User talk:Pbsouthwood/Archive 1

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Welcome

Hello Pbsouthwood/Archive 1 and welcome to Wikipedia! I am Ukexpat and I would like to thank you for your contributions.

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ukexpat (talk) 16:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

sandbox

thanks for the guidance!... so now, I have the page and am getting into the starting part of it....

Seascapeza (talk) 05:38, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello Peter, taxonomic order is the best for lists. I have sorted it at least according to main clades and added section of main clades. I think it will be OK like this. If needed (it depends on number of species) add there sections of Heterobranchia (Cephalaspidea, Thecosomata, Gymnosomata, Aplysiomorpha, Acochlidiacea, Sacoglossa, Cylindrobullida, Umbraculida, Nudipleura) but rather not too many others. Thanks, you are doing good work with the list. --Snek01 (talk) 21:34, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to use template {{inuse}} at the top of the article or in appropriate section. --Snek01 (talk) 18:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

You can see inspiration for example on List of non-marine molluscs of Brazil. There are main references written behind the sentence in the appropriate section. for example "Land snails of Brazil include:REF" and other "additional" are behind certain species. Use any taxonomic notes that could be useful, synonyms if important, use anything important that can avoid misunderstanding. I have for example added information, that certain families are believed to be complete. If certain genus is endemic to certain country, then you can easily mention it like in List of non-marine molluscs of New Zealand. However some people add reference for EVERY(!) species (Bats of the Caribbean), especially in mammals and so on. I believe that if you have added ~100 or 200 species from one reference, then you can not add the reference 100x or 200x times. Or List of non-marine molluscs of the Czech Republic and List of non-marine molluscs of Slovakia - they are complete and used one reference for majority of the list. Species founded in last years are added and referenced separately. Also good example is List of non-marine molluscs of Colombia with non much known diversity: even list of genera is better (and very useful) than nothing. All those genera are referenced with one reference. - Try to reference all non-indigenous species and year when they were found first. Try to reference all extinct species. If you are not sure with something, add "Citation needed" template behind the species, for example as in List of non-marine molluscs of India. - Add there anything that you consider to be important. Reference it as much as anybody could be able to verify it from sources. Add there rather more notes and exaplantions that nothing so the list will be practical for people and we could trust it. --Snek01 (talk) 19:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

All of above are only my opinions. Also explain and add reference to all strange records lik "?Marionia spp. (2)". It is useful to add a year for introduced species. You can also add a short history of research in the area if you like. Good example could be [1]. "first South African record" yes, it would be probably useful. But I can not recommend to you what it should exactly look like. It is up to you. I cam imagine that for some species could be only reference enough, but maybe for some interesting records there could be an additional sentence. Do not fix the rules and do it as you think it would be the most useful. --Snek01 (talk) 22:21, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello Peter, I can give you only universal advice. Maybe you know this already.

• Species in list(s) should correspond with articles on wikipedia.
• Names of articles in wikipedia should correspond to the most recent and accepted taxonomy.
• If you are not sure which name is the best, you can have both red wikilinks there. For example like this:
  • Granite limpet Cymbula granatina Linnaeus, 1758 - Namibia to Cape Agulhas - syn. Patella granatina
• If you are sure what is the best name, then feel free to have there only one wikilink.

It does not matter if there will be minor taxonomic details unsolved in the list. When somebody will start some article in the future, he will see what articles are linking to the new article from the whole wikipedia and he/she will update these links.

Wikispecies can be a good source, but you should verify the current situation somehow. I do not use wikispecies much. --Snek01 (talk) 17:31, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

List of marine molluscs of South Africa

Just had a quick look at your list -- nice one! I have the Kilburn and Rippey Sea Shells of southern Africa as well as a book on southern African deep water molluscs and will use them to check your article and add if necessary when I get back to the wonderful world of mesh net access -- for now, on 16.8kbps dialup I am technically challenged! Seascapeza (talk) 04:29, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

A Gastropod Barnstar This Gastropod Barnstar is awarded to you in recognition of your great work on List of marine molluscs of South Africa. Thank you. --Snek01 (talk) 16:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Peter, I am thinking we need to split this cos it's getting very big (92kb) and I am only on page 23 of Offshore shells of southern Africa, which is to say, not even 10% done, though I hope there will be some duplication -- so far there hasn't been any, since the bulk of their material comes from trawls and dredges. I'm thinking to split the list as follows:

• part 1 gastropoda 1.1-1.3
• part 2 gastropoda 1.4
• part 3 gastropoda 1.5
• part 4 the rest of mollusca

what do you think?

Seascapeza (talk) 11:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

December 2009

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute to the encyclopedia, but when you add content (particularly if you change facts and figures), as you have to the article Scuba diving, please cite a reliable source for the content you're adding or changing. This helps maintain our policy of verifiability. Take a look at Wikipedia:Citing sources for information about how to cite sources and the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Free divers take swim giggles to hundreds of feet down Terrillja _talk 05:54, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments, I have adjusted my edit accordingly. I was not aware of the use of swim goggles for free diving to the depths you mention, do you have a reliable source I can refer to? I know about fluid goggles, but they are a very different thing as there is no air space. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:55, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

festive greetings...

File:Father Winter Solstice.jpg

Seascapeza (talk) is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Xmas, Eid, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hannukah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec09}} to your friends' talk pages.

All my best wishes, Seascapeza (talk) 07:53, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

isn't this fab? I got it from Invertzoo and had to pass on....

