Welcome to Gaia! ::

Just a heads up to everyone, im starting up a forum for younger divers. It will be called scubayouth and it will be a set of forums meant for divers between the ages of 14-25, which consists of less then 11% of all certified divers.

the website isnt up and running completely yet, but it should be operational in only a few more days. ill update as the website comes along ;D

Sounds like a great idea,,, ^.^

Sounds great!

scream yes I can blame you stressed lolzz no joke,,^.^
So how was the diving?? See or happend any thing good?
So when do you think you will get started on it again??

that seems very interesting xp

Technically, the website will be open to ALL ages, however, im aiming the website for anyone between the ages of 10-18, even though im 20 myself. My inspiration for Scubayouth came around when my Tec Instructor mentioned how young i was for being interested in technical diving, compairing most are within the ages of 25-40, due to interest and the amount of money involved in technical diving. So even though im now 20, im in the minority of younger ~technical~ divers. I really wanted to see a website for young tech divers, but it really doesnt exist, so i decited to originally make a young tech divers forum, but then i said to myself "ya know, theres not really any forums for young divers that isnt full of propaganda (HINT HINT PADI)" so BAM! theres scubayouth.

However, the website is still testing for a few reasons, when i got into the run of everything, i wasnt aware that server space would be an issue, which my IT guy is saying there is some issues. I dont really know much about computers n such anyway, so im leaving that up to him. But the big issue im coming across is making a website thats OK for younger people. Im reading up on Moderations and such, as well as rules for a website that allows 10 year olds (theoretically of course) theres quite a few things i need to make sure doesnt go around on the website, so i want to put together a good TOS for the website before i open it up. One last thing im trying to get together is a TOS for instructors that wish to join the website. i dont want (and i know this will happen) some instructor joining and instantly thinking he's better then everyone else on the website cause hes a 30 year