Talk:Scuba diving

This article contains text from the following Wikipedia articles. Please see the history pages for the respective articles for attribution: w:Diving sites of Guam, w:Wardang Island, w:Pope's Eye, w:Piccaninnie Ponds Conservation Park, w:Seacrest Cove 2, w:Ricks Spring, w:Molokini, w:Vortex Spring, w:Zacatón, w:Socorro Island, w:San Pedro Nolasco Island, w:Sistema Dos Ojos, w:Sistema Nohoch Nah Chich, w:Sistema Ox Bel Ha, w:Sistema Sac Actun, w:Stingray City, Grand Cayman, w:Belize Barrier Reef, w:Wast Water, w:Nemo 33, w:Ras Mohammad, w:Mergui Archipelago, and w:Sund Rock.

There is no reasonable possibility of it ever being entirely complete, just as Wikivoyage is never going to be entirely complete. That is a criterion which makes some articles forever beyond reach of star status. The main text is already up to star standard, or very close, but the destinations section will probably never be finished. • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 06:21, 6 May 2011 (EDT)

Scuba diving dedicated site

I based myself on the wikivoyage model to start a wiki (using mediawiki as well) dedicated to listing diving sites around the world and information pertinent to scuba diver. I'm posting this here hoping there may be people here interested in getting involved in that project as well. I've only been playing around for now (copying pages from wikivoyage and modifing them), trying to learn how to set-up the wiki. If anyone is interested, you could leave me a message on this talk page. An e-mail through this wiki would work as well. --(WT-en) Charles

Scuba diving information is quite welcome on Wikivoyage as well — many destinations like, say, Sipadan get practically nothing but divers. (WT-en) Jpatokal 23:09, 25 Jan 2006 (EST)

I agree, but I was thinking of something with detailed information for divers about specific dive sites. An article could be about the Empress of Ireland specifically rather than about the general Rimouski area and information useful to divers could include depth, water temperature, typical visibility, recommended experience level, etc... I'm not looking to duplicate wikivoyage with more emphasis on scuba diving but rather to make something specific to scuba diving. In fact, I think it would be great to link back to wikivoyage, seeing as divers may want to visit an area they are travelling to. --(WT-en) Charles

If the info gets really detailed then a "Scuba diving in X" type article is perfectly fine if you ask me... (WT-en) Jpatokal 02:10, 27 Jan 2006 (EST)

I see a few problems with this. One is that maybe not everyone on wikivoyage agrees. If I base myself on the music sections of goals and non-goals, one could argue that detailed information about a sport should only be included if that sport is part of the local cultural color or identity. Scuba diving can be done anywhere there's water and as such, maybe should not be included in wikivoyage in a detailed fashion. After reading different debates on wikivoyage on what should and shouldn't be included I came to that conclusion, hence my working on a separate wiki.

More practically, the main-classification tree of wikivoyage is geo-political, Continents>Countries>States/Provinces/...>Counties etc...>Destination. This might not be the best suited approach for a wiki dedicated to dive sites. I could see a main classification tree that's mainly geographic as more useful with links to the political regions in the particular dive sites articles. So in an article on the empress of ireland, there would be a link to the wikivoyage article on rimouski so someone could know where they would be travelling to. Another classification tree by type of dive sites would also be possible. My point is that I could see several ways of classifying the dive sites, which would end up creating a much separate project inside the same wiki.

Also, divers could want information specific about scuba diving on the main page. For example, the news section of the main page could well have news on the state of dive sites, resorts and dive shops in areas affected by conflicts or natural disasters. That information would be very valuable for divers, but probably not so interested on the main page of wikivoyage.

Finally, divers could potentially start to include articles on diving techniques particular to certain dive sites. I would guess that information is probably not wanted on wikivoyage, but could be of use on a scuba diving wiki.

I'm starting to wonder if my posting on this section of a talk page was spam. In any case, it wasn't intended as such. I thought it would be relevant to invite certain wikivoyage members since there were a few mentions on the wiki of wikivoyagers interested in scuba diving and so on. --(WT-en) Charles

It's not spam, you haven't even posted the link (and you're welcome to do so!). While I see what you're getting at, as an avid diver myself I'd prefer to keep the info in one place -- no matter how hardcore a diver you are, you still need to get a taxi from the airport and find places to eat, drink and sleep, which is squarely in Wikivoyage territory. Why not a "Diving portal" inside Wikivoyage that provides a dive-oriented entry point?

Also, the whole classification tree thing is quite new and we're still working out how to classify non-destination articles, so don't worry about that just yet -- see Project:RDF for some discussion if interested. (WT-en) Jpatokal 06:47, 31 Jan 2006 (EST)

I agree entirely that there should be a lot of opportunities to access wikivoyage content from a scuba diving wiki and the other way around as well. This would be the case for many other sports if there's interest in it (like this golf discussion). I could think of cyclo-tourism or mountain climbing as potential candidates. Anyhow, my point is not to make a list of the other possibilities. I'm really only interested in scuba diving right now.

I like your idea of the scuba diving portal page and close interrelation between the two "sections" if I can call them like that. I would be all for making it as seamless as possible. I would still like to see the scuba diving section retain a certain distinct character. Both for it's own sake and for wikivoyage not get swamped by scuba diving related information (were that ever to be possible). I guess at this point, the question I have is whether this would be better served by a single server or two seperate servers. I have set-up a wiki on a different server and reserved a domain name (http://www.wikiscuba.org/). There really is nothing there right now except for a modified copy of the wikivoyage main page and a few other pages. I was more playing around with the wiki to understand how to use it.

Could we move this discussion to a page with more exposure to get more input? Also, how the hell do I get the time stamp after my name on a page?!?! (You can tell my wiki skills are not so sharp yet) -- (WT-en) Charles

Project:Travellers' pub and Project:Requests for comment would be good places to post pointers. And signing your name is as easy as entering ~~~~. (WT-en) Jpatokal 10:39, 31 Jan 2006 (EST)

External links

An anonymous user re-added the external links section to this page. The now-removed links might be useful for research or for re-incorporation into the article:

-- (WT-en) Ryan 15:36, 6 March 2006 (EST)

The last two are already linked from the appropriate section (they're providers of dive certification). (WT-en) Hypatia 00:19, 17 May 2006 (EDT)

Links removed -- spam magnet & hitting blacklist --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 01:52, 19 June 2009 (EDT)

Splitting/editing

So this is a big article and it covers a few different things. What should we do about it? (WT-en) Hypatia 22:01, 1 June 2006 (EDT)

For what it's worth, the reason it contains so much stuff about learning to dive is that I wrote it just after I learned, and I put everything in that I wished I'd known. I still think some info about learning would be merited, in particular: what certification means, whether to learn on your vacation, what the difference between a resort course or supervised dive and certification is. Some of the other seemingly travel relevant stuff is: liveaboard vs day trip, insurance, and, obviously, the destinations, which could probably do with their own article or index (ultimately a series of articles like Scuba diving in Australia). (WT-en) Hypatia 22:05, 1 June 2006 (EDT)

Sea sickness

We need to double-check the brand names. I've never seen something called dramamine in Australia, and it's not usually those chemicals listed at the moment either. (WT-en) Hypatia 19:18, 23 July 2006 (EDT)