Dive guide project on WikiTravel

Hi Pbsouthwood. Thanks for your invitation to contribute to wikitravel scuba. I don't know much about South Africa, but I may be about to contribute some photos/knowledge about the parts of SE Asia that I know well. I will have a look at the pages over at wikitravel. Are there project pages set up there like on wikipedia? Antarctic-adventurer (talk) 06:23, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

List of marine fishes of South Africa

Had a quick look and so far mostly good, did some small format edits -- one question: Syngnathus acus -- I know Guido had a lot to say about it actually being Syngnathus temminckii but Catalogue of Life says that's a synonym .. I think a further reference must be sought?

Seascapeza (talk) 16:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I can sympathise -- started in on offshore shells of southern africa and the second edit I got to was a mozambique only species -- hence am starting marine molluscs of Moz and will add to that as I go along... will tootle along and have a look at marine fishes when the molluscs start driving me mad....

Seascapeza (talk) 08:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I will be investigating The Taxonomicon over the next month when web access allows... doesn't hurt that the name sounds like something Pratchett could have thought up. Seascapeza (talk) 05:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations on getting halfway through Smiths! I can't say I am relishing dealing with Kilburn & Rippey and Steyn when I get back. But this bad weather is no good — hopefully it will have settled down by the time I get back! Seascapeza (talk) 17:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

WOW!!! Only 200 pages to go! I am having serious trouble with my net access -- lightning seems to have struck my modem so any time I want commms with the outside world it means a trip to the bright lights of Parys ... but I'm planning on digging up that persistence barnstar I saw... well done you! Seascapeza (talk) 14:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

		The Sewer Cover Barnstar
		You have been awarded the Sewer Cover Barnstar because you can read through anything. You don’t know the meaning of attention deficit disorder, laugh in the face of boredom, and are wasting your talents if you don’t become a patent examiner.

just for fun.... Seascapeza (talk) 04:10, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow! I'll be back in CT on the 16th so it'll be my turn to start the list upload slog -- marine molluscs and marine animals of the CP are my next plans.

Seascapeza (talk) 04:31, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations! will be back in CT next week so maybe see you at the club on Wed? Seascapeza (talk) 04:31, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to WikiProject Scuba

Welcome to the project and I hope you'll enjoy contributing to our scuba-related articles. I noticed your edit to Scuba diving and generally agree with the point you were making, since it seems that most free-divers now use soft, low-volume face masks - because of the problems of equalisation that goggles introduce. Anyway, that part of the article is reasonable now, many thanks. If you need help with any of our scuba articles, I'll always do my best to help. Cheers! --RexxS (talk) 15:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh my goodness and I see they have nothing on cold water diving! Just in case you're stuck for stuff to do. Seascapeza (talk) 05:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

fun userboxes

10This user realizes that there are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who do not.

?met?This user prefers metric units and cannot figure out why Americans and Brits have such a hard time with them.

Seascapeza (talk) 07:09, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

fixing disputed pages

Please can you go and have a look at Tritonia (gastropod) and see what you think is best to do? I have left a suggestion on the talk page... Seascapeza (talk) 07:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

twinkle

okay, here's the original link I was given:

I can heartily recommend WP:TWINKLE to catch this sort of problem - it gives you a "revert as vandalism" button that automatically checks whether you're actually just reverting the last in a string of bad edits, and reverts all the edits by that user.

check it out!

Seascapeza (talk) 05:18, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Template:Expert

Hi Peter, and thanks for all the improvements you're making to scuba articles. When you get a chance, would you have a look at the documentation at Template:Expert, as it should help you with edits like this one [2] – the points being that the unnamed parameter is intended to be the name of the related WikiProject, and that there's an expectation that you'll make a section on the article Talk page to discuss the reasons you feel the article needs attention from an expert on the subject. Hope that helps, --RexxS (talk) 16:25, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

IP address check

41.240.1.150 (talk) 05:46, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Your article has been moved to AfC space

Hi! I would like to inform you that the Articles for Creation submission which was previously located here: User:Pbsouthwood/Decompression (diving) has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Decompression (diving), this move was made automatically and doesn't affect your article, if you have any questions please ask on my talk page! Have a nice day. ArticlesForCreationBot (talk) 19:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Interview with Wikimedia Foundation

Hi Pb, I hope you are well. My name is Matthew Roth and I'm a Storyteller working on the 2011 fundraiser with the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco. In past years, we've relied on Jimbo to carry the bulk of the fundraising weight and he's done very well helping us hit our yearly funding targets. This year, however, we're broadening the scope and reach of the fundraiser by incorporating more voices and different people on the funding banners and appeals that will start running full-time on November 7th. We're testing new messages and finding some really great results with editors and staff members of the Foundation. You can see the current progress of the tests here. I'm curious if you would want to participate in an interview with me as part of this process? The interviews usually last 60 minutes and involve a number of questions about your personal editing experiences, as well as general questions about Wikipedia and its impact in the world. Please let me know by emailing mroth (at) wikimedia.org. Seascapeza recommended I contact you. Thanks! Matthew (WMF) 19:18, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Merging Alternate Air Source idea

Don't think this merging idea would work at all. In diving usage the terms are very separate, even if the different systems may be attempting to solve similar problems. Users looking up any of these separate system (eg spare air, pony bottle etc) will NOT think of them by the term "Alternative Air Source". So for ordinary users referencing Wiki this common catagory is confusing. Nor is the usage of All Alternative Air Sources really the same.... A Pony is only used as a backup for carrying an emergency ascent, a twinset for use during the dive itself, the octopus is not a redundant air supply itself etc etc. The more I think about it the more I see this restructuring as VERY confusing Best regards - HowieKor — Preceding unsigned comment added by HowieKor (talk • contribs) 00:08, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi HowieKor, Thanks for your comment, See my reply on Talk:Bailout bottle, and the comments by others in the Talk:Bailout bottle#Assessment discussion. Cheers, Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:21, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Bad graph

