SSI class, or NAUI? Im sure of it. Just as much as a bad experience could have been had with a PADI class.

I am only chiming in on this as I was one of people that was new to the Diving community....came here based on reputation...and was left in a daze over the debates about training, gear, etc. Fortunatly I am not easily frightened and I waded through the commentary and digested, researched, and questioned what was said and moved on.

I think every agency is going to have it's good and bad instructors, and I think they owe it to themselves as much as the diving community to try to address those issues. Consider that the larger the agency (more instructors) the higher number of idiots they will have just based on the fact of a % of all of them having some idiots.

As always, just my $.02

 

[Diver0001]

Is this site considered anti-PADI?

Well, I am an avid participant. I have learned a lot here. Yet I have never once suggested to any of my students that they join.

....snip....

I am not alone. I know other SB instructors who do the same.

John didn't want to mention me by name, but I'm one of them.

I don't try to keep my students from reading online forums but I *warn* them that they are not likely to be welcomed openly and that they will probably be met by a lot of negativism and cynicism that will leave them confused and won't help them. I tell them that every sign of inexperience will be used by people pushing their own personal agendas as a soap-box and that people who come across as experts on the internet (what I call the internet-super heros) are often not nearly as experienced as they try to tell you they are. Moreover, I tell them that these "internet super heros" will be more interested in self aggrandizing behaviour and perpetuating their internet persona than they will be in helping newbies with any issue that they might have.

Finally, I tell them that the internet *can* be a way to learn new things but that they need to approach online BBS's, and especially the most negative "anti-everything-they-don't-think" crowd with enormous skepticism.

In fact, one of the people some think is one of the top 5 posters on Scubaboard is really an incredibly negative, self-aggrandizing and narcissistic clown IMHO and is the only person on the *entire* internet in all of the boards I participate in who has ever made it onto my ignore list.

Just become someone lobs cynical, angry, frustrated "me me me" grenades at everything doesn't make them right and as convinced as they are of themselves, regardless of their so called "credentials" or their "track record", they can still just be shriveled up, closed minded bitter old men (or younger people who aspire to becoming that). Keep in mind, people, some with really impressive credentials, can still be complete clowns whose head is a real jumble of internal chatter and negative emotions who can't understand why we do things differently now than before the invention of the SPG. Unfortunately, newbies often get enchanted by them.... In fact, the one on my ignore list once told me that he "deserves" unquestioning respect from anyone younger than he is and therefore he has no reason to "earn" respect by what he says .... a vast overestimation of his value to scubadiving, and to this board.... hence my observation and my warning.

What I *do* tell my students is that *if* they read anything on the internet that is different than what I told/taught them and they have a question about what/why I did things the way I did that they are welcome to call me at any time and we can discuss it. I'm confident that no matter what some POV warrior convinced them of, that presenting factual information to them will help them more than them trying to interpret pages and pages of bickering about semantics on the internet.

Just a couple of days ago a brand new diver joined SB and posted his introduction in the Introduction forum. He almost immediately got blasted with a somewhat crude post telling him how bad his instruction was and how much better it would have been if he had gone with another instruction/agency. In the introduction forum! Can't we even wait until the guy gets into the regular forums before hitting him with that message?

I know the thread you mean and it's a perfect example of what I warn my students about.

Interestingly, you can easily identify POV warriors by noticing which posters always get thanked by the other handful of people who share the same opinion.

If you want to know about who the POV warriors are about training, for example, just start a thread saying nothing more than, "I am PADI trained and I regret my choice" and see who thanks it. Those will be the ones whose POV is about training. You can start similar threads about any other issue like "I bought this or that BCD and I regret my choice" and then you'll see who the POV warriors are on the BCD issue... etc etc.

R..

 

[The Chairman]

Sorry, but I just had to thank you for that!

 

[cdolphin]

If you want to know about who the POV warriors are about training, for example, just start a thread saying nothing more than, "I am PADI trained and I regret my choice" and see who thanks it. Those will be the ones whose POV is about training. You can start similar threads about any other issue like "I bought this or that BCD and I regret my choice" and then you'll see who the POV warriors are on the BCD issue... etc etc.

R..

Uh. Pass on that self-abuse.

However, I do wonder why PADI is not participating in the "Training Agencies" forum here?

Has PADI declined to have a representative here on ScubaBoard? It seems it would be in their best interest to participate openly. Leaves them open to bashing if they aren't willing to hold a public discussion. Kind of like the boss who shuts his/her door unless it is to issue "rulings".