Also the reason I keep adding a note saying that the illness is worse than the side effects sometimes is on behalf of my dive buddy, who threw up 20 times on his first dive day and started trembling and showing signs of dehydration. For the sake of people like that we need to acknowledge that sometimes the medicines are worth it, particularly if you hit the sweet spot between effectiveness and drowsiness. (WT-en) Hypatia 19:24, 23 July 2006 (EDT)

I can't tell you what brand it's marketed under in Oz, but the active ingredient is either dimenhydrinate (Dramamine: very drowsy) or meclizine (Dramamine II: drowsy). - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 20:28, 23 July 2006 (EDT)

So, I take "Travacalm", and it says the active ingredient is something called "hyoscine hydrobromide". Which of those two is it? (WT-en) Hypatia 23:54, 23 July 2006 (EDT)

Neither. Hyoscine is another name for scopolamine. (WT-en) Jpatokal 03:14, 24 July 2006 (EDT)

Ah, that's prescription-only in the US (sold in patch form as Transderm Scop and tablet form as Scopace). Also popular as a date-rape drug (I'm told). - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 12:06, 24 July 2006 (EDT)

Ah ok, I've wondered about the patch, because I've never heard tell of it here. Yeah, it's pharmacy medicine here: you need to have a pharmacist warn you about the side-effects, but you don't need a doctor to sign off on it. I wouldn't know about date rape drugs...(WT-en) Hypatia 18:19, 24 July 2006 (EDT)

Wouldn't recommend scopolamine if you're trying to get into someone's pants: mild overdoses cause hallucinations and delerium, while bigger ones kill. (This is why it's prescription-only, especially in tablet form.) (WT-en) Jpatokal 21:39, 24 July 2006 (EDT)

Will definitely keep that in mind!(WT-en) Hypatia 21:44, 24 July 2006 (EDT)

Star status

The article was up for star status for a while, see Project:Star nominations/Slush pile#Scuba_diving for the result. We need to work on:

• making the destinations list a complete overview of the world's best dive locations (perhaps applying the seven plus or minus two rule per continent?) together with nutshell summaries
• adding a map of these major dive destinations

(WT-en) Hypatia 20:28, 31 July 2006 (EDT)

I'd just like to say that I found the article very comprehensive and useful, so thanks very much! 210.237.151.1 21:24, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

List of destinations

One of the criticisms from the Star nomination was that "I think the index of scuba destinations up front needs a lot more work — it should cover all the biggies and give nutshell summaries..." (comment by (WT-en) Jpatokal 09:40, 27 July 2006 (EDT)). I'm of the opinion that two things need to happen here:

• we need to add a number of destinations — there's certainly some missing from North America, and I'd imagine from the Middle East and Europe too
• we need to remove some destinations in line with the 7±2 rule on Project:Geographical_hierarchy#Dividing_geographical_units

Asia already has an enormous list of destinations — 20 at my count — and while as a relatively untravelled diver I do recognise most of them, I'm not sure that Asian diving merits an exception to the 7±2 rule. So, my idea is:

1. start adding more destinations to under-covered continents, North America being the most glaring
2. add nutshell summaries as requested
3. start pulling some destinations out to Scuba diving in Asia (to follow the format of Scuba diving in Australia unless anyone has a better idea) — eventually of course we're likely to have Scuba diving in Europe and so on, but Asia has the most pressing need.

(WT-en) Hypatia 17:56, 26 August 2006 (EDT)

OK, I've started Scuba diving in Asia and cut down the list of destinations on this page. By all means edit them, but we want the number of listings to stay at 9 or less. (WT-en) Hypatia 03:20, 10 September 2006 (EDT)

Would a detailed wiki on all a country's dive sites be too much?

I want to describe all the scuba diving sites in Timor-Leste and have begun doing this in Wikipedia [1]. Would this "project" be better posted/hosted here?

Moving back to a previously used article name

Swept in from pub:

I created a travel topic Diving in Africa, then decided it would be better as Scuba diving in Africa, but have now realised that the original name is more concise and is unlikely to be confused, so would like to move back, but when I tried to move back, I got the message that the name already existed.What is the procedure here? I dont want to cut and paste as that would lose the history. This must have happened before, so can someone who has dealt with it please inform me. Thanks, (WT-en) Pbsouthwood 12:38, 20 September 2009 (EDT)

I suspect Diving in Africa will need to be deleted by an adminstrator before Scuba diving in Africa can (re)use that article name.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 12:47, 20 September 2009 (EDT)

Indeed, and no sooner said than done :) --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 12:52, 20 September 2009 (EDT)

Much obliged for the quick action Stefan. Unfortunately as I feel my way into the dive guide structure I will probably be chopping and changing quite a bit, as there is less of a precedent to follow than for the regular guides. I would like to have as few hierarchical levels as conveniently possible, and I am not sure at this stage whether the "Diving in Continent" articles will be worth the trouble, or whether the "Scuba diving" topic should include the continent level and go directly to countries as the next level down. I am fairly sure that "Diving in Country" is a useful level, and also that "Diving in Local Region" within countries will be necessary for countries where the conditions vary significantly between regions, or where there are large nunbers of dive sites in each region. South Africa, USA, Australia and Indonesia come to mind immediately, and there are sure to be others. I'm afraid I will be troubling you sysops again. Possibly quite a bit. Comments and opinions would be welcomed. Cheers, (WT-en) Pbsouthwood 17:18, 20 September 2009 (EDT)

Looking at the top level, you could maybe change the approach to adding continents/countries as they develop, rather than the other way around - it makes for some leaner articles. I don't mind the experimenting, it's for a worthy cause, anything that can open up divers eyes to wikivoyage, is a good thing in my book, as most online resources out there are either too region specific or heavily trending towards rubbish. --(WT-en) Stefan (sertmann) ^Talk 17:30, 20 September 2009 (EDT)

Certified supplies? Tours? Divemasters?

The article has quite a bit about certifying divers, and presumably the instructors on certification courses would themselves be certified at some higher level. But is there any certification that tells me where I can get air filled competently? There was a case in my area when I was a teenager where several people died because someone was using a gas-powered compressor and got carbon monoxide in the tanks. I assume this is extremely rare, but it seems an easy blunder to make.

What certification should I expect the guides on a boat dive to have? Is this where a "dive rescue" cert comes in? (WT-en) Pashley 09:19, 12 October 2009 (EDT)

Instructors are certified by the agency that issues the diver certifications that the instuctor claims for the divers he or she trains. There is a certification commonly called "Divemaster", but having a range of names with the different agencies, that certifies that the holder is competent to lead a dive group of divers who are themselves competent for the planned dive profile, conditions and equipment. However, what you get in charge of your dive depends to a large extent on local legal requirements and customs. Some places you can expect a divemaster, other places it could be anyone. Similarly with boat skippers. In South Africa you are not allowed to operate a dive boat unless you have a skippers certificate for the appropriate category of vessel, and a dive boat skipper endorsement. In some countries all you need is to know which end of the boat is the front and be able to start the engine.