Peter, When you get time, can you fix this image? "File:Partial pressures in tissues.png" This was a mistake made by Moon in an early version of Bennett and Elliott. There is no vapor pressure of H2O in blood. He fixed the graph in the next edition but this is an easy way to figure out where a graph was taken from without proper credit as done by SEVERAL authors in the past. Let's not be one of them. Thanks! --Gene Hobbs (talk) 19:28, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Harvard referencing

Hi Peter, when we want to cite multiple pages from the same work, we have available a template called {{harvnb}} and a newer, simplified version called {{sfn}}. They produce a short reference similar to this: Jablonsky 2006, pp 56–57 where the first part contains a clickable link to the full citation for the work - often in a Bibliography section. Please check again in Doing It Right and see if this really does not work for you, or if you misunderstood how it works. If the former, please let me know what browser and OS you are using so that I can get it tested. There's a guide to this process that I wrote at User:RexxS/Cite multiple pages if you want to make use of the template yourself. Hope that helps --RexxS (talk) 14:40, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I think I follow. What got me confused is that when I clicked on the short reference I got the same page, so it looked like nothing was happening. This is not particularly helpful if you are expecting to open another page or at least see some obvious change indicating the actual full citation. I would guess that this would be very confusing for the average user. It would help enormously if the citation was highlighted in some way to draw your attention to it. I will try to use this system. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:27, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

When you click the short reference (in the References section), your focus should move to the Bibliography section and the full citation should be highlighted in light blue. If that's not happening for you, again let me know and I can try to debug. Admittedly on a short page the screen will stay where it is but if you look at an article like Oxygen toxicity with 100+ references you can click a link near the top of References and it will scroll the screen down to take you the full cite in Sources. The advantage of short footnotes only becomes clear as the article size and number of references grow. Nevertheless I'd recommend learning it as otherwise you have to make lots of very similar full citations to the same book just to display different page numbers and that can increase the load time on big articles by quite a large factor whenever you edit. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 00:05, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I can see the potential advantage in the short footnotes system, but when I click on one the full reference is not highlighted any differently to the other references in the bibliography. If the full reference is far enough from page bottom it will display as the top line, otherwise it is indistinguishable from the rest. I am using IE8 and Windows XP, which is possibly one of the most common systems around. I will try it on Chrome and Firefox to see if there is a difference. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:05, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Chrome works just like you describe, Big difference, Easy to see what's going on. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:56, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Firefox also works as you describe. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:59, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

As do Opera and Safari. Looking at the way the highlighting works, it depends on the li:target selector, which was introduced in 2003. That's a bit soon for Microsoft to have caught up, but it appears to be supported by IE9. --RexxS (talk) 13:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I have IE9 on the laptop, but don't use it much for editing as I prefer the larger screen and keyboard, and IE9 doesn't go with XP. No big deal now that I know that it works. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Request

Hi Peter

If you have the time could you have a look at the section "DIR - Criticisms and Controversies" in its present state and pass on you comments. It's still a work in progress but I could use a bit of guidance and I value your judgement very much. Regards --HowieKor (talk) 18:57, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

No problem, I will leave the comments on the DIR Talk page. It may take a little while. Cheers, Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:10, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

On second thoughts I will put them here. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:31, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Comments to HowieKor on DIR edits

1) Since there is so much controversy about the edits to this section, you will have to be very careful when paraphrasing to ensure that there is no change of meaning. This is difficult, as a change of meaning is often in the mind of the reader.

2) Truth does not come into the equation. Verifiability is paramount, and relevance is also important. You can be challenged on both.

3) In line links are considered undesirable. Rather use a footnote.

I have quoted a section from the article and commented in line below.

DIR - Criticisms and Controversies

For a system that had attempted to consolidate and promote many useful diving practises into one comprehensive system and philosophy it may seem surprising that the DIR system has sparked such controversy and negative comment by many critics. In the exact words

• Avoid in line links. preferred style is footnote, even for website links as far as I understand the MoS

of Casey McKinlay, Project Director for the Woodville Karst Plain Project - "I recognize the WKPP for numerous reasons has never been popular with many segments of the diving community." Controversy is reflected in the fundamental DIR text "Doing It Right: The Fundamentals of Better Diving by Jarrod Jablonski which catagorises all other divers and diving agencies - "Today, there are dozens of diving agencies, offering many more different certification courses, in skill-sets ranging from basic open water to advanced Trimix instructor. Though divers emerging from these courses often possess vastly different skill and experience levels, nonetheless, the fact is that most seem to lack sound fundamental diving skills." Reaction to such charges is reflected in counter-criticism and counter-charges that the proponents of DIR have no direct experience or understanding of the diving conditions in which alternative forms of diving is carried out and are unqualified to make such charges e.g. The British Cave Diving Group..

• looks like a fair comment with acceptable ref to me.

Other controversies extend to arguments regarding DIR position, DIR diving practise or DIR behaviours:

• This may be challenged, but you should be able to find refs. It would help if you clarified what you meant by DIR behaviour and DIR position.

Universality – can “one size fit all?”

The DIR system is, at its core, an approach to procedures and equipment configurations designed for some very advanced diving – deep cave penetration.

