noise in incidents-forum *rant*

[cocheese 0]

What do you think of this idea?

New rule: If you were not there to witness any part of the incident, then don't post to incidents. All other posts will be removed.


The forum has been useless when trying to find out anything more than who, when, and where.

[danielcroft 2]

How about this instead. When we get definitive answers, all the BS speculation is deleted.

I honestly think that we can learn from the "what if" discussion, I certainly have. Maybe that diminishes over time for experienced jumpers but, as a newb, I can certainly say that it's interesting and informative to explore the possibilities.

[grimmie 173]

Maybe we all should just concentrate harder on ending the need for an "Incidents" forum altogether.

[sunshine 2]

It annoys me too. Even the incidents i witness i never post about cause i know everything i say will get twisted around and stupid responses will be made.

___________________________________________
meow

I get a Mike hug! I get a Mike hug!

[billvon 2,400]

>New rule: If you were not there to witness any part of the incident,
>then don't post to incidents. All other posts will be removed.

If that were the rule, 90% of the current incidents threads would not exist, and people looking for an explanation of an incident at their home DZ would find nothing. Often, that is worse than a secondhand report.

Case in point. An S+TA at a drop zone hears about an incident and goes out to the field where a bunch of people are standing around a guy who broke his back. He calls an ambulance, sees the guy off to the hospital and talks to the people on his load. He finds out he was jumping a new smaller canopy, had been warned by several jumpers not to try high performance landings with it yet, but was told by a canopy coach to try a 270.

The S+TA talks to the canopy coach and tells him he should change what he's telling people due to this incident. He then gathers everyone at the DZ that night, tells them what happened, and gives suggestions as to how to avoid that in the future.

Under the rule you propose, neither the S+TA nor the canopy coach would be able to post here. Indeed, if the person involved were to die, it's possible no one would ever be able to post about the incident.

The ideal post on Incidents is a post by the person involved listing what happened, the contributing factors and lessons learned. Second best is a post by an expert (S+TA, investigating rigger, instructor) who has spoken to several people and gotten a good feel for what happened. Third best is an eyewitness, because eyewitness reports are notoriously error-prone, especially when altitudes and time are involved. Last is someone who just heard someone else say something. It is often pretty worthless, but is also often better than nothing.

The Incidents forum is intended as a forum for people to discuss incidents. It is not intended as an incidents report page. We have one of those already. That's where you can go if all you want is a concise summary of what happened.

[SuFantasma 0]

Quote

...But the end result was still the same, Johnny messed up. In that regard nothing much has changed.

30 years later, that is still sounds like an FAA investigation !

Y yo, pa' vivir con miedo, prefiero morir sonriendo, con el recuerdo vivo".
- Ruben Blades, "Adan Garcia"

[phantomII 36]

I totally agree with the OP.

For me the most annoying sentence is: "We need more information so we can learn from this incident"

I know there are no stupid questions, but this is total ignorance of all the lessons we already learned in the past.
In my opinion, we already have all the information we need to make safe skydives. The basic problem is the non-adherence to these already learned lessons.

[kkeenan 13]

Quote

The Incidents forum ...is not intended as an incidents report page. We have one of those already. That's where you can go if all you want is a concise summary of what happened.

So the message is:
If you want "nothing but the facts", go to the Incidents Reports page. Everyone who is complaining about the Incidents Forum knows how much BS is there, has always been there, and will continue to be there. You can't change it by continually complaining about the traits of human nature that cause people to ask stupid questions and post needless speculation. I happen to believe that the questions and speculation serve a purpose. But if you don't share that belief, then don't read it.

Kevin K.

_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?

[AlRedler 0]

That would be our loss. I have learnt a lot from the incidents forum, sometimes from discussions that digress from the main thread. There are a lot of ways to be dangerous or be caught out and many of us never hear about them in normal dz discussions.

Examples I recall include discussion on the moonshadow possibly spooking people on night jumps by looking like an impending collosion. Or even rapidly shifting wind directions affecting landing decision, common in California,very rare in England.

However I agree there is too much noise consisting of the same posters making the same comments on every thread. What is valuable is when experienced skydivers make informed corrections or explain lessns learnt from past incidents. There is a good number of those to whom I am personally grateful for their efforts.

[brettski74 0]

So many posts to reply to. In general I agree with the likes of John, Nick and cocheese. There is too much noise. I think the simplest solution to it all is that rather than requiring moderators to delete posts after the fact, require moderator approval before posts even appear in the forum. This, of course, makes the assumption that the moderators have the time to wade through all the crap for us, however, they seem to be deleting some posts in there at the moment, so they must be reading through the crap already. Further, I think that if people make a couple of posts that do not get approved, they'll get the hint that the incidents forum is not the right venue and the amount of moderation in the incidents forum will hopefully go down as a result. It also assumes that the forum software has that option, but I think that's a fairly safe assumption for many forum packages.