Similar situation for filling cylinders. Some places require a certificate of competence, others just specify that you must be competent in terms of specified legislation, others require only that you can start the compressor and connect a cylinder without breaking anything too expensive. There are legal requirements for breathing air quality in many countries, including probably all of Europe, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Japan. Probably others too, but not necessarily all and not necessarily enforced. In South Africa a customer may demand to see the record of the latest air quality test, and it must be less than 3 months old (less for compressors that are used a lot).

Rescue diver certification is normally a prerequisite for Divemaster training, but again, standards vary, and competence too. Rescue diver certification is also highly recommended for recreational divers, as there is not a lot of point in the buddy system if a diver can not rescue the buddy in distress.

It is probably worth adding a section on this to the Scuba diving article, and also to the regional diving guides, which is where it can be specified what you can actually expect from your divemaster or filling station in that region. I suppose this would go under the Understand heading for the region.

I hope this answers your question. If not, ask again. Cheers, (WT-en) Pbsouthwood 10:23, 12 October 2009 (EDT)

To teach diving for any of the major recognised certfiying bodies, yes you must be at minimum a fully qualified open water instructor [2]. As for boat guides etc, I suspect different standards in different parts of the world. If you are a qualified open water diver though, at a minimum I would expect any guide on a boat (or elsewhere) to be a qualified dive master [3]. Dive Masters are often qualified Rescue Divers as well [4]. In practice in locations where I dive a lot, there is often a full instructor present as the boat I am for my fun dive is being combined with some teaching dives. On the air bottles - ouch - that's a very bad one. Not something I have ever heard of before. To fill bottles, you should be fully qualified to do so. PADI for example have a certification for this. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 10:31, 12 October 2009 (EDT)

It would be reasonable for a diver trained in a first world country to expect a qualified divemaster to lead dives, but is it realistic? I dont know from recent experience, but as far as I know this is not required by legislation in many places, though it may be recommended or even required by the certification agencies. This does not stop dive operators who are either not affiliated to an agency or dont care, from operating to different standards. My point is, dont assume, ask.

I have never heard of a PADI certification for filling cylinders. Could you point me to it? As far as I know it is not available in South Africa. (WT-en) Pbsouthwood 01:53, 13 October 2009 (EDT)

Peter, I was sure I had seen a piece about PADI having a minor course for tank filling procedures.... hmmm.... but digging around websites I cannot find it. You would know far more about this than me, and I suspect you are right. It just might have been a trimix or other technical diving tank course that got filed incorrectly in my brain (would not be the first time, nor the last).

The "ask don't assume" advice is certainly wise. I made the point in my initial reply that standards will be different in different places. I have to say though that in the 'third' world countries where I dive for fun (and learned to dive a fair while back), dive masters are always on an organised boat dive. I guess it will not only depend on where you are but which dive operator you trust. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 02:23, 13 October 2009 (EDT)

Concur, and you are probably relatively experienced in both travelling and Scuba, The majority would be less experienced, probably in both. Cheers, (WT-en) Pbsouthwood 06:20, 14 October 2009 (EDT)

Merge Scuba diving in Asia with Scuba diving

(swept from Travellers' Pub)

I would like opinions on a proposal to merge Scuba diving in Asia with Scuba diving. I am developing the impression that continental regions are not useful for the Scuba diving topic. I have already merged Diving in Africa with Scuba diving and country level regional articles, which are far more appropriate to travel planning, as one will in reality go to a country to dive, but not specifically to a continent. The continental information should be merged into the main topic Scuba diving, and the country level regional information into an article for diving in that country, such as Diving in Thailand. This proposal was made on 27 September in Talk:Scuba diving in Asia but has had no comments so far. (WT-en) Pbsouthwood 15:56, 9 October 2009 (EDT)

Definitely support; don't see any point in having region-level articles for activity-centric travel topics (at least, at the current state of Wikivoyage). --(WT-en) DenisYurkin 16:03, 9 October 2009 (EDT)

Support for the same reasons already put forward.--(WT-en) Burmesedays 22:16, 9 October 2009 (EDT)

Scuba diving in Asia has had content merged and is now a redirect. Someone please check that I have not left any loose ends, and let me know if I have. (WT-en) Pbsouthwood 08:56, 12 October 2009 (EDT)

Underwater cabinet meeting

The Maldives had one, to discuss global warming. [5] Dunno if this fits in this article, or Maldives, but it seemed worth mentioning. (WT-en) Pashley 09:35, 18 October 2009 (EDT)

Article on decompression illness

Ran across this, found it interesting, wonder if any of it is relevant here. (WT-en) Pashley 09:56, 30 June 2011 (EDT)

Thanks for the reference. An interesting article, but either the author has left out something or he is at the far end of the bell curve. I dont know what could be usefully extracted from the article other than shit happens, some people are more susceptible to DCS than others, and that the Townsville medical facilities are way better than most. Oh, also insure with DAN. they cover chamber treatments. I had that in the article but someone complained it looked touty, so I toned it down a bit. I will check whether it stands out enough. Cheers, • • • (WT-en) Peter (Southwood) ^Talk 09:22, 1 July 2011 (EDT)

page banner

Ouch! My first page banner to be switched out. And without discussion. Lumpytrout (talk) 14:31, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

So it goes. We can discuss if you want. I didn't know it was necessary or expected. Cheers • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:49, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

All is fair in Wiki and War. Lumpytrout (talk) 20:46, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Gotta say, the image of the diver and the manta is pretty damn cool. Given that the original banner was a more generic image of fish, if this was a war I'd be sending my troops to Peter's side. Sorry Lumpy :-) -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:57, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

No worries, I think for me it brings up more questions about what are page banners for? And really what is the purpose of art? For me I hope that page banners ask questions and get people thinking but I'm afraid that most of them are just becoming predictable visual echos and not much different from what you would expect from commercial websites. I was really happy for example that the Yellowstone entry didn't start with a picture of Old Faithful, it would have been just what people expected. Starting with the Grand Geyser showed some deeper understanding of the area. What do you want to bet that soon Yosemite National Park will be adorned with a page banner of sweeping view of Yosemite Valley that looks pretty much like every other cheesy tour book on the subject? I don't think this is bad per se, just discouragingly predictable and mediocre. Lumpytrout (talk) 03:43, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I found the manta shot on commons when I was re-categorizing a bunch of images,and it just looked right for the job, but it was too narrow. fortunately Photoshop sorted that out.

I have been thinking in a similar vein, as I have been quite busy with page banners for dive sites. It is amazing how much time it can take. One of the conclusions I came to is that as far as possible the banner should represent the location or topic, but not necessarily be instantly recognizable. Mostly I do what is possible with the available photos, almost none of which were taken for panoramic views. The end result is generally a fairly colourful but not easily recognised detail of something recorded from the site. Old Faithful doesn't lend itself to a 7:1 panoramic format, and nor do most underwater photos.

