Solved: Who am I talking to?

[lowviz]

@The Chairman

Dear sir,
Would you consider making dive professionals (DM and above) immediately distinct from 'just divers' on this fine social board? I gain a lot of insight by being able to determine the 'flavor' of the poster and have recently been greatly surprised to learn of their professional status. I find this to be most unsettling.

It matters. You (posters) are or aren't posting as a professional. The unwashed massed don't always know this. Your SB persona does not reflect this as it should. No, we aren't all the same. Professionalism comes with obligations, titles, and transparency.

Show yourselves...

 

[Cowfish Aesthetic]

Classic SB: someone makes an agressive statement about how they believe the world should be ordered. Gets shutdown by a chorus. Hurts butt.

 

[boulderjohn]

I am feeling really dense right now. I really don't understand the point of the thread.

 

[rhwestfall]

I'm thinking it is more the case of "what are the credentials of the poster of the words I'm reading?"

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm thinking it is more the case of "what are the credentials of the poster of the words I'm reading?"

OK, I would like to know that, too, in some cases. I am not sure I understand why he is upset when he discovers that someone in a conversation has an undisclosed status as a professional. Can someone help me understand why that is such an issue?

 

[boulderjohn]

I actually see the issue from another point of view. For a while, I participated in a scuba forum on FaceBook. There, people had to use their real names, but there was really no other information about them. I happen to know some of those names, and I know that some of them are people with extremely good credentials, but I would bet 95% of the participants would not know that. I gave up my participation when I saw threads started by people asking fairly basic questions, and the threads were soon flooded with responses that were dead wrong. The people with the good credentials I knew answered with correct information, but they were drowned out by the volume of nonsense. In those cases, I think such knowledge can be a help, but I don't think that is what this thread is about.

 

[Wookie]

You are or you aren't. Pick one and stay true.

What I teach and what I do are very very different things. Like Northernone, I completely understand the rules, and I have insight that I am willing to share from running a successful charter for 20 years, but I never ever dove according to the rules, once I figured out which ones I could break safely.....

 

[The Chairman]

Would you consider making dive professionals (DM and above) immediately distinct from 'just divers' on this fine social board?

There are titles and titles that can show who you are talking to, but trying to enforce that over a quarter million users is beyond my ability.

Best Practices for anyone employed in the Dive Industry is full disclosure. You'll earn a solid reputation by putting your professional affiliation(s) in your signature line. Real names, phone numbers, website URLs, Physical addresses and such are a perfect addition to your signature line. Think of them as benign, yet effective free advertising on the world's largest website devoted to diving. Do you have to do this? Of course not. However, it's the right thing to do.

What if you know someone who's in the industry and yet doesn't pimp their creds in their signature line? Please assume that they are ignorant and not evil. Send them a PM (Conversation) and tell them how important it is for them to practice full disclosure and include this link: https://www.scubaboard.com/community/account/signature Kindly ask them to tell us who they are in real life and tell them that it will benefit them with hordes of divers breaking down their doors looking for the training style they advocate on the board. It certainly works for me. Hell, you can even point them to this conversation and this is a good time for our peeps to chime in on how important this is for them.

Beyond that, it's caveat legit cave!: Let the reader beware!

 

[JohnnyC]

Yep, I certainly want to have professional interactions in a pros only forum with other professionals. However because we are so varied in both opinion and certification, I don't see a point in trying to pass off any professional knowledge in the public areas of the forum, especially when my opinion differs from that of my certifying agency.

I am not my agency. It seems as if you'd like anyone with a professional credential to only speak their agencies line, otherwise what, you'll discount them as a professional? You'll discount their advice if it differs from their agency teachings?

I don't really see a point. Full disclosure is great, but only if one is willing to toe the party line. Anything else could open the instructor up to liability. Or maybe we should all be adding "this post is not meant to construe any actual advice related to scuba diving" like the MD's do when they post.

 

[Neilwood]

Personally I don't care if someone is an instructor or not when I decide to listen to them. I try to filter out the extraneous information (agency bias etc) to get to the base of what I want.

I don't care if someone has a particular instructor cert if I am looking for info. I am as likely (maybe more) to listen to the diver with 1K+ dives of that type as to the instructor who might only have a fraction of the experience.

 

[ofg-1]

Who are you talking to? I am a 29 year old, unemployed tech weenie spending my day in my Aunt Li's basement reading on the internet about stuff I would like to one day go out and do if my skin would ever clear up, and I was not afraid to go into the sun. I read this because the increasingly shameful anime porn that I usually watch is becoming boring, and most of my WoW team mates have jobs during the day.