• Actually P67 par 1 specifically states that DIR system was designed to work in all situations. Whether it succeeds is opinion in the absence of data. Opinion must be 3rd party citable. Ours is not admissable.

An operative philosophy in extending this DIR system to other forms of scuba diving follows the argument “if it’s safest for that extreme, it must be safest elsewhere”

• This is not actually what Jablonski says on p67. The quotes suggest that it is.

.

Critics of DIR say this is not necessarily the case.

• Who, where, when. I dont doubt it, but can you cite it?

From a purely mathematical point of view this criticism echoes the fact that any optimal solution cannot exist in all possible changes in system variables, but is confined to a more limited set of these variables.

• Jablonski claims that DIR is a system that is adequately safe in all situations, not that it is optimal in all of them. He does however say it is "perfect" in zero viz and crystal clear waters, which is sticking his neck out somewhat.

But proponents of the DIR system maintain that optimality can be achieved over all variations of condition without allowing modification of configuration or practise.

• That is not my interpretation of the article. I see it as that DIR is the best system available when the requirement to retain the same basic configuration in all situations is applied (quite a significant constraint). I.e., for a fixed configuration it is the most versatile, and since they also strongly support a consistant configuration, it is the optimum when these constraints are applied. I am not a mathematician but I think, as an engineer, that this is not in conflict with the concept of optimisation.

In Jarrod Jablonski's words " DIR is a holistic system and although incorporating one part of it into another system is possible, it is not DIR. It is also likely to be fraught with complications. The same is true within the equipment configuration itself. Divers who opt to make changes to any part of the equipment configuration are likely to upset the carefully arranged components that are structured to complement one another."

• As it happens, I completely agree with this statement, (taking DIR in context as the specific system and not necessarily that it is the only way to dive correctly) but also suspect that there are possible improvements, and that it may not be possible to get to some of them by gradual evolution. DIR may be at or near the peak of an optimal system and the adjacent possible may be mostly or entirely downslope. "You cant get there from here". This doesnt mean there are no other peaks in configuration space - like eye evolution.

In the diving world, where more non-academic criticism applies, critics address two other more specific concerns:

• Most Wikimedia editing avoids the use of <p> markup. (a minor point, but I may as well mention it) We normally use an extra line break. This also makes reading the code easier, particularly for those of us who are not very familiar with html.

Controversy over unacceptability and risk of other diving practise

All diving practises put divers at some level of risk. As Bob Halstead put it “As soon as you step near a full scuba cylinder you are at risk…..every step that you take getting to, on and into the water increases that risk”. The general risks accepted as part of DIR deep cave diving, even when mitigated by specific DIR practises and gear configuration, are high, but are found acceptable to DIR practitioners. Solo diving however is specifically “banned” by DIR conventions. In a detailed study of risk in diving(Scuba Diving -a quantative risk assessment) DAN figures showed that the fatality rate for solo diving was 3.8% (of the total fatalities studied?)

• 3.8% is given as the DAN figure, 8% for BSAC figure and 4.5% overall, for Solo diving as principal cause of fatality. I dont find any indication of the skill levels or equipment used by the divers, so difficult to draw many useful conclusions from the data.

and that of penetration diving (cave diving being the major proportion of this) was 14.8%. (of the total fatalities studied?)

• Of 19 fatalities, 10 were untrained/inadequately equipped, 7 were trained and got lost, 9 were group fatalities, 10 were alone at the time of loss of consciousness. No figures available for the total number of cave dives by the sample population during the period, so the risk may be highly skewed
• I doubt that the figures prove much at all, but I am not a statistician.

From these figures it becomes quite illogical to object to an alternative form of diving with a different but lesser set of risks,

• Can you show how the figures prove a lesser risk for Solo diving vs Cave diving?

when to mitigate those risks a totally different equipment configuration is required .

• I dont have these refs, so can't comment

I dont know whether this is what you were asking for, so have stopped here in case I got it wrong. If this is what you wanted, let me know and I will do the rest. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:13, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks ever so much for the comments Peter and for the timeliness of your response. I really do think this guidance will help me to tread through the quicksand of trying to get a acceptable degree of truth and yet a maximum degree of verifiability in the very controversial Controversy Section. I would very much like you to do another read, but could you hold off until I say that I’ve finished the present revision (which will include changes that reflect your comments) – this will save your time and the problem of not reviewing the “latest”. It will be in a few days –Tuesday-ish I’d say.

I will also make some real effort in the area of risk statistics from the fatality figures. Unfortunatly the ONLY thing the dive industry does produce is retrospective accident analysis, and the DIR people do it from the smallest data set in the industry. I’m an engineer if you didn’t notice. In engineering we use a process called FMEA(failure mode and effect analysis) – the idea is relatively simple – you take all the things that can go wrong with alternate designs(failure modes), the probability of their occurring, the effects of the failure, the influence of redundancy , sometimes costs… then you look for the optimal design. It’s not all that hard, even if you have to take a few calculated guesses at some of the variables. Anyhow, nothing like this is ever done in the diving industry to my knowledge. And the DIR fraternity is the worst - in that their “design” is the whole system , all the kit together – and for ALL conditions of diving. And they think they got it absolutely right –on what data? – on anecdotes. And they are chasing a mathematical impossibility – there is, and cannot be a universal optimum in systems with more than just a few operative variables.