I also had the idea of using a random selection from a set of banners for regional or main topic pages, so that you don't see the same banner every time (like on WP portals) but I don't think we have the required extensions (yet). • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:44, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

TOC banner, page banner combo? what is going on here? Lumpytrout (talk) 13:56, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Right now I am trying to work out a system that allows me to find sections while keeping the pagebanner. I am hoping that one of the more skilled hackers will fix a template that gives full TOC functionality back while using the page banner. Until then I have made a temporary template to allow the banner to be shown while giving a user a way of finding a section other than exhaustive visual search through the dozens of subsections in destinations section (expand 'Destinations' in the ToC to see what I mean). To do this I have brought back the old ToC, which works, and made an alternative pagebanner template with the ToC disabled. See also discussion on Banner Expedition talk page. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:43, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Star?

This article was nominated for Star status years back, but the nomination failed Wikivoyage:Star_nominations/Slush_pile#Scuba_diving. Should it be re-nominated? Does it need a map as the link suggests? Pashley (talk) 01:24, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Pashley, It wouldn't make it without a lot of work. The destinations section is currently the repository for a lot of stuff that needs to be split off into separate articles, and the rest reformatted to something consistent. The other sections are quite good though, so the potential remains. I work on it sporadically, but don't have the time to do much right now.

A map is always nice, but I am not sure what it should show. Do you have any ideas for a map?

If you have any ideas for what ultimate level of detail should go in the destinations section that would help with splitting out to new articles.• • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:16, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Feeding

How come in the respect section it says not to feed wildlife and yet there's a picture of divers feeding fish? A little self-contradictory, don't you think? King jakob c 2 (talk) 17:57, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Why self-contradictory? The fish are fed. There is a photo to show it, we do not recommend it but it happens. Feeding fish disturbs their natural behaviour and can eventually cause a hazard to divers and harm the ecology, so we warn not to do it. Life is full of apparent contradictions, but this one is not ours. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:06, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Tankless scuba?

News story on a device that extracts oxygen from water as gills do so you can dive without tanks. I am not certain how far along development is, but it seemed worth mentioning here. Pashley (talk) 13:40, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

A long way from being useful to the traveller. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:31, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Subsurface?

An Open Source program to handle dive logs. [6] Pashley (talk) 15:08, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

New release. Pashley (talk) 22:13, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Listiness

Hi, everyone. I just deleted a bunch of specific listings, but I fear there is still too much detail, including the long list of dive sites in the "Vietnam" section. This article could easily become a tremendous file with exhaustive (and sometimes promotional) listings. Instead, I think it should be maintained as a good overview with links to more detailed articles about all the diving areas. Your views, everyone? Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:02, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

If the amount of detail for any country is enough to start a stand-alone article, go ahead and start it. This article is supposed to summarize the regional articles, but it often serves as a repository for regional information until there is enough to split it out. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:18, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Does that mean you wouldn't delete listings for specific dive clubs in this article? I don't think they should be split off into guides for whole countries, either, but only listed in articles for the specific town where they're located. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:16, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Some of the longer ones like the United Kingdom, Honduras, and Mexico should likely be split off into their own topic articles (and given enough details to actually find all the things they mention), but I think a number of them could be condensed spacewise without even necessarily losing any text. For example, the Mozambique section has an 18-line listy section the could be condensed to 5 one-liners without losing a word (and with the links they are currently missing!):

• Maputo Municipality — Ponta do Ouro, Ponta Malongane, and Ponta Mamoli
• Manta Coast (Inhambane municipio) — Guinjata Bay and Tofo Beach
• Vilanculos and the Bazaruto Archipelago — Vilanculos and Bazaruto
• Nampula Municipality — Nacala Bay, Memba Bay, and Ilha de Mozambique
• Pemba and the Quirimbas Archipelago — Medjumbe, Matemo, Pemba

The Japan section can similarly be changed to 4 one-liners instead of four subsections with one line under each header. Other countries like South Africa and the Philippines don't have such a convenient grouping yet but could probably be grouped geographically into a much lower number of one-liners. Texugo (talk) 22:53, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Divers tend to plan their travel a bit differently to regular tourists. A person whose primary purpose for travel is scuba diving (and there are enough of these to support an industry) will go to the specific dive sites or dive region, and use whatever infrastructure and surface destinations best suits their choice of diving destinations. For example, if you want to see Mantas in Mozambique, you may decide to dive Manta Reef in the Inhambane municipio, but may use an operator from Tofo or Guinjata to get there, so listing the operators under the region makes sense unless there are too many.

Ultimately the main Scuba diving article should not list any operators,and only a few of the best known sites for each country. The details should all go into national/regional/local articles depending on how much detail is available.

Check for cases where there already is a lower level article. South Africa has national, regional and site articles in varying detail, so the Scuba article should summarize and link, no more. If I remember correctly, Philippines also has a national level diving article, so same treatment. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:23, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

As a general rule, Delete listings if and only if they exist in another article. If not, cut and paste (and reformat as necessary) to the appropriate lower level article or create one for the purpose and link to it from Scuba diving. Detout when necessary, but leave information that would help a diver decide if the site or operator is of interest.• • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:29, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

[Edit conflict] To my knowledge, our practice until now has been to require dive operators to list only in the article for the city or other lowest-level area they have their office in. I think that really is the best way to organize articles, as it's the same thing we do with tour operators for offshore cruises and the like. If we are going to start stipulating that dive operators should be listed in the 2nd-to-lowest articles in the breadcrumb hierarchy, I think that will confuse the issue for all other kinds of listings. The alternative is a "Diving in [Name of Region]" article, with links from regular city articles.

As for what I deleted, please feel free to move it as appropriate, if it's not already in the lower-level articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:34, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

See the deletions here. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:35, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Italics

I notice some of the country names are italicized and others are not. Is there any reason to italicize them? If so, all of them should be italicized. Otherwise, none of them should be. Shall we take a vote on whether to italicize or not, or would someone like to just plunge forward and harmonize the format for all the country names? Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:27, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

The italicized names are links to articles on diving in that country. The non-italicized links are to articles about the country, as there are not yet articles on diving in that country. If you have any suggestions for an alternative way of indicating what kind of article is linked, go ahead, I am sure there is a better way, though I have not thought of it. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:00, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't see anything in the article that made that clear. I think the way to make it clear is not to italicize but to link to "Diving in" articles normally, in cases in which they exist. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:05, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Listiness uncured

This page remains unwieldy because of lengthy lists of dive sites. The principle stated in 2014 is that these shouldn’t be listed on this page: do we still agree to that? (Of course mentioning destinations and a few highlights is fine.) Likewise dive operator & other listings, and maps. If so, all these lists should migrate to an appropriate level, or be cut. The chief culprits are Egypt, Vietnam, Malta, UK, BVI, Canada, Honduras, Mexico, USA, Guam and Saipan.

It will help if each can be tackled by someone who knows the country and its diving, else we risk just moving a mess from one page to another. As proposer, bags-I the UK. Any volunteers for the others? The convention that italic title means a page called “Diving in X” isn’t obvious, so the country entries ought to say in plain words where relevant content can be found. This will be as various as the destinations: it could be main country page, or a Diving in X page, or in specific destinations or regions where the diving is concentrated.

