Vote for an idea

[Diver Hank]

Hi divers,
Would you please let me know your thought for 2 questions?
Please vote, thanks a lot!

Q1: If a website let people rate and review dive masters, instructors and dive centers,
is it a useful reference to you for dive planning?

Q2: If you are a dive master or instructor or dive center owner, will you post your
profile onto this website, and let people provide rating and review for you?

 

[wildbill9]

It would only be useful to me if it listed diver information and had a place for a reply from the dive shop/master. To many variables to judge without a real picture and an option for a rebuttal .

 

[Diver Hank]

It would only be useful to me if it listed diver information and had a place for a reply from the dive shop/master. To many variables to judge without a real picture and an option for a rebuttal .

What about a similar interface with Yelp?

 

[Diver0001]

Things change over time.

Good shops go bad, bad shops improve, some instructors improve over time, others get worse.....

My thinking is that a site like that, even if it were hosted by something like Scubaboard, that gets a lot of traffic, wouldn't have enough reviews of individual shops or pros to be very useful.

If (a) the volume were HUGE and (b) reviews older than X-amount of time fell out of the time-window and (c) it were moderated to some extent to stop disgruntled clients from skewing the results with multiple votes (believe me, this would be a problem) then you might have a slight chance of getting an inkling of what to believe.

As it is, if people have questions about a given shop or instructor they can often get what they were looking for by posting a thread on the forum.

R..

 

[TMHeimer]

In recent years (decades now?) there has been a "rate my (school) teachers" thing online. I have read some reports that have criticized a teacher a lot while others said the same teacher is great. I guess if all the replies go one way or the other you can get a decent idea about that teacher. Irrelevant for me since I took courses from and assisted courses for the same shop, with no others for many miles away. Don't forget as well that when you rate a DM as opposed to an instructor you are rating someone who (from what I read on SB) is basically a volunteer who rarely gets a salary other than tips. That's like rating the HS basketball coach who is a community member doing it for free. I was rated as a paid DM with the student surveys given after every course, and THINK I rated pretty good (who knows--confidential--just what you may overhear students saying, or what they actually say to you while doing the survey). If I'm not paid, I don't want to be rated. Ie: You get what you don't pay for.

 

[Bob DBF]

Since I am not a DM, instructor, or shop, I can't answer Q2 but that is not an option.

Bob

 

[dmaziuk]

Main problem is abuse: without a workable web of trust I the customer won't believe a word (I saw it on the Internet so it must be true) and I the owner/instructor will have to weigh the potential of (extremely easily) ruined rep vs however few extra customers the site may bring.

 

[Diver Hank]

Main problem is abuse: without a workable web of trust I the customer won't believe a word (I saw it on the Internet so it must be true) and I the owner/instructor will have to weigh the potential of (extremely easily) ruined rep vs however few extra customers the site may bring.

Thanks for your response!
Previously I found many people got bad experience because of unknown quality of DMs / instructors / dive centers, that's why I came out certain idea that aggregates rating/review from divers. In detail, the rating criteria could be more than one. For example, a DM with 5 stars of "Eagle eyes", and photographers may need this guy; a DM with 5 stars of "Safety guard", and safety oriented divers may prefer this guy. In short, the motivation is to help divers to find appropriate DMs.
Indeed abuse is a problem, but looking at Yelp.com, even though badmouthing is always existing, Yelp is still a great reference to evaluate restaurants (of course Yelp has algorithm to filter malicious reviews). Thus, I am thinking why not do the same thing for SCUBA diving?
(May I have more opinion from you?)

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I frequent a dive shop that not only caters to new divers with an in-store classroom and pool but also to tech divers. They are the only shop in the area that does both. The owner and his employees are knowledgeable and very helpful. The shop sponsors trips as well as local beach and boat dives. It is the model all shops should strive for.

At the same time they receive negative reviews from dissatisfied customers occasionally on Yelp. The shop owner replies to every negative review politely and always offer a sensible resolution to the customers' problems. Still, some people can't be satisfied. I have discussed some of the more negative reviews with the owner and employees and it is almost always someone who signed up for a class then skipped sessions or bought an item, used and abused it and then demanded a full refund.

 

[dmaziuk]

Here's how a bad Yelp review could land you in court

enjoy

PS. I just realised I have not read one yelp review in my entire life. ever.