There was a recent fatality on a DIR WKPP penetration dive– with all procedures and team checking supposedly operative – and some outstanding divers in the team. The immediate analysis – human error on the part of the dive fatality himself – if he followed full process it wouldn’t have happened – DIR procedures are still perfect. When human error causes aircraft crashes, systems are redesigned to deal with that vector of human error. But DIR is perfect – it’s frightening.

What a crazy sport we have, with DIR at one side and PADI at the other, and we poor divers sandwiched in the middle trying to make it all work

Sorry, sorry, sorry to ramble on… guess you see I care a lot about this area Thanks again for past and future help --HowieKor (talk) 16:50, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

No problem, I am also an engineer, and though I have never been personally involved in FMEA, I have a reasonable understanding of the concept. However, I think you may be wrong about it never having been applied to diving. I think the British HSE had someone do FMEA on scuba for scientific diving some years ago. I will try to find the reference for you, but dont hold your breath. Cheers, Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:36, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Found it: http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr436.pdf Formal risk identification in professional SCUBA (FRIPS), Prepared by Cranfield University for the Health and Safety Executive 2006. RESEARCH REPORT 436. Definitely a citable reference. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:58, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that Peter –you’re a real star. I ran across this sort of thing for commercial diving but nothing that had been done for scuba. It’s very very well done – good old HSE. Sadly it’s mostly done at a very general and very high level (necessary but unhelpful), and nothing is done for alternative designs except to show an example of how the method works – but it’s a bloody good example –octopus versus pony for alternate air. But what I say is so desperately missing is a treatment of the sort of ALTERNATIVE DESIGNS in equipment configurations for recreational sport diving. It’s the whole area where DIR makes its absolutist claim that it has got the design universally optimal. Like whether it’s better to have a dive computer or not for recreational divers, or whether it’s better to abandon a snorkel or not. This all requires proper use of CRITICALITY rankings and frequency ratings so clearly exemplified in the reports section 3.1. DIR criteria for why they choose a specific bit of kit for recreational diving is all over the map. - e.g. they claim that failure rate in dive computers is more dangerous than chance of human error in table based planning -they rank “streamlining” as justification to remove dive supportive gear like a snorkel etc. etc. – but don’t consider what risk mitigation they lose when they do it. And just exactly how much is “streamlining” related to risk mitigation in non cave diving situations? Anyhow, because of it’s high level nature I don’t think there’s anything in the report that will be useful one way or another on the wiki DIR coverage front. Pity. It’s a lot of work but I’ve half a mind to do this DIR configuration analysis myself and see if I can get it published/presented (DAN?), it certainly beats the benefits(?) of spending lots of time trying to make a contribution within the confines of allowable Wikipedia truth.

I still aim at sometime Tuesday for making that request for your assistance on a review. Thanks ever so much again

Cheers

--HowieKor (talk) 12:46, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Howie, You are more than welcome. If you have the skills and time to do an appropriate FMEA for the usual rec/tec scuba configurations it would be a service of considerable value to the community, and DAN is probably a good choice of publisher, but also consider SPUMS. I would suggest open circuit would be sufficient to start with... Besides, do it right and someone else will write it up on WP. In passing, if you feel the need to write a bit of relatively unconstrained original research, Wikitravel dive guides might keep you entertained for a while. Wikipedia can be frustrating, but it is still an amazing project, even if sometimes it looks like one step forward two back. I also find it helps to assume that fellow editors mean well, even if they sometimes seem to hide it well. Cheers, Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 18:30, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Peter

Done it. I just finished a general re-edit of the whole contribution taking into account your past comments. Aside from my usual grammatical problems I feel it is reasonably complete and readable, and follows the referencing requirements of Wikipedia. I look forward to your comments.

As for the FMEA work, I'm really getting very keen on giving it a try. The scope however couldn't be nearly as grand as covering a full configuration - more like dive computer vs. no dive computer and jacket style BCD vs. wing style BCD. Even that's a lot of work. But it might set a good example how these controversial debates might be settled without too much hot air. Cheers --HowieKor (talk) 13:50, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Howie, I will try to get a look at it tonight, or at latest tomorrow. Grammatical problems are the least of our worries, as there is always someone who will sort them out if they can follow the reasoning.

If you do decide to have a go at the FMEA, I would recommend the computer rather than the BC for first attempt, as the computer does not have a large affect on the overall holistic configuration thing, whereas the jacket BC has major domino effect, and could not realistically be considered in isolation.

You might be interested in Human Factors in Diving, Author: Blumenberg, MA http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/6474 Cheers, Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:05, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Peter for the hours you put into to the edit on my rewrite. I will do another iteration to provide those clarifications you request and to add appropriate citations where you feel they are needed. I should have this sorted out by the weekend, and might I ask if you could do another scan of the result then. I'll just post here to say when the the jobs done.

BTW.... I wasn't joking when I said it might pay to tabulate the "Doing it Wrong" section. It sort of appears now as a long semi random list. Lots of white space. A multi column table with area headings might just make it not only shorter but more readable. Well.... that's my two cents worth on that subject anyway.