I also brought the two Egypt sections together because it seemed odd to split them by continent, but didn't otherwise remedy that content. Grahamsands (talk) 22:49, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I'd say the copious listings should definitely be moved elsewhere. Countries that are particularly famous for scuba diving and/or have a lot of listings can get their own "Scuba diving in country" articles, the rest can be moved to "Scuba diving in continent" articles. In this article we could keep a paragraph or two for each country and of course links to said country and continent articles. -- ϒψιλον (talk) 17:40, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Done. There is already a "Diving in UK" page covering these sites, though it's misnamed because it omits Northern Ireland. For others to decide whether to remedy that, or rename the page "Diving in Great Britain". I also added an intro on the implications of cold water / dry suit diving. I expect these comments would apply to many other places eg Canada and Scandinavia, if so they could move up to head the "Scuba-diving" page. Any expressions of interest in tackling the other countries? Grahamsands (talk) 15:35, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Grahamsands, This article tends to be the first place people look on WV for diving information, and where they leave little bits of site information, so it tends to accumulate until someone splits it off to a proper regional diving article.

I agree with splitting the lists off to local articles where possible. I did a lot of it when I was more active here. Lately I concentrate mainly on Cape Town sites as it is where I am and where I do my mapping. The enthusiasm to do the rest of the world wore off due to lack of material, and lately other interests get in the way, but if someone else wants to tackle this in a generally consistent way I am willing to chip in, as long as it does not conflict with the fairly well established style used in Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay and associated sub-articles without prior discussion.

Changing the style of links is also not a big deal as long as the stye is consistent and applied to the whole article. So go ahead if you are willing to finish the job. An explanation of the consensus style here on the talk page will help others to keep it consistent if it isn't obvious. The style of regional diving articles is a bit inconsistent. The best established example is Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay, and Diving in South Africa is reasonably consistent with that. The amount of information on specific dive sites is extremely variable, and I was not able to come up with a style that worked well through the continuum of almost nothing beyond the name to some of the Cape Town dives, which have been described and mapped in detail.

UK/GB? - up to you, the main reason there is nothing on NI is probably simply that no-one has added any yet. If you know any sites there, feel free to write them up, but if you think renaming is better I have no objection. I look forward with some interest to improvements in the article, as it seems like you have some local experience

Finding someone who is familiar with the diving in any given country to write it up may be more difficult. Just do your best. I will help where I can. Besides South Africa, I have dived a bit in southern Australia and northern New Zealand. Ping me any time. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:31, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Ypsilon, There are no "Diving in Continent" articles, they are all redirects to the continent sections of this article. I dont think that continents are a useful subdivision for diving destinations, but if you can motivate actual usefulness to the reader I am willing to listen. Diving by country is already in use, and some larger regions like the Caribbean, Red Sea, Mediterranean or Southeast Asia might be useful. The smallest regional subdivision in current use is at about city, island, marine protected area, or large bay level in geographical extent, basically the range someone might be prepared to travel for a day trip, because there are enough dive sites there to justify it. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:47, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe it's better to create articles by bodies of water then. Nevertheless, I don't think it's necessary to make separate articles for countries that have few diving points listed, like Cuba, which I at the moment would place in a "Diving in the Caribbean" article. If someone in the future would add more information about diving in Cuba, then Diving in Cuba could be split off as a separate article. And if someone wants to describe individual sites in Cuba in detail, those sites can in turn get their own articles. ϒψιλον (talk) 10:59, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Ypsilon, That is roughly what has been done in the past except that we/I didn't bother to make articles by bodies of water at multinational region level. It should improve matters, but there can be all sorts of little complications, like the Mediterranean is surrounded by three continents, the Caribbean by two, whereas Australia, South Africa US, Mexico, Canada and a few other countries have two oceans, (Canada and Australia can actually claim three, depending on how you count) and US and Mexico also have Caribbean sites. Some duplication is likely. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:24, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I have never objected to separate articles for diving in a country with only a few sites listed, as that is an encouragement for people to add more. Sometimes it happens. However I do not waste my own time doing that and do not encourage anyone else to do it unless there is at least one really good site with lots of information available. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:30, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Hokay, it would be a very intrepid editor that aimed to complete this overhaul and be consistent. Let's just bodge away as best we can and try to leave each section more wondrous than when we alighted on it. Endorsing Peter's point that this is likely the first page that a browsing diver will land on, it needs to have good sign-posting to relevant content elsewhere. And this will be as inconsistent as the dive sites themselves. Thus on Little Cayman the sites are spectacular, they're the only reason to go there, and descriptions would fit on main "destination" page. In Jordan everything's within 15 mins drive of Aqaba, and site descriptions should go there. (They'd justify their own page if fully documented, but the Aqaba page remains skimpy.) In Barbados there are two resort regions with dive sites offshore, but it doesn't matter which one you stay in as the shacks pick you up (by truck, since you were wondering) then the boat heads to wherever the DM thinks best; so all this is better covered by a separate "diving in BB" page. But the reader can't be left to guess at this, the country sections here need to spell it out in plain words. And then a sensible hierarchy of info below, eg "Diving in South Africa" is short of onward links to its regional diving & city pages so I'm not sure how to navigate that huge country. Am I sensing an enthusiastic volunteer for sorting the RSA content? Ypsilon, kalispera sas, Cuba is one example that should have a whole lot more on this page rather than a whole lot less. But the preliminary task is to build content in the base destinations (many of which are "park" rather than "city" pages); otherwise the cross-referencing has nothing to cross-reference. Would you know about those sites? Grahamsands (talk) 14:15, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I will (continue to) do Diving in South Africa and the regional diving destinations in South Africa. That probably constitutes most of the diving content in Wikivoyage by wordcount. If you have suggestions, let me know, and if you have information for any of the regions or sites either add it in or dump it on the talk page. I can also do some grunt work on Scuba diving once a coherent system has been worked out. For some dive sites, particularly wrecks, there may be good info on Wikipedia that can be used. There should be an interwiki link if the article has the same or very similar title.

I know nothing about diving in Cuba. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:18, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

If you read through Diving in South Africa and have any questions or points that are not clear or things that should be added I can sort them out. For easiest reference put then in-line as comments. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:46, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Grahamsands, I don't really know anything about diving, but am trying to suggest some ways to distribute the information to subpages. I think this article should just be about Scuba diving in general and individual sites and aspects that aren't the same globally (permits?, standards?, of course conditions etc.) should be described in country/continent/body of water/whatever division is best.

