How often do you run a line?

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Originally Posted by aainslie

When you:

a) Have low compliance on a rule, and
b) Few deaths,

Then the rule IS due for amendment.

Plus, as I have reiterated ad nauseam, there is a middle ground - and that's where the danger lies. There are SAFE times not to run a line. And INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS ones. Since everyone is making up their rules as they go along, there are a lot of dangerous violations, that could be avoided by having more sensible rules with higher compliance.

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Ok I don't agree with you on the validity of the rules but I understand your point.
Having said that, it is not the rules that are not sensible enough and thus people are not following them, it is the people who don't follow the rules who are not being sensible, not the other way around.
I think that if people cannot see the logic in super basic safety rules, they will be even less likely to follow more stringent ones.

What would you change or add to the existing basic rules to make them safer and "easier" for people less "disciplined" to follow?

I would be interested to read what you would change/add to the current safety guidelines to increase conservatism, you may be right and make things safer, or not.

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Originally Posted by phillip1

Ok I don't agree with you on the validity of the rules but I understand your point.
Having said that, it is not the rules that are not sensible enough and thus people are not following them, it is the people who don't follow the rules who are not being sensible, not the other way around.
I think that if people cannot see the logic in super basic safety rules, they will be even less likely to follow more stringent ones.

What would you change or add to the existing basic rules to make them safer and "easier" for people less "disciplined" to follow?

I would be interested to read what you would change/add to the current safety guidelines to increase conservatism, you may be right and make things safer, or not.

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All I can say is, 50% of the cavediving world disagrees with you.

And if by "discipline" you mean mindlessly following anything an authority figure tells you to do, then I'm as undisciplined as they come - and proud of it. Boo-yah! (sp?)

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Originally Posted by aainslie

All I can say is, 50% of the cavediving world disagrees with you.

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The poll numbers are rubbish by any standard and yet you feel free to quote them!

It appears that you have created something not scientific but something very much like a low end marketing ploy. Have you worded it knowing you would get your results? People that know polling would advise those who have been following this thread to research the internet and discover what real pollsters call SLOPS*. It appears that is what you have cleverly created and call statistics. Then you call for these statistics to modify the rules.

The last line from the below link says something about polls like yours. "Aren’t they just proving why rules and regulations are needed to avoid anarchy?



*( SLOPS were originally “self-selected listener opinion polls” and now often refer to today’s ubiquitous “self-selected online polls.” Read more:

http://weiksner.com/2007/09/07/slops...#ixzz0SFLavGy4)
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" Typically, in SLOPS, persons with strong opinions (often negative) are more likely to respond. ... interest is that the clever acronym, SLOPS was ...

Read more: http://www.amstat.org/sections/srms/pamphlet.pdf
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If your education level is as high as someone told me it is, you owe this forum an apology. /Ken Hill

Ken, I'm getting a little sick of this. I am, indeed, very qualified to talk on this topic.

It was a simple, quick poll of people ON THIS BOARD. I view that as a pretty unbiased sample, given that this board is wholly aimed at cave divers. And I am still unclear who it is you think will truly dive always running lines, yet post that they don't to bias the sample.

And actually, it's YOUR accusation of unprincipled intent that I find egregious. And you, not I, need to do a bit of apologising.

Seriously. I get accused of being:

- Insane
- boneheaded, and
- Unprincipled

by moderators!

And it's ME that get threatened with a banning!

Methinks the moderators SHOULD meet. To get their own house in order. You, and Forrest, are out of line. I apologised for my statement. Neither of you have bothered to.

Man up and apologise, both of you, or admit to your hypocrisy. Or of course do the easy thing and ban me.

And what really gets me is that my intent is to make this sport safer, through the application of exactly the sort of discussion and thought that set up the early rules. You guys just want status quo, silence, and a nice warm fuzzy feeling of pseudo safety. Complacency in short. But are willing to attack me in return.

Ken, one final suggestion. Find the MOST qualified person you know (skip comes to mind) and ask him to create a "scientific" poll. I will eat my words publicly if the responses come out substantially differently, adn demonstrate that a majority always run lines.

One other point - I was incredibly conservative in my interpretation. A raw interpretation is that SITY SIX percent don't run lines. I realized that there might be some confusion over locations like P1 and REDUCED my estimate. IN the interest of not overstating my position.

YOU owe me an apology. Not vice versa.

