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normiss

Delete the incidents forum?

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After seeing a recent incident thread being locked at the apparent request of a survivor, I'm again asking WTF?
Why do we have the damn thing in the first place?
No law or governing body forces us to use it.
There are LOTS of incidents that never make it in there anyway.
We will lock it whenever a mod feels like it.
What's the point?
The recent thread appears to have been locked by a user request. One in which said user verbally attacked others.
It would also seem he wasn't banned - as the rules would apply.
Then he starts his own thread that makes him happy in another forum.

WTF, over?

We as a group on this website appear to not care less about safety and education in this sport.
Pissing contests are the norm.

Now go die doing something so we can all bitch, moan, cry foul, scream cover-up, seriously debate the facts....only to have the door slammed and locked in our faces.

In preparation of my banning for not shutting the fuck up, I say good day to you!
:P

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The recent thread appears to have been locked by a user request. One in which said user verbally attacked others.



I would have to agree with you that is out of line for that thread to be locked for no other reason then the request. I also thought it was out of line for the comments that were directed at Mr. Chapman as well as others, for I never read or saw anyone saying the pilot was a dumbass for flying or any other negative comments.

I have many of the same questions as Mr. Chapman and had been wondering the same things. All to often we hear and even have a sticky at the top stating not to read that forum if you can't handle the post in it. Seem this time one upset person gets a thread locked by asking for it, yet if any other incident were to happen at another dz and the dzo was asking for the threads to be locked they most likely would be told to pound sand and we see all the time threads running wild and never locked.... maybe because no one asked the right mod?

I was happy to get the additional info posted, I have a better understanding on how HB's are flown now, however I think it was out of line for the one poster to start tell everyone to fuck off and STFU for no reason. I chalk it up to the personal loss and will give a pass on that, but I don't favor the special treatment on locking the thread as it was clearly done, unless from now on we can all start to ask that threads we don't like or agree with get locked on request.
you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

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The incidents forum is a mixed blessing. I've learnt a bunch from the dreaded speculation that upsets so many people. The problem is that so many people just spout the same crap. Posts like "nothing new to learn move on" and please don't speculate and why is nobody posting details.

I'm disappointed that the recent thread was locked as an excellent discussion on weather was evolving with huge relevance to skydivers. There were also details about the jumpship that are useful knowledge for a skydiver planning specialist jumps.

But people can be very callous in incidents and that can sour things. I wish more people would respect the fact, someone died and friends and relatives maybe looking at the thread. So calling people idiots for jumping certain canopies should be done more considerately after they have pounded in(as an example)
Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

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I agree... The fact is that no one was insulting anyone except the son insulting others.

The fact that the thread was locked is silly. But, there really was nothing else to learn and it was NOT a skydiving accident. Any further debate would be better on a ballooning forum.

But, I have seen stuff like this happen before. Maybe you should ask the mod who closed it WHY before you assume it was just since the guy asked?
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

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I voted "YES" I've long thought it needs to be reformatted, maybe not done away with alltogether. It's more often than not an "Abuse Forum" & wonders waaaaaaaaayyyy off topic 99% of the time. cpoxen publishes an excell data based spreadsheet that is always fairly current that could take it's place. The good thing about it is emotions are not included and he waits untill the investigation is concluded to report any data. The same way the "Incidents Forums" do not. The last episode the son of the gentleman that losts his life was abusing other users with foul language, while I completely understand he's mourning this should not give him a pass. At the risk of sounding crass if I were a moderator (and I'm not) I'd have to ban him from these forums. I know I certainly could not have gotten away with it. I've had posts dissapear, vanish into thin air with no explanation, conversation etc...Yeah ya'll know who you are. So I reckon if you get your ass kicked out of here, I'll go with you. I know these things keep me from posting here alltogether only to see episodes like this one. Man-o-man. B|

The Rant In "Incidents Forums" by user name of leapdog.

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Right now I am asking the thread to be locked.

I am not going to debate over what should have, could have been done. I don't owe any one an explaination and I think these forums are just about the most fucked up social thing I have ever seen. I usually stay logged out from Douchezone.com for the very reason that I might be found guilty by association.