I understand that the incidents forum is not a formal incidents report list. On the other hand, the posting rules do suggest that the incidents forum is supposed to be held to a higher standard than most other forums on here. I think that moderation before the fact will serve those goals much better than moderation after the fact. If anyone wants to get the word out sooner than moderator approval can be obtained for their post, they can always go to the condolences forum and post their condolences to the family and friends there or go to the safety and training section and openly speculate all they want about the effectiveness of RSLs or AADs or putting trampolines over the whole landing area or whatever else...

[kelpdiver 2]

are you volunteering?

moderator approval of every posting is a method that rarely works, and never works on a high volume discussion area. It's too much work for volunteers. It's signficantly easier to moderate after the fact.

In between is a system where newer users are moderated before the post, but after a certain point are automatics. But that's still a lot of work, and there are a lot of long standing posters who disagree with the whining complaints in this thread.

It's a lot easier to ignore the aspects you don't like.

[divnswoop 0]

80% of the Incident forums could be deleted if the poster would read the fatalities from the year before...and the year before that.....and the year before that.

As Tony Hathaway said...there is not many *new* ways to kill yourself.

[PhreeZone 15]

Preapproval of every post is doomed to fail. There are currently 3 moderators for that forum, there are 35000 users that have access to it. At any given weekend up to 2 of us are at dropzones jumping and the third is BASE jumping the bridge in his back yard. When I log on after an incident it is not unusual to have 75-100 posts over the course of a weekend. People already accuse us of "covering up facts" or "hiding information" or any other thought they have on those subjects when we delete a post or spin a subject off to its own thread.

What will end up happening is that the posts that would be targeted towards the incidents forum would instead spill over to the other forums since as soon as it hits the press people want to talk about it. If they could not post it in the Incidents forum then every other forum would get the posts instead. This happens to an extent currently, just look at how many threads were started about the demo in KS or any of the plane crashes. By keeping the posts contained to a single thread it is a lot easier to clean them up if they do get too far off topic verus having to moderate 8 threads in 4 forums where the same moderator does not have privilages.

Just flipping a switch to preapprove posts only will not address the issue, we have had conversations on how to reduce the noise in most the topical forums in the past and continue to have those conversations. We are open to suggestions on how to reduce the noise but the suggestion also needs to be scaleable to the amount of traffic that happens to pass through some of these forums. A single thread in Incidents gets 2,000-40,000 views and 15-250+ replies.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Trent 0]

My rant about the incidents forum:

Often times the people that DO have information are the ones that work for the dropzones and were part of the response to the incident. Given the litigious nature of pretty much everyone... this prevents them from posting anything in a public forum until all is said and done with the legal bs. That could take years.

Inevtiably, some over-eager dz.commie will demand to know why everyone from the DZ is being quiet and claim some sort of cover up. That is the furthest thing from the truth in the cases I've seen. It's just too bad that sharing information that others may learn from can get us individually named in a lawsuit.

Just keep that in mind.

Oh, hello again!

[Andrewwhyte 1]

Yes, It was nice (if nice is really the appropriate word) to see Hans posting the recent fatality at the farm. It set the discussion out on an informed track and set the stage for a good discussion.

[feuergnom 22]

just to quote a sentence from the forum guide-lines:
"I trust everyone will use their good judgment before starting a thread or disposing of advice."

maybe it should read like this: I trust everyone will use their good judgment before starting a thread, responding to posts or disposing of advice.

edit typo

The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle

dudeist skydiver # 666

[wmw999 2,121]

Pretty much every post where the DZ has come in with a thorough statement early has had more productive discussion. OTOH, most of those have been with experienced jumpers pranging themselves, where the likelihood of lawsuit was very slim.

With students the picture changes. The DZ's exposure is probably far greater, and, yes, statements have to be vetted through the lawyer.

But an early statement from the DZ that they acknowledge the incident and will get back as soon as they can will probably cause there to be less speculation, especially if it's followed up with as soon as the lawyer can vet the statement.

People understand that lawyers are involved now. Some DZs have skydiving lawyers, which is helpful. Others don't, and will have more trouble figuring out what they can release.

Like it or not (and at least one skydiving lawyer I know hates it), dz.com exists, and it's a real source of discussion. Confronting that head-on, and using it, is better in the long run. Contributing to the information helps to channel it.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[kkeenan 13]

Quote

Yes, It was nice (if nice is really the appropriate word) to see Hans posting the recent fatality at the farm.

Quite a bit different from the Clewiston incident. It's been 1-1/2 weeks now, and nothing but second-hand info. This has done nothing but fuel speculation and arguements.

_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?

[JeffNo 0]

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that speculation -- for lack of a better word -- is good.

Speculation is right.

Speculation works.

Speculation clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Speculation, in all of its forms -- speculation for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind.
And speculation -- you mark my words -- will not only save dz.com, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

Thank you Mr. Gekko

[upndownshop 0]

Quote

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that speculation -- for lack of a better word -- is good.

Speculation is right.

Speculation works.

Speculation clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Speculation, in all of its forms -- speculation for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind.
And speculation -- you mark my words -- will not only save dz.com, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

Thank you Mr. Gekko

Humm...nice!