Edit - I've just read that SLOP stuff. The intent there is to pretend to represent a wider group by polling a biased subset. Most of the posts on this thread have been FOR your side. Interestingly it's a largely silent group that aren't posting that voted that they didn't always run a line. Think about that for a second. Why is the readership of CDS likely to be a subset biased in favour of NOT running lines? I for one cannot think of any plausible reason. I await yours. But do yourself a favour - chat to someone like Skip first (or perhaps Wingman/Bill), since this is a field that you know little to nothing about, and your'e going to get into trouble fast.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aainslie

Three points:

1) Cave deaths are way down over 15 years ago.
2) Far more people are cave diving, and far deeper and more aggressively. Penetrations of 4000 feet are now commonplace.
3) Yet we have roughly 50% compliance on what is claimed is an inviolable rule.

Anyone see any contradictions?

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4) and a much larger data set in the last 15 years, than the previous 15 years, both in number of dives, duration of said dives, and complexity of said dives.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aainslie

Ken, I'm getting a little sick of this. I am, indeed, very qualified to talk on this topic.

It was a simple, quick poll of people ON THIS BOARD. I view that as a pretty unbiased sample, given that this board is wholly aimed at cave divers. And I am still unclear who it is you think will truly dive always running lines, yet post that they don't to bias the sample.

And actually, it's YOUR accusation of unprincipled intent that I find egregious. And you, not I, need to do a bit of apologising.

Seriously. I get accused of being:

- Insane
- boneheaded, and
- Unprincipled

by moderators!

And it's ME that get threatened with a banning!

Methinks the moderators SHOULD meet. To get their own house in order. You, and Forrest, are out of line. I apologised for my statement. Neither of you have bothered to.

Man up and apologise, both of you, or admit to your hypocrisy. Or of course do the easy thing and ban me.

And what really gets me is that my intent is to make this sport safer, through the application of exactly the sort of discussion and thought that set up the early rules. You guys just want status quo, silence, and a nice warm fuzzy feeling of pseudo safety. Complacency in short. But are willing to attack me in return.

Ken, one final suggestion. Find the MOST qualified person you know (skip comes to mind) and ask him to create a "scientific" poll. I will eat my words publicly if the responses come out substantially differently, adn demonstrate that a majority always run lines.

One other point - I was incredibly conservative in my interpretation. A raw interpretation is that SITY SIX percent don't run lines. I realized that there might be some confusion over locations like P1 and REDUCED my estimate. IN the interest of not overstating my position.

YOU owe me an apology. Not vice versa.

Edit - I've just read that SLOP stuff. The intent there is to pretend to represent a wider group by polling a biased subset. Most of the posts on this thread have been FOR your side. Interestingly it's a largely silent group that aren't posting that voted that they didn't always run a line. Think about that for a second. Why is the readership of CDS likely to be a subset biased in favour of NOT running lines? I for one cannot think of any plausible reason. I await yours. But do yourself a favour - chat to someone like Skip first (or perhaps Wingman/Bill), since this is a field that you know little to nothing about, and your'e going to get into trouble fast.

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Wow!

all this arguing is really stupid.
Anyone who does not always run a line is just lazy and rationalizing that laziness into something else, like: it is safe to not use a line all the time and do visual jumps, cause "I know the cave", "the gold line is right there" "there are too many lines already" "the tunnel does not silt out and I know there are no side tunnels" etc..the reasons go on and on...
In the end though I think it all boils down to laziness.

I think the mindset starts out something like this: Oh my god the tedious placing of yet another jump reel, shheeesh how many times do I need to do that, I know this cave inside out and I have dove here so many times, what the hell I'll do a visual, after all what could go wrong I know this cave like the back of my hand, hey that worked out great, it saved me 3 minutes and the hassle of placing the reel and it is just as safe since I know the cave so well, that's a stupid rule you don't always need to place a line, just sometimes as long as you know the cave, they lied to us at training.

Here's an interesting observation.

We were at Ginnie on Sunday from about 10am until 6pm and, while not super busy, it was steady with several teams there entering exiting or in the system while we were in there. But oddly enough the only line I saw the entire day was ours. Same goes for jump lines - we did not see any other than ours from the lips to the Maple leaf.

So I'd be willing to bet that the only people running lines at Ginnie are anal retentives like me and students taking classes. It would be intersting to do a pole on who does/does not do lines just in regard to Ginnie.

did a poll like that already, and posted the link in this thread somewhere.

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Originally Posted by atedeschi

did a poll like that already, and posted the link in this thread somewhere.

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I don’t think your poll addressed what kind of divers ran the lines at Ear (Eye) either. It might be interesting to know is it only students on courses/divers still practicing towards Full/newbies/instructors/divers with deranged personalities/divers afraid that someone will bust them not doing it/divers who have no concern for others/divers at night/most experienced divers/men/women or divers from all walks of life