I am writing this to put any debate to rest. And also so that anyone who comes back to read later will know my father was not careless, complacent, incompetent or anything less that beyond stellar pilot that the balloon community knows him to be. There should be no more questions after this and if they are then as my father would have said "go fuck yourself" Go get balloon pilot training and get some hours (20+) then come back and talk.

Also- on the weather- If you are not a meteorologist then also STFU. The lack of information on the storm did not help. It could not be found and given to him by radio fast enough. the storm was that fast in development. the procedure is to get over it to the winds don't effect the envelop.

I know first hand and only someone who was there could know. So until you do it STFU. and leave that alone.



Moderators: Since he thinks this is such a fucked up social thing, delete his thread alltogether, kick his ass out, please. After this rant he started another thread in "Blue Skies" As for others thinking it's other's bitching and whining, maybe they like being abused?
-Richard-
"You're Holding The Rope And I'm Taking The Fall"

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Hi Ron

I disagree that there was nothing else to learn or that it was not skydiving related. For a start the whole concept of emergency procedures from a balloon is something I could do with knowing. I would never have guessed that in an emergency a balloon would have to be made jump ready so as not to endanger the pilot. The same weather that unfortunately took the.pilots life, could just as easily screw up a crosscountry jump, so the weather learning was also relevant.

I don't know if the software allows it, but it wouldn't hurt for the incidents posts to need approval by a mod prior to being published. It would reduce the noise level considerably.
Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

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The "Incidents" forum should be for facts only.

If you want to speculate or to discuss related issues, start another thread in one of the other forums to discuss it.

Instead of whining about not being able to talk about things like balloon emergency procedures in the incident thread, just go start your own thread elsewhere. Why is that so difficult?

When you do all the speculating and side-discussions in the actual incident thread, it makes it difficult for anyone to keep track of what the facts actually are.

And if we're not going to do that, as above, and allow speculation to run rampant even though the thread rules say that "speculation is discouraged" while moderators do little to control it, then we ought to just quit pretending to want the facts, and change the name of the "Incidents" forum to the "Speculation" forum. Then there wouldn't be any confusion about what it actually is.

I propose to keep "Incidents", but regulate it to facts only. Then have a mirror forum called "Speculation", where the exact same incidents can be discussed in one place, but no one can be led to believe that it's anything other than speculation. Just call it what it is.

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The "Incidents" forum should be for facts only.

If you want to speculate or to discuss related issues, start another thread in one of the other forums to discuss it.

Instead of whining about not being able to talk about things like balloon emergency procedures in the incident thread, just go start your own thread elsewhere. Why is that so difficult?

When you do all the speculating and side-discussions in the actual incident thread, it makes it difficult for anyone to keep track of what the facts actually are.

And if we're not going to do that, as above, and allow speculation to run rampant even though the thread rules say that "speculation is discouraged" while moderators do little to control it, then we ought to just quit pretending to want the facts, and change the name of the "Incidents" forum to the "Speculation" forum. Then there wouldn't be any confusion about what it actually is.

I propose to keep "Incidents", but regulate it to facts only. Then have a mirror forum called "Speculation", where the exact same incidents can be discussed in one place, but no one can be led to believe that it's anything other than speculation. Just call it what it is.



Bolding mine.

Where in the rules does it say that?

And are the particular rules for the Incidents forum?

I'm not trying to be picky, I'm asking it as an honest question.

The closest I could find is this in the "When You Post Here" sticky at the top of Incidents:

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"That sounds like XXX happened." These can also be valuable, but can also sometimes be simple speculation. Posters should avoid speculation when they don't know much about the incident, but there's no rule against it.


"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

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You want an entire forum deleted because of a couple of threads?


Even if only one in a thousand accidents are reported, posted and discussed honestly, that's one more than would otherwise be the case.


Speculation may be discouraged, but open discussion about POSSIBILITIES is more valuable than cut-and-dry facts. It gets people thinking.

The problem isn't with the forum, it's with the people using it. The incidents forum is the best thing about this website.

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if we're... going to... allow speculation to run rampant even though the thread rules say that "speculation is discouraged" while moderators do little to control it...



Where in the rules does it say that?
And are the particular rules for the Incidents forum?