And I'm PADI certified. Barely. AOW. EAN. That's it. I wouldn't bash them publicly if they aren't here to defend themselves or answer complaints. Did I have some issues with training? Yes. Did I discuss it with the instructor? Yes. Case closed.

 

[Diver0001]

Uh. Pass on that self-abuse.

However, I do wonder why PADI is not participating in the "Training Agencies" forum here?

Has PADI declined to have a representative here on ScubaBoard? It seems it would be in their best interest to participate openly. Leaves them open to bashing if they aren't willing to hold a public discussion. Kind of like the boss who shuts his/her door unless it is to issue "rulings".

And I'm PADI certified. Barely. AOW. EAN. That's it. I wouldn't bash them publicly if they aren't here to defend themselves or answer complaints. Did I have some issues with training? Yes. Did I discuss it with the instructor? Yes. Case closed.

They do read this forum (or parts of it) but they have a policy not to get involved in debates on the internet. They have, however, from time to time, contacted people (instructors) behind the scenes about things said here.

And given the huge amount of anti-PADI negativism being perpetuated by the vocal screaming few on some of these boards, they probably can't find anyone with enough time or who is a big enough masochist to volunteer to taking on the POV warriors head-to-head. It takes a special skill set to try making a full time job out of wrestling a pig and most of the ones who are qualified have heart problems and therefore are not able to become divers.

R..

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm just curious about something, why all the PADI hatred?

I don't think there is really as much as you think.

I once wrote a paper for a class I was taking while working on my school administration certification. I referred to a concept that I created called a "virtual critical mass." The general belief is that a culture or climate in a school can be shaped once a "critical mass" of people is on board. The idea is that an individual's beliefs are shaped by the realization that a critical mass of the total population has a certain mindset. My thesis was that this was not actually true. It did not matter what the actual general beliefs of the population were; what mattered was the perception of the actual general beliefs of the population. If a teacher eats lunch every day and hears the same opinions from the same 4 people at every meal, with nothing else to contradict it, the teacher will assume that these beliefs are representative of the population as a whole.

Thus, in any population in which the total population is rarely engaged in an activity as a group, a small minority can be mistaken for the majority. The Annenberg Institute at Brown University published research on school reform that indicated that a couple of aggressive dissidents were more than enough to sabotage any reform efforts by creating an overall school atmosphere hostile to those changes.

I participated in an interesting study dealing with this phenomenon. I worked at a school that had a problem with girls smoking in the rest rooms. We did a quick preliminary survey to discover attitudes about it, and in that survey students estimated that over 60% of the total female population of the school smoked in the girls room. Everyone who objected to it kept silent because they felt they were in the minority.

We then did a very extensive scientific survey to determine the actual extent of the problem. We learned that only 14% of the girls in the school smoked at all, and only 7% smoked in the girls room. More than 90% were angry about the smoking in the girls room, yet they believed they were in the minority. The problem was that the girls who were smoking in the girls room were doing it every chance they got, and the rest of the population stayed out of the girls room because of it. The smokers therefore created the overwhelming illusion that they were in the majority.

Yes, there is a lot of PADI hatred expressed in these forums. A lot of it. But count the number of different names you see behind those posts, and then compare that number with the total number of people enrolled in ScubaBoard. You will see that there really aren't a lot of people expressing those thoughts, they just don't stop expressing those thoughts. Those who have contradictory opinions are either tired of responding, or...

...or they are afraid to post.

 

[The Chairman]

To be fair... neither NAUI or PADI have chosen to participate. They have both been invited and we will see who is the first of the two to see the opportunities we have for them.

 

[Diver0001]

You will see that there really aren't a lot of people expressing those thoughts, they just don't stop expressing those thoughts. Those who have contradictory opinions are either tired of responding, or....

John's right here. The real hard-core PADI haters can probably be counted on your hands but they're out there pushing it in subtle or less subtle ways on every thread and in some cases in nearly every post. What makes it confusing to most is that when you try to confront them about it they start to squirm around like a greased pig trying to act like they have credibility based on experience, resumés or an endless list of things they (claim) to have seen or heard instead of just coming out and saying it straight like real men. (and yes, they are all men).

This is what Netdoc was calling the POV warriors and the worst of them can be counted on one hand..... so that's maybe 5 out of 140,000 registered members, which isn't a lot in terms of percentages but they make the same old claims over and over again with such frequency and put so much effort into convincing other people that they are right (regardless of the facts) that it seems that there are many many more.

The fact that they seem to have managed to grow a following of people willing to parrot the same things they hear without actually thinking about if it's true or not, doesn't help. Just as in politics, those who are most critical and most cynical seem to have an easier time creating a name for themselves. It does not, however, mean that what they're saying has much real value.

R..