Re: the FMEA I totally agree the dive computer is the best topic if only one example case is chosen. I feel, as you do, that it is a very important item to analyse. But as for holistic influences, I really don't think that a FEMA will show that the holistic argument really applies at all in most every case. Individual pieces of kit are in general independent contributors to overall system safety and performance. The best system is one that uses all the best individual components for a given area of application, together in that application area. For one thing, the holistic concept totally dodges the issue of what is really contributing to best performance. For example it might just be that extended training/drilling is the key factor in accident mitigation in cave diving that has happened in the past decade. All cave diving agencies have improved training in that period, and the percentage of untrained cave divers doing this practise has gone down as I understand. All agencies show reduced accident levels from the somewhat limited number of reports I've seen. So is there any rationale here for how the harness should rigged in a backplate? Then turn the holistic argument the other way around - say there are two types of autopilots you are considering for an aircraft - type A and type B. Type A is inferior on its own, but with intensive pilot training and pilot selection the "holistic autopilot A system" does become a somewhat better choice with all these elements in place. But what good is that - you must deal with the fact that you DONT need the training or pilot selection for type B - why bother? DIR is the ONLY holistic diving system. It may be said to be the "best holistic system around", but by default it is also the worst. As an engineer, I would say that being holistic is one of its biggest negatives of the DIR system. Anyhow, time to get some citation done..

Regards --HowieKor (talk) 19:43, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Howie,

1. Just let me know when you are done, and I will go over it again.
2. The "Doing it Wrong" section troubles me every time I look at it. The section name is almost as bad as the whole DIR name problem. If you could come up with a less derogatory, but still accurate name for the section I think it would be a step in the right direction. The section lead can cover the "doing it wrong" aspect. I will also give this some thought.
3. I partly agree on the comments about the reductionist vs holist approach to FMEA. However, it is necessary to consider the interactions between the components of any system, and this is where the DIR proponents will dig in on any analysis that is done on parts of the system, and with justification. To use the autopilot analogy again. If you have an optimal sytem to operate the control surfaces etc using hydraulics, and an optimal monitoring and control system that is electronic, you can still not safely use them together if the interface is unreliable. A critical path analysis of the DIR system might find it to be less robust than less optimal systems when applied outside of its range of maximum effectiveness, like in the British sumps. One critical path that comes to mind is what happens if one diver is inextricably stuck in the only way out and the others are all on the wrong side of the blockage. Not a happy picture. The DIR people of course can always fall back on Option #1... In a way Option #1 says if the situation doesn't suit the DIR system, don't dive, rather than that there is no better way to do things. This would be quite acceptable if they just said "we don't do that" instead of "nobody should even consider doing that because it doesn't work with our system" or the more typical "anyone who considers doing that is a dangerous fool because my teachers say so"

• I think that being holistic is one of the great strengths of DIR and one of its greatest weaknesses. Just like Verifiability, not Truth is one of the great strengths but also a great weakness of Wikipedia. Cheers, Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:46, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

“I think that being holistic is one of the great strengths of DIR and one of its greatest weaknesses. Just like Verifiability, not Truth is one of the great strengths but also a great weakness of Wikipedia”

words of wisdom indeed

For sure Peter, interactions are very important…. you can be overly reductionist as well as overly holistic. It depends, I guess on the direct importance of those interactions. But I would say the pendulum of truth generally tilts in favour of a more reductionist approach. Back to the autopilot example – what is the point of arguing for type A with lower functionality as an autopilot device, but of somewhat better performance than B when applied to a very select group of intensively trained pilots – why? – because that doesn’t work for all pilots, the way flying is normally carried out. I think one of the real downsides of DIR is that it discourages a diver from thinking about the optimality of his kit for himself. I think it’s a vital diving skill, as well as one of the really pleasurable parts of diving. As a newbie you start your kit configuration by getting some advice from your instructors and divers you respect, then you study and learn from your own experience and talking to diving mates who dive the same conditions, then you evolve to the system that is “holistically” right FOR YOU. But it is never perfect, you know that, and you constantly think through possible ways to improve it. You learn the art of risk assessment in equipment usage. And you’re wise enough to know you’ve got no right to badmouth another diver’s own considered approach. A terrible danger is the assumption that your system is perfect.

Which brings up the subject of doing it wrong. I think the section is named perfectly. It reflects the reality of statements made as well as the mindset. No point in trying to sugar coat it, or mitigate it with a few selected quotes taken out of context which might soften the characterisation of “wrongness”. But it seems a tediously boring listing. I do think however, there might be a place at the end of it for a short treatment of DIS – which I do see as a more tempered approach, and a reflection of what I believe is the traditional sense of British fair play ;-)

Back to the task at hand Cheers --HowieKor (talk) 12:59, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Peter

Well, I think I’ve responded to all of your last comments re clarifications and citations, and added a bit of tidy up here and there. There are a few bits left uncited – in the solo diving section. Unfortunately my solid source material – The SDI Solo Course Manual – is back home in California – and I wont be able to lay my hands on it till March. So I’m just relying on memory on the pony bottle stuff at the moment. I’ll try to find an alternative acceptable source on the internet, but I’m unsure if I will. How long do “citation needed” requests stay up before the statement is removed? Another item is the broken link on the George Irvine statement on strokes. The quote was put up by another editor, so I’m not sure of his original source of where the statement was actually made, and the quote link is now broken. I can rummage around the internet to try to track it down, but I’m not sure it’s my job to do this. I ‘ve left out a few areas of the DIR controversy – particularly those connected with Halcyon. Not that it isn’t well sourced, it’s just a little too inflammatory and doesn’t bear directly on DIR practise itself. All and all, I think the whole topic is much improved and well balanced – much credit to your own efforts here. As for “Doing it Wrong” well, I leave you to deal with that little quandary.