This is indeed probably the first place where readers (who possibly have just discovered WV) interested in scuba diving will arrive at, so it should be user-friendly and easy to digest. As of now links to subarticles in Scuba_diving#Destinations are in the form of the country name italicized. It would be better to spell out the name of the articles so that new readers immediately notice them. Also, if there'd be articles for all the countries listed (perhaps even all countries in the world, half of them redlinked?) we'd end up with a fairly long list (and this discussion is about reducing the listiness...), therefore it could be a good idea to collect nearby countries each of which has little information in one article. ϒψιλον (talk) 15:50, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Grahamsands, "Diving in South Africa" is short of onward links to its regional diving & city pages - Could you explain what you mean by this as there are links to each region or city in the article. It would seem that they are not effective, as you are not finding them, so what do you suggest I do? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 16:26, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Peter, they are indeed ample and effective, and I've been sat here puzzling why I didn't see them before. And you know what? It's because I was flipping between the South Africa in italics, that's about diving and does have those links, and the South Africa that isn't and isn't and doesn't. Which makes Ypsilon's point rather nicely. Grahamsands (talk) 20:26, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

OK, that makes the point sufficiently. Links must be clear and as obvious as reasonably possible. Fix on sight. Edit summary preferred, but not a crisis. I will take a read through later and try to get it all consistent. If you have any other recommendations for the page, please go ahead and list them on its talk page. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:57, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Grahamsands, Ypsilon, How do you feel about using a link just below the header to the main topic diving article, like a Wikipedia section hatnote. See this example. This could be used as a standard and consitent method of linking to the diving topic for each country, and in country articles to regional diving topics. I could write up a templare for it, so it would always have the same style. It may be worth indenting too, as is done on Wikipedia for hatnotes, but we do not have to copy Wikipedia unless we think it has advantages. One possible advantage is that people may be familiar with the concept from using Wikipedia, where it is very common.

If you like the general idea, think about the finer details: Should it be italic link, bold link, both? should it be indented? formatted some other way? The advantage of using a template is that if we dicide to format differently, changing the template will fix the formatting for all template cases. Suggested template format {{main topic|link title}}. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:46, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I have created a template for evaluation: {{Main topic}}, See example of proposed usage.
If you like the look, let me know and we can edit the page to suit. It would probably also be good to add a short intro to each country section mentioning the most important details. Some already have this, but not all. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:10, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

That kind of design was pretty much what I had in mind; along the lines of {{See also}} which we use e.g. for major airports in Get in section, related travel topics etc.

Prospective divers coming here probably already have some idea about what kind of diving experience they're looking for, so I agree it's good to have a brief intro here. -- ϒψιλον (talk) 10:42, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Umm, rather than "Dive Sites in Blogistan" or wherever, I think it's "Scuba-diving in Blogistan" which will often major on sites, but will spell out whatever's relevant to know there. "The currency of Blogistan notoriously washes out when wet, and the myriad colours of Lake Zdormunddrang were caused by a boating accident in 1890 to Count Plutozdorf . . " (draw breath, turn page here, continue topic . . . )

(Continues) We're talking about dive sites because that's the worst example of listiness, and as the destinations come early the eyesore is upfront, but it applies all down the page. Ypsilon, your perspective is very valuable here, precisely because you say you know nothing about diving. Yet you were curious enough to find your way to this page. So, perhaps you had questions in mind, which this page may or may not have helped you with. What for you were its plus & minus points?

For me, it feels like many of these pages are written by expert divers for expert divers, which is a very narrow take on the prospective readership and contributorship. (Indeed some pages state as much, plus what in legal terms might be dubbed a Fungus Mungus.) So if we have Peter as expert, you as novice, and me somewhere between, guess we have a representative population sample. Nevertheless "we're gonna need a bigger boat" so I'll put in a shout at the pub. (DONE on 7/4/19)

Brevity is not an end in itself. If we maximise helpful informative content, and minimise dross, and write well, the page may not be much shorter than now. (Look at Ireland? France? Mauritius? So many places need developing.) But it won't read long, that's the thing. Right now there are dive site lists that are only three items long, but they're just WP category dumps and I'm bored already. Grahamsands (talk) 21:44, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, I happened to find my way to this discussion because it showed up in Recent changes. Also, I often also scout for good articles to feature on the Main Page, and as this article has guide status this could be a good FTT candidate someday.

The individual sites and whatever is locally important ought to go in their local articles which can be expanded as much as editors like, and if needed individual dive sites could get their own articles. As there aren't very many divers contributing to WV (at least regularly), most sections and articles aren't going to be expanded anytime soon. But that shouldn't be an excuse to keep the long list of sites in this article.

When it comes to what info this article should contain, I'll quote myself from Talk:Activities#Guidelines_for_dangerous_activities: ...I think the point is to to show readers already familiar with the activities where you can perform them, and newbies where they can watch or learn said activities. On the other hand, providing newbies with enough information to get into trouble would be out of the scope of WV and IMHO pretty damn irresponsible. -- ϒψιλον (talk) 08:19, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's sensible. Indeed I was thinking some of the "learn" and "stay safe" stuff needs to come much earlier. Someone who just borrowed scuba kit and tried to self-learn is liable to kill themselves in the shallows not at depth. The reasons are obvious to any trained diver, but the newbie wouldn't know, and might suppose it's all about avoiding "the bends". Grahamsands (talk) 15:32, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Style: this page is called "Scuba diving" to distinguish it from other activities called diving. Suggest the same term is used in subsiduary pages eg "Scuba diving in NZ" not just "Diving in . . " Not sure how to change those titles, and it might create a red rash of broken links in the country's general pages. Grahamsands (talk) 17:26, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

On Wikipedia there is a bot that fixes links after a page move. Not sure about here on WV, but that is the sort of thing that is likely to exist because it is so useful. You can also check "What links here" in the sidebar for each page that is renamed and fix them manually. Bear in mind that the activity known as freediving is also a recreational activity and takes place at many of the same sites as scuba diving, so the name change may not always be appropriate. If you do change any, leave the old name as a redirect, that will solve the majority of the link problems too. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:37, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

As someone who has done a fair bit of snorkeling but no SCUBA (and, being over 70, is not likely to start now) I'd oppose the notion of moving "Diving in ..." articles to "Scuba diving in ...". I think the simpler title is more inclusive & is better English style as well. Snorkelers, freedivers & for all I know others do go to diving destinations, even if the main focus of both tourists and businesses is SCUBA. Pashley (talk) 07:52, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Pashley, at the moment we've got pages labelled "Scuba diving in . . " and pages labelled "Diving in . . ". Both sets are almost exclusively about scuba, and the other submerged activities get at most a throwaway mention. I think it will be helpful to fix on one style. Personally I would say "diving" to mean scuba, and wouldn't understand it to mean those other activities, but I'm looking for the unambiguous term best understood by a multinational readership. If you want to see better coverage of the other activities, some approaches are i) expand on them in resort "Do" descriptions; ii) create specific pages for them; iii) attempt to broaden the scuba pages (however those end up being called) to encompass them - this last IMHO would be messy and not serve any audience well. Grahamsands (talk) 12:35, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

My vote is for "Diving in..." articles, until there is enough non-SCUBA information to make a split advisable (and then we can have "SCUBA diving in Hawaii" and "Snorkeling in Hawaii" and "Freediving in Hawaii" and whatever else is relevant). My thinking is that some of the location-specific stuff is going to be the same (I sit on the beach; my neighbor snorkels in the shallow water; Peter dives a bit further out from that same beach; all of us have to get there, and any of us might be interested in a day boat excursion to another interesting dive site), and while I don't need some of the information that Peter does (e.g., visibility underwater), it probably won't bother me, especially if it links back to articles that I do want. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I am going to go with "Diving in Placename", "Diving at Placename", or just "Diving Placename", whichever sounds best for the destination. When there is a Scuba diving in, at or whatever I will leave it as a redirect. When there is information specific do non-scuba diving we could put a paragraph in the understand section, and where sufficiently important in any other section that would be helpful. If someone has a different idea, try it out and link from here so we can all take a look and see if it will work better. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:54, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps we should start applying the 9 items rule - If there are more than 9 dive sites listed for a country, a Diving in Country article must be created, and no more than 9 sites or sub-regions may stay in this topic for that country. Not sure if this will work every time, but worth a try? The same rule may work for Diving in Region articles within countries, but for destination articles we may have to relax the rule and allow larger lists to avoid excessive fragmentation for destinations. I will look into how this works for a few samples, starting with Diving in South Africa.• • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:39, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Started splitting country listings out to new regional dive guides. Big job, and will take a while, but it is rolling.• • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:40, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Splitting out some Diving in Country articles

Grahamsands, and anyone else who fancies a go at writing on scuba diving. I have started adding red links for articles where the list here is seriously too long. Choose one or two that you would like to work on and create some new regional/country articles.

