I normally don't eat dessert, but that stuff was good, eh?

Of course, but they seem to be in the minority of posts.
It's still the best place to get good information on diving, when you get
the right person to respond.  Most of the regulars, the bored ones can be
the best, but a newcomer would not get it looking a the group without
following it for while.

I figure that we are basically willing to talk about any particular
subject for a particular amount each day... If there is an original diving
related subject to talk about, we'll spend our time on it... If not, we'll
go back to talking about our default topic (i.e. guns & politics)... Since
he can't change the default value, the best he can hope for is to distract
us for awhile with something new... Since he doesn't like the default,
it's up to *him* to come up with an alternative to temporarily distract
us... If he doesn't want to find an alternative, he should either get used
to our choice of a default subject matter or learn to use his killfile and
other filters a bit better...

It's a big ocean... I'm not so ego-centric to think that I can't share it
with people whose brains don't work quite right... Hell, sharks gotta eat
too, ya know...

Perhaps we're bored because we have discussed all the diving topics to
death by now?

Nawh, thanks anyway... We like it just the way it is... No need to change
anything... If you want to add a new subgroup, how about
rec.scuba.liberal-nutcases-trolls-and-cowardly-f.cks?  Of course they
wouldn't have the self-control to be able to stay there, would they?

Well, me, too, again. No surprise there.

But I also realize nothing's going to change, and every time anyone
dares to broach this subject he or she quickly gets shouted down by
the folks who have made it what it is, and that applies to both the
right- and left-wing contingents here.

So over time I've just changed my expectations. I don't come here
expecting to learn anything about scuba. Sorry guys, but I get better
scuba advice from magazines than I get at rec.scuba, and that's pretty
sad. Certainly when a scuba topic comes up, I read it eagerly, and if
I think I can add anything to the discussion, I do so. The rest of it
I mostly just lurk through, because it's like the worst of talk radio
or reality TV, people screaming at each other so loudly that nobody
hears what anyone else is saying, and, again, that applies to both
sides of the issues. It's low entertainment, and I'm sure boredom
plays a part in the reasons people participate in or observe this odd
pastime, so yeah, I'm guilty, too.

That's the nature of Usenet, of course. I've been using Usenet for
more than 20 years now. I stumbled on it while working at a
university, and it was in those days mostly university and government
people. It was at that time a fascinating medium, in part because it
was a good information resource, and in part because of the anarchic
culture that developed around it. The participants more or less set
the rules as they went, and the primary rule always seemed to be that
there should be no rules other than to banish commercial solicitation.
It's little wonder, then, that these groups have become a sanctuary
for libertarians such as the folks who tend to dominate rec.scuba
discussions. It's still a fascinating medium, but no longer because of
the value of the information. Instead it's almost a laboratory for the
political and social anthropologist, if one should care to watch.

So don't expect anything to change here. The predominant voices here
are the libertarians, and they will defend their right to say and do
whatever they please for the same reason they will defend their right
to have guns -- because they can. It's too bad that unsuspecting
people come here looking for scuba discussions, but that's the way it
is. There are alternatives, as many have pointed out.

Having said all that, I doubt that there is any Usenet discussion
group that spends so much time off-topic (i.e. discussing things other
than what is implied by the name of the group, since to the dominant
voices here guns, politics and alcohol ARE on topic) as rec.scuba. But
I don't think that's entirely the fault of the participants. I think
it's the nature of diving. Unfortunately, it's not that easy to write
about in and of itself.

Consider the paucity of literature about this sport. Granted, sport
diving has only been around for a few decades, but the opportunities
to write and publish today are unlimited. Other participant sports
have generated a wealth of literature, and some of it is very very
good. Fishing, hunting, backpacking, even golf all have a rich written
tradition, both fiction and non-fiction, that appeals even to people
who don't participate in the sports themselves. Scuba diving does
not.

There are a few magazines barely worth the paper they're printed on.
How-to books don't work because the topics are already covered
thoroughly in training manuals. There have been a few good non-fiction
books in recent years, like Shadow Divers and Last Dive. Julia
Whitty's excellent new book, The Fragile Edge, includes a lot of
diving. And I've enjoyed some anthologies, like Down Time.

Scuba does appear in fiction from time to time, but most of it's
pretty bad. The notable exception is a single book, "Go to the
Widowmaker" by James Jones, but it's been out of print for years. The
most popular novelists using diving in their work today are Clive
Cussler and Jack Higgins, and their stuff is just awful (I am sure
some of you will disagree; flame away).

Why isn't there more good writing about diving? My opinion is that
diving is more visual than verbal. Writers need to take notes about
their experiences, and diving doesn't lend itself to note-taking. When
we're down there, we're concentrating intently, but we're very much in
the moment, and our experience of the moment is very personal and
individual, and our memories of the experience tend to be visual, not
verbal. Maybe we're working out of the right side of our brains (while
the left side stays engaged with the dive plan and details like
remaining air and no-deco time). That may be why underwater
photography is much more popular than underwater literature. My point
is that may be one of the "problems" with rec.scuba. It's not easy to
write about in the same way we write about other interests. I offer as
proof of that the low activity in the other forums devoted to diving,
whether you're talking about r.s.locations and r.s.equipment or any of
the moderated discussion groups. The only ones I've found with much
activity are the photography forums. Hmmm.

Several of the responses to this thread have challenged critics to
come up with an "original" diving topic (never mind that they don't
apply the same standard to gun topics on rec.scuba). I suspect that in
a group where so many of the regulars have been diving a long time,
not much is going to appear to be original.

That's too bad. It would be interesting to see if any of the old hands
could try coming up with an "original" or fresh answer to some of the
age-old questions. Maybe the problem is not so much a lack of original
topics and questions as a lack of original answers. I know, it can get
boring giving the same old answers over and over. In my role as a
diver at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, I have to answer the same
questions week after week about whether it's scary diving with
stingrays, what happened to the turtle's leg, etc. etc. It was a
relief when Steve Irwin got killed last year and we had a fresh
question to deal with. But I do enjoy challenging myself to find new
and original ways to give the same answers to the same questions and
thus avoid boring myself. It can be done.

Anyway, I know nothing's going to change. Rec.scuba is merely low
entertainment, and very cheap at that. There are other forums, and
when I really want to talk about diving or, more specifically, u/w
photography I'll go there. But I'll keep coming here to be appalled
for fun, and every once in a while I'll pop up and say something on or
off topic for the same reason any of the rest of you do.

Because I can.

gc