Negativity in Cave Diving Politics

In dry caving its grotto vs grotto, in cave diving its agency vs agency or GUE vs DIR or Backmount vs SideMount.... in nursing its day shift vs night shift in IT its programmers vs administrators. There are some people I wont dive with there are a lot that I will, that has not changed because I reached a particular level of diving, its just life. If someone avoids coming to Florida because of the drama they see on-line, its their loss, our gain. They have the same drama in a different medium where they live.

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Originally Posted by PfcAJ

Totally different in person. Night and day.

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C'mon man, it's not like he had a bad day or two. How can somebody that writes all that stuff not have anger issues, at least?
Again, I don't know him, so what do I know, but a lot of his stuff was as vile as it gets. Especially his accident "analyses" were way below the belt, IMHO.

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Originally Posted by bent

I don't know him, so what do I know

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:) There ya go. He's nothing like his online persona face to face.

Some of his stuff WAS inflamatory, but he also hit the nail on the head with a lot of things, and sometimes it was on point and inflammatory. Regardless, it was 15 years ago and many (most?) of those personalities are out of the sport.

The guy did the dives that I have never heard anyone deny. I have heard stories about him at Peacock doing things such as falling in with his valves turned off and nearly drowning. I also heard some story about him dropping his fins in at Peacock and making his wife / gf who had on high heels go get them. Anyway the guy was definitely abrasive on the internet. I understand some of what he was fussing about because at the time there were some unbelievable equipment setups in cave diving. Things have definitely improved in that regard but he could have achieved his goals in a lot less offensive matter and probably even achieved more as calling people names does not help win anyone over to your point of view.

I have heard he was totally different in person but I have never met him so I don't know. The biggest thing I don't get about him was his aversion to shirts.

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Originally Posted by nakatomi

Does anyone have video of Trey, other than what is on the 2004 GUE DVD's? Preferably some footage that was not shot in huge passage.
I'd like to see some smaller stuff where one can see his true abilities.

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There is some in the end of 1995 vhs video DIR1, he is scootering some bit smaller passages. Here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmdi3keWVlk

Diving starts at 16:10

Regarding those quotes, I grew up with BBS's and early 90s internet and for me, that's a typical online flame war going personal and keeping on for years, same happened all over usenet. Worse things have been said and done in other fields, from sports to science, especially during that 1990-2000 period. I think that reason why 15 years after he quit, people still keep mentioning him is the fact that alot of cave divers never grew up with the unmoderated, no bounds part of internet and stepped into an online world without understanding its true, very anarchist nature. In terms of online unmoderated communication, what hes saying is in the end rather mild, often having coherent thought, but filled with hilarious and often personal / offensive jabs. And if you expand the discussions, it was not just him, some of his opponents were as bad, but never got quoted to same extent.

Atleast he was brutally honest in his opinions and was not afraid to tell them out, with his own name on the line. Many remained anonymous for full duration of this era.

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Originally Posted by PfcAJ

Totally different in person. Night and day.

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I agree. The times I interacted with him he was pleasant to talk to, and didn't ridicule me for my question. Behind a keyboard we are different people, and will say things we would never say in a face to face situation.

I just loved the way he would use his tact on identified issues when he posted online.

We need some more of that passion and lack of ability to filter to come back to cave diving.

If anything he always kept people talking about safety and standards... even if it was to defend it... it was discussed and challenged on a regular basis.

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Originally Posted by skoskinen

There is some in the end of 1995 vhs video DIR1, he is scootering some bit smaller passages.

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Thank you for the link, I've seen that video before. I'd be more curious to see him swim or scooter some smaller stuff, but it's not really that important.

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Originally Posted by nakatomi

Thank you for the link, I've seen that video before. I'd be more curious to see him swim or scooter some smaller stuff, but it's not really that important.

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not sure much video like that exists. not really what the project was doing back then

you can see some of those same sections of cave in this more recent video if you were curious what it looks like when it's not on a 20 year old VHS tape :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buWmTiUYwcU

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Originally Posted by PfcAJ

:) There ya go. He's nothing like his online persona face to face.

Some of his stuff WAS inflamatory, but he also hit the nail on the head with a lot of things, and sometimes it was on point and inflammatory. Regardless, it was 15 years ago and many (most?) of those personalities are out of the sport.

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Even the dead ones?