Listing here for easy reference, add any others you think should be done:

• Diving in Egypt Split out into new article, which can use a bit of development
• Diving in Indonesia
• Diving in the Philippines. Article exists, list must still be trimmed. Move content where applicable.
• Diving in Canada
• Diving in Vietnam
• Diving in Malta
• Diving in the Maldives
• Diving in Honduras - DONE GS 15/4/19
• Diving in Brazil (low urgency, but more than 9 sites listed)
• Dive sites of Saipan Article exists, list trimmed.
• Scuba diving in California move to Diving in California
• Diving in the United States Started 12:06, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
• Diving in Mexico Started, section trimmed a lot but can be improved.

Sections that need text expansion. In some cases the "Diving in" article lead and understand sections can be summarised, in other cases there is no article to summarise, or not enough.

• British Virgin Islands
• Australia
• United States of America

Style reversions

Grahamsands, I made a few style changes such as using a hatmnote template {{Main topic}} and taking the country link out of the section header and started discussion on this talk page. As far as I can tell User:Ypsilon liked the idea, and I was hoping for some discussion from you, but you seem to either not have noticed or ignored the discussion and unilaterally reverted to a different style without explaining why. What are your intentions? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:45, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Many apols Peter, I was editing in a hurry as I need to go offline very soon and will remain off for a week, I didn't realise I was trampling on you. Your style is fine. But we also need a link to each country's non-diving page, eg for resort practicalities, regardless of whether it has a "scuba in" page or not. The title is one obvious place to put it, else ensure it gets name-checked in the opening sentence. Grahamsands (talk) 12:35, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Grahamsands, do you want put it on hold until you get back? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:41, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

As mentioned above, a short introductory paragraph at the beginning of the section describing the most important points about the country would be a good place to link to the country article, while a hatnote style link to the diving topic for the country is relatively distinct. There may be better ways to do it, but until someone suggests one, we can use the best option we have at present. This will let us get almost all of the lists of dive sites out of Scuba diving and into diving topic articles or #Do sections.

I suggest the use of {{Main topic}} for all links to diving topic articles and {{See also}} for links to #Do sections in destination articles at all levels. In all cases these would be the first text content in the section, after a possible image, with the {{Main topic}}first, followed if necessary by {{see also}}, then the lead paragraph with the country summary. I am experimenting with this for Diving in South Africa to see if there are any hidden problems. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:45, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm happy to adopt those styles, Peter, unless you've encountered any problems. Grahamsands (talk) 14:03, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Cool, let's run with it then and see how far we can get. See some suggestions above for splitting out. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:40, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Links from section titles

I am not as familiar with WV policies as I used to be, so don't remember what the ruling is about links fron section titles. I do know that they are not allowed on Wikipedia, but can't remember whether the reason was technical or stylistic. If anyone passing sees this, and knows the WV policy, please leave a link if I have not done so already. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:54, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

As far as I can find out there is no policy or style guidance on links in section titles, which would explain why I couldn't recall it... So whatever works best, but I think keeping it consistent within the article would be better than having a bit of this and a bit of that. The question then becomes what works best.

I am inclined to think that links in the headers will encourage people to link to the country article too soon. but the new hatnote diving region links are also pretty obvious, so maybe this is not really a problem. On Wikipedia they do not allow links from section headers, and there may be a good functional reason, so I will go research that and see what I can find. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:20, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Jury is still out. I have found out that there used to be technical problems, now fixed in the software, but now it is at least partly a style preference, which we can ignore if we want to, and possibly an accessibility issue for screenreaders, which we should treat seriously if real. Still waiting for replies on the last query. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 16:52, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

The accessibility experts say it was a problem with older screenreaders which would just stop dead at a link in a header, but this has been fixed and is no longer an issue, so it is purely a matter of style and whether we find it useful. There is no question that it is not necessary, as Wikipedia gets by quite adequately with no links in section headings at all. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:29, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Other work

I'm happy to hew to the majority style on header links, whatever we adopt. Meanwhile it seems timely to consider other work for this page. Great progress is being made on the destinations, especial thanks to Peter, there's more to do on this and underlying pages but it's well in hand. Returning to the point that this is probably the first page where a diving search lands, what content would help the reader? Feels like the destinations come too early, even when pared down - destination-led enquiries will look for "Florida" main page or wherever. Most readers will be inexperienced, so they need more upfront guidance, without the text becoming facile and boring to the experienced. Not sure where the balance lies; but how about I re-draft the lede / "Understand" material accordingly then we take stock? Grahamsands (talk) 14:44, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Grahamsands, What do you have in mind for the redraft of the lede / Understand material? The summary sections you have been writing for the country sections are generally a great improvement, so I am optimistic. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:25, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Dunno, Peter, but suppose I write to those objectives? It'll probably be Tues 23/4 before I get to it. I never really know with a piece till I've written it. Stuff just pops into my head, which might be ideas, but now I'm wondering if they're gas bubbles. Grahamsands (talk) 22:19, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Fair enough Grahamsands. Everything is reversible if it goes pear shaped so give it a go and we see what happens Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:25, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Grahamsands, I like what you are doing with the intro. I may have some tweaks later but I would like to see where you go with this. Let me know when you think it has stabilised. I don't want to interrupt you while you are on a roll. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 16:46, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Right Peter, this feels like the time to lay down my literary lumphammer. The lede now states that "diving" means scuba, if so then the remaining "scuba" pages including this one can be re-named and re-directed. WV is a travel guide so it's right to major on destinations; but all I've done there is to state the principle on which they're listed or omitted. If that statement is correct, it implies much greater migration of content away from here, probably to "Do" paras for the many places that don't merit a "Diving in - " page. For the rest, I've hewed to the doctrine that this is not a training manual, it's a travel guide. So it might be neat to introduce kit and technique as solutions to a travel problem, to Get Around on a trip to the sea bed that is a mere 100 foot away, yet fraught with unusual challenges. Grahamsands (talk) 13:53, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Lots of big changes, Grahamsands, It will take some time to digest them. In general it looks good, but there may have been things lost in the wash, and there are always typos, spelling errors and grammar fixes to be done. So bring out the literary spackle and sandpaper. Also our personal experiences may lead us to consider different things as important. There are the occasional expressions which I think I understand, but they may not be clear to people from different backgrounds. There may be a few assertions I may ask where you got the information. Not necessarily because I disagree, sometimes I want to know for more practical reasons. It would also be good to get some feedback from others on the general utility of the current format. Maybe User:Ypsilon, and User:Pashley would like to comment. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:01, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Our manual of style recommends against the use of first person, which you have done quite extensively in Scuba diving#Get around, but I think this is acceptable because it is quite clear from the opening sentence that "we" in this context refers to humans in general and applies to all divers. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:24, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