Cheers --HowieKor (talk) 09:11, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Howie, If you think you can cite later, you could always leave a comment after the citation needed tab to that effect, then it is less likely that someone will be quick to remove it. As for how long a citation needed tab must be there before the text can be removed - well that is variable. I would consider it a bit hasty to leave it less than two weeks, and I have seen some dated several years ago. It depends on how personally the rest of the world takes it. If it is something no-one has strong feelings against, and it just needs a reference for good form, it may stay there for years until someone gets round to it. If it has been tagged because someone believes it is wrong, but can't prove it, it is likely to get deleted much sooner. If at a later stage someone can provide a citation, it can be put back in, and is then not easy to get rid of. I would suggest you record the date when you last edit, and compare later versions to that date to see if anything has been removed, and if it is, go back and restore when you have a reference.

I am considering the possibility of combining the DIW section with the equipment section. providing the recommendation and the counterexample in the same subsection, but havent yet decided whether it will work. I may get round to it in a week or so, or when I am at a loss for something to do.

The GI quote comments were not aimed at you. I was working my way through the accessible references and found that one had a broken link, so I tried to track it down with Google, and found that the reference is cached, but not reliable, as the author does not attribute the quote to GI. It is very much his style though, and I would not want to remove it if someone can find a good ref, as I think it illustrates the point very well. If you can find a good reference for it I would like to know how you do it. If it can't be verified and someone does eventually remove it, I will look for a verifiable equivalent, as I think it is important to show the sort of comments that were bandied about for historical accuracy. I don't want to look back in a few years and find the subject has been whitewashed. Warts and all. That's Wikipedia.

I think the article is improved considerably by the recent work, but there is always room for improvement.

I am also working on an article on diving safety (theoretical/conceptual aspects), which will concentrate on human factors, maybe with sections on FMEA and HIRA. Perhaps I could ask you to review it before I publish it in main article space. It may take a while though, I am hoping that once the weather settles into proper summer, I will be spending more time in the water mapping new dive sites. Cheers, Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:56, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

By the way, have you done the SDI Solo diving course, and if so, did you find it worth the time and money? Also, what is DIS? Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:02, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Peter

Re: the GI quote, I did have a general Google hunt to try to re-establish a link, but could only find articles written by Billy Williams giving the quote, without any attribution. The language is so GI, I just can’t believe anyone else on the planet actually talks like that – so it’s a bit of a mystery. Myself, I’m still trying to get a copy of the SDI manual – maybe in pdf format. I’d just like to put the citation requirements totally to bed.

No Peter, I didn’t take the actual SDI course - for my sins I’ve been an on-and-off solo diver even predating Von Maier’s book. What solo diving practises and configurations amounted to then was just a sort of consensus of practise generally adopted among the solodiving community. Sort of the way I expect cave diving was in the early days I guess. When the SDI course came along I just wanted to double check if I might be missing something. The only thing turned out to be the absolute requirement for a SMB/reel , which for California diving is pretty unnecessary. On a California dive boat these days about a third of the divers are solo (and another third of the buddy divers are solo too, but don’t know it) This long overdue course looks excellent to me, and I do like that it’s also been positioned for self reliant buddy diving too.

Happy to review the diving safety subsections you are planning to write, if you think that could be helpful. Seems an exceptionally useful subject area.

As for DIS(doing it simple) – it’s a midway movement between DIR and conventional practise. Sort of DIR without the firing squad. And it’s very small – links - http://www.divernetxtra.com/technique/0202simple.htm , http://www.jlunderwater.co.uk/old_site/photoix/dis/dis.htm

Cheers --HowieKor (talk) 13:02, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I have also been diving solo from choice and necessity for a long time. Started back in the 80's from occasional necessity, this century more from choice and more often. I no longer dive with people I have to look after on a one sided basis unless I am being paid for it. As I am a commercial instructor, that is still often, maybe 50% of my dives this year, and I count those as solo dives, for fairly obvious reasons. I would very much like to read the SDI manual, but I dont know of any SDI instructors in Cape Town.

DIS looks pretty reasonable to me.

Are you aware of Cognitas http://www.cognitas.org.uk/cognitas/Index.html and Diving Incident and Safety Resource Centre http://www.disrc.com/ ? I found out about it today when contacted by Gareth Lock about the article on safety. You might find some of his work interesting. Cheers, Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 16:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Peter

This is an area of real interest to me, but an overall area in which I haven't done all too much serious reading. I guess my interest has been trying to glean the lessons of what goes in diving accidents as a means to improve ones own diving practise and avoid doing the same sort of thing; or just to understand the process of how a problem degenerates into a disaster. In a way it's what a FMEA analysis does, except with REAL data. And IMHO the processs of gathering accident data in scuba industry is woefully inadequate - the agencies don't seem to ask the right questions and the authorities (coroners and HSE types) dont understand diving. Things get lumped into totally unuseful catagories, it seems to me - "death by drowning" - but hardly ever says what went wrong. I went to a presentation analysing BSAC accident reports on solo diving - BSAC made a total dogs-dinner in interpreting the little data that they had gathered. So please pass on these type of links, I'll make an effort to get more educated on the overall subject. I had run across a very good DAN conference on the subject - link http://www.si.edu/dive/pdfs/DAN_Diving_Fatalities_Proceedings.pdf . One paper that struck a chord with me had something I hadn't run across - Root Cause Analysis - Trigger leads to Harmful Action leads to Disabling Injury leads to Fatality. It's really equivalent to a FMEA going down the exact boolean branch that actually went wrong. Now all the agency accident reports don't ask questions that allows such a sequence to be put together, they just ask the witnesses (if any) to do some general writeup - at least that's my impression.

And of course, as your links point out - no QUANTITATIVE data to show failure rates - so no way to access the risks. If I ever attempt a FMEA I can only guess at failure rates e.g percentage of dive in which an OOA situation arises, percent of divers that ignore an audiable warning from their dive computer etc etc etc. But guesses are better than nothing, and nothing is what we've got at the moment.