From the "why your post got deleted" post at the top of the forum:
"Secondly, while we encourage people to only post firsthand or _reliable_ secondhand accounts of incidents (such as a DZO's statement) there will be people who post simple speculation. This is discouraged, but there is no rule against it. If you post "don't speculate" it may be deleted, since lengthy discussions over whether or not someone is speculating serve no purpose. If you have reason to believe someone is posting grossly incorrect or misleading information, please PM a moderator and we will check it out."
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The closest I could find is this in the "When You Post Here" sticky at the top of Incidents:

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"That sounds like XXX happened." These can also be valuable, but can also sometimes be simple speculation. Posters should avoid speculation when they don't know much about the incident, but there's no rule against it.



Right, so once again speculation is discouraged, that's twice they say it. So there is a policy of not speculating, but we're not allowed to tell people not to speculate, and the moderators seem to do little to enforce the policy and actually stop it. So the policy and the enforcement behavior are at odds with each other.

See the problem here?

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>Right, so once again speculation is discouraged, that's twice they say it.

Yes. It is discouraged but not prohibited, because sometimes (unfortunately) all we have is speculation.

>So there is a policy of not speculating . . .

There is no policy of not speculating.

>but we're not allowed to tell people not to speculate

Correct. Telling other people not to speculate is a waste of bandwidth and does nothing to add to the thread about a given incident.

>and the moderators seem to do little to enforce the policy and actually stop it.

It does seem that way. That's because you don't see the posts that are deleted. We generally delete speculation that has no possible basis in fact.

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Ok, thank you. I had missed the part in the "Deleted" sticky.

I think we disagree on the degree of this.

Speculation seems to be allowed, but it's preferred to have at least some basis in fact.

Wild speculation by people who weren't there and have no direct knowledge of the situation seems to be discouraged, as are posts that say "don't speculate."

And Billvon's resonse helped clarify too.
"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

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A lot of the speculation issues could be resolved if there were an "Incidents Form" to be filled out upon the creation of a new thread. If one cannot fill out the mandatory fields of fact, then they couldn't be throwing out such sillies as, "Hey, I heard there was a fatality at X... anyone know anything about it?"

I know, I know.... far be it that we should require the first one to post to be able to share some facts, not be just the first one to post nothing the fastest.
Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

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I get messages every week from people that fear speaking out about injuries or fatalities at their local DZ's and want to get the word out since they feel lessons can be learned. Most times they know just the basic information such as "I heard Joe was life flighted out with critical injuries" and only after I post the thread do details start coming out from multiple sources. A form like this will kill the forum since a lot of times people do not know 100% of the information and if they had to collect all the info to start a thread they might as well wait the 6-9 months for Parachutist to publish something.
Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

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>A lot of the speculation issues could be resolved if there were an "Incidents Form"
>to be filled out upon the creation of a new thread. If one cannot fill out the mandatory
>fields of fact, then they couldn't be throwing out such sillies as, "Hey, I heard there
>was a fatality at X... anyone know anything about it?"

The problem there is that quite often no one knows all the facts. Often the discussion goes like this:

"Heard there was a fatality at X . . . . anyone know?"

"Asked my friend who jumped there last week. He said it was a 20 year old guy, sunset load right as he was leaving. That's all I know."

"Can anyone confirm the name?"

"Not yet, family hasn't been informed. It was apparently a low turn."

"What size canopy?"

"I don't know but his usual canopy was a Katana 120."

Etc etc.

The alternative is waiting for a full report that might never come. Is it better to have a partial report (as detailed above?) We think it is, because we feel some (even potentially incorrect) information is better than none.

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"Fear of speaking out" part. Don't quite understand, but since you bring up that folks send you PMs, then let's postulate this:

What if a form were created with some relevant immediate information like, 1) Type of Incident, 2) Injuries sustained (if any) 3) Type of equipment, 4) other information relevant to the incident.

And then, instead of the form getting pushed out by anyone in the creation of a new thread, the Submit Button would direct the form to a Moderator, who could then explore the incident for further information and when said "Moderator" has sufficient information, the Incident thread could then be started only by a Moderator? And, that Moderator would then be in charge of that thread.

Just a thought, Gentlemen. Have a good night.
Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

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For "fear of speaking out", look up the thread that Skyflower_bloom started about a tandem incident.

She took a boatload of shit from the DZ regulars about it.
Some people don't think that their incidents should be made public, especially if they don't make the papers and the only ones who know about it are the ones who were there.
"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

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