The use of resort where Wikivoyage would normally use destination. There are differences in our use of resort and destination. I think you tend to sometimes use resort where destination would be the preferred term. I would consider a resort to be a place that would generally not be accepted as a topic for a destination article on Wikivoyage. Obviously this is not always the case, resort has specific meaning in some diving contexts, and should be used for those cases. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:24, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

As the Destination section still comprises something around 80% of the length of the article I'm still wondering how it would look like to move the content from there to six continental articles (e.g. Diving in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, South America), leaving the two lead paragraphs and links to these continental articles in the Destinations section. --Ypsilon (talk) 09:55, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

There is not much unique to say about diving by continents and not all diving is in the sea, so diving by seas is also not perfect, but it should be possible to trim down the country summaries to one or two paragraphs - around 100 to 200 words - and one image, leaving the detailed stuff to the regional articles. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:57, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

The continental articles wouldn't necessarily have so much general information about diving in the continent as a whole. They would just be a kind of "list articles" where we would move the country-specific information as it is. It would be there one click away and this article would be about scuba diving in general all over the world. This would also mean the summaries wouldn't need to be trimmed down. --Ypsilon (talk) 12:49, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

The intro to the Destinations states what it aims to include and exclude. If that statement is correct, the task is to edit to those criteria, which will greatly reduce the length. For instance I've migrated the UK content to its subpage, leaving just a two-liner. Working through the others may take some weeks but until that remedy has been applied, I recommend we don't embark on other chopping and changing of this section. Grahamsands (talk) 11:59, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Agree we should first see what we can trim down. Been doing some more trimming after starting new country articles, which will need a fair amount of work themselves, but one thing at a time... • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 16:54, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Grahamsands, I have trimmed the listiness down a lot. Not quite as brutally as you did with Diving in the UK, but working on the somewhat arbitrary rule of one photo per country, and then having enough text to avoid whitespace on my screen, which is a moderately large one, but I also magnify a bit to make it easier on my eyes, Looking at 150 to 200 words per country, in which quite a bit can be said.
I don't know If we can claim listiness has been cured, but it is in remission. It would be nice to get a photo for each country that captures the spirit of diving there - either an iconic site or an iconic beastie. I have a nice leafy sea dragon for Australia. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 16:55, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh yes Peter, we gotta have the leafy sea dragon; but many countries won't merit a pic. I did some further trimming & migrating and reckon length is now close to minimum - otherwise it succumbs to listiness on a national rather than a dive-site level. But with that done, Ypsilon's proposal of grouping looked a good fit for the Med countries, so I amended those under "Europe". Would any other area, such as the Caribbean, improve that way? Grahamsands (talk) 12:16, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Caribbean was the first to come to mind, so probably yes. South-east Asia is another possibility, and maybe the Red Sea. I can't think of any others. Lists of dive sites are by nature listy, but on a national level they will be shorter lists. At some point we just have to accept that a list is a list and is going to be listy to some extent, and splitting further is not useful. So far I have drawn the line at the dive sites for a city if you can get to them as a day-trip, and we have an article with over 250 dive sites in day-trip distance from one city. I also know of another place with about 100 named sites that are all accessed from only one launch site, but I don't have accurate positions for them all. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:34, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Time to push for star?

Grahamsands, With the delistification pretty much done, the article should be quite near star quality. Would you be interested in giving it a try? The process usually helps find any additional polishing work that needs to be done as other eyes view the details and spot the obvious stuff we managed to miss. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:07, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Getting close Peter. Although the page rating shouldn't be entirely contingent on its sub-pages, we ought first to improve any of those that are currently red-linked, empty, or stink on first opening. Grahamsands (talk) 19:19, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

OK, I will break out the industrial deodorant and start a list here of urgent fixes. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:48, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

• No red links found. More links might be good.
• What meaning for sub-pages are we using here? By one meaning, pages of the Topic page/Sub-page title format there are none. By the other meaning, pages further along the breadcrumb trail, there are many; (basically all pages Diving in Foo). It would be unreasonable to require every Diving in Foo to comply with any particular standard, so I will assume only direct linked subpages in the breadcrumb trail. We have a local diving topic star page Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay which provides useful precedent.
• Linked pages that really need urgent fixing:

• Margate needs almost everything
• Diving inland in South Africa needs a lot of work
• Diving in Malta several empty sections in "Understand" Done
• Diving in Sweden several empty sections in "Understand"
• Diving in Canada several empty sections in "Understand"
• Diving in the United States several empty sections in "Understand"
• Diving in Aruba very basic. Needs a lot of work.
• Bequia is very basic, and several sections are empty.
• Saint-Pierre (Martinique) is almost empty except for mention of scuba diving - no need, this barely-even-an-outline is a general not a diving page.

• Linked pages that could use a bit of expansion/cleanup, not urgent:

• Diving in Egypt clean up Done
• Diving in Mozambique clean up
• Diving the south coast of South Africa clean up Done
• Diving in Durban clean up
• Diving in Sudan needs to be expanded
• Diving in Brunei needs to be expanded
• Diving in Burma expand and clean up
• Diving in India expand and clean up
• Diving in Indonesia clean up a little
• Diving in Japan expand
• Izu Peninsula expand
• Diving in Malaysia expand
• Diving in the Maldives expand and clean up, link from Maldives#Do
• Diving in Vietnam expand
• Diving in the Bahamas expand
• Diving in the Cayman Islands expand
• Diving in Saba expand

Egypt

Good to see the nomination as "Travel Topic". Some of the above destinations need further work and I'll have a go at Egypt. Peter, I'm trying to find definitive dimensions for the Blue Hole in Dahab, can you cite a reliable source? Wikipedia is evasive, and doesn't give the clearance depth for the arch tunnel, which is crucial info that we must get right. Louise Trewavas and co mapped it in detail some years back, but their online map has disappeared. As I recall, she wrote that the roof shelves down to 85 m, which explains all the deaths. Grahamsands (talk) 11:06, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi Graham, Maybe this will help? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:32, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

No, dead link. And her article "Dahab Dog Days" didn't cite the depth. Grahamsands (talk) 12:31, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Scope

In expanding the Egypt / get help section, I wrote some generalities that might apply to similar pages. For instance, DAN is against publishing details of recompression chambers, and I buy their argument.

A few of the "to do" destinations listed are not "Diving in xxx" but general city pages. While it's good to update these where found, that feels like a separate endeavor from current business. I flagged St Pierre in Martinique as an example - sorting that scraplet would drag you into the whole organisation of Martinique. Similar is Bequia, and as for Margate, inhabitants of that woebegone town in Kent could only agree with the statement that it "needs almost everything". Grahamsands (talk) 10:08, 9 April 2020 (UTC)