So as I said, keep the links coming - I do find it very interesting.

Cheers--HowieKor (talk) 19:02, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Harvnb

Hi Peter, I've been meaning to have a word with you about using either {{harvnb}} or {{sfn}} to allow you to refer to individual pages in Huggins, but I see you've started with harvnb already! Harvnb allows a full reference as a target for each short reference, so I've added a Sources sub-section and put the full reference for Huggins in there. On standards-compliant browsers (not older IE of course) each of the short refs is a clickable link to the full reference, which is quite a neat way of saving the repetition of the reference when the same work is used lots of times. I wrote a sort-of-guide some time ago at User:RexxS/Cite multiple pages from my own trial and error attempts with harvnb, and it might make things a bit clearer for you. Thanks again for all the great work you're doing! --RexxS (talk) 13:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Post script: I just realised from a feeling of "deja vu" that I'd mentioned this to you before. Hehe - it looks like I did. Feel free to ignore the above, it's just me getting forgetful in my old age (except for the bit about "thanks", of course). Cheers --RexxS (talk) 13:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks RexxS, It was you put me on to it in the first place, but it is not what I would call intuitive to use. I was sort of feeling my way forward like tapdancing in a minefield. I will look at your reference again as I couldn't work out all the things that needed to be done. I know I left something undone, but don't know what, but I suppose it might just be that I am using IE8. Cheers, Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Post script: I see you have filled in the missing bit (Sources) that was bothering me subconsciously. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Redirects

Hi Peter, the main reason for making an alternative title bold, like you did for "personal decompression computer" in the Dive computer article, is to immediately indicate to someone who searched for that alternative title that they have arrived at the right page. So what we usually do is create a redirect like Personal decompression computer which points to the main article. I've done that now, and also added an entry for Personal decompression computer to the PDC disambiguation page. Hope that helps. --RexxS (talk) 16:25, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

That makes sense. I just made it bold because the others were. Thanks, the added redirect was something i should have done, but by the time I finished with all the disambiguation for links to decompression I forgot it. By the way there is a link to decompression lurking somewhere in Decompression sickness that I just cant find that should be disambiguated. Any suggestions of an easier way to find it than just visual inspection? Cheers, Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Hehe, visual inspection will drive you cross-eyed on a large article. I guess you've started from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHere&target=Decompression - which showed the link existed. The best thing to do next is to open the entire page Decompression sickness for editing and do a search (usually ctrl-F or equivalent on Mac) for "[[decompression]]" (without the quotes). I actually searched for "[[decompression" because I wanted to see how may links there were to pages that started with "Decompression ...". Anyway, the link soon turned up and I removed it because it was in "[[decompression]] time" and I figured there were already sufficient similar links in the vicinity. I'll leave finding the link in List of Metalocalypse characters as an exercise for you :D Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 00:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Cross-eyed would still be OK. Add a headache and it would be closer to reality. Would you believe I didn't think of ctrl-f? (I never use the ctrl commands, I am a mouse driver). Thanks, I will make a note of it somewhere I hope I can find after I forget. Cheers, Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:26, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Section titles

Hi Peter. I can see how much work you're putting into Controlled emergency swimming ascent. Please feel free to let me know if I can help with anything. I just wanted to give you a heads-up about the Wikipedia convention on section titles (which you can find at WP:HEADINGS). Yes, I know, another set of guidelines that nobody told you about! There's a point though that I thought you ought to know about:

• "Headings should not refer redundantly to the subject of the article, or to higher-level headings, unless doing so is shorter or clearer."

In other words, the convention would be to have a section heading called Training, not Emergency ascent training as the subject of the article is always assumed in section headings. It's not a big deal, as somebody or somebot will come along and change it for you eventually. Hope that helps, --RexxS (talk) 17:40, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi RexxS, It has been moved to Emergency ascent (diving) as there is far more general information than appropriate to Controlled emergency swimming ascent. Almost all of the content is based on a single source, and that is from 1977, so if you know of any policy changes please let me know or go ahead and edit. I have tried to be objective in my paraphasing of the source, but might not be entirely successful, so if you find anything that looks POV or OR or needs more detailed citation let me know - or just make the change.

The heading titles were partly to remind me of what I still need to do, and I haven't gone back to look over the structure and general feel of the article yet - I am still looking at it from the inside. If you have better ideas for headers, go ahead and change them. If I have good reasons to disagree I will let you know. Feel welcome to crit and suggest improvements and extensions. It is very much a work in progress. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

That all makes sense, Peter, and I have most scuba-related articles on my watchlist, so I see the work as you're doing it. There's nothing in the content that you've added that I've disagreed with, so you'll probably just get me dropping "hints and tips" about the peculiarities of Wikipedia to make things as easy for you as I can. You may not have a copy of the CMAS training programme, so here's a link to the pdf on the SAA website:

• http://www.saa.org.uk/Portals/0/Club_manual/CGM/11.2.%20DIVER%20TRAINING%20PROGRAM.pdf

I've also got up to date training manuals for most of the SAA courses and some of the BSAC ones, so I can usually fill in some of the gaps for you. Gene can normally do the same the North American organisations if you don't already have them yourself. Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 17:45, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. There is not much on emergency ascent training there. It looks like things are a bit different from when I was trained under CMAS rules in the early/middle 80's. If you have the information, please feel free to write up those sections that need work. Cheers Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:58, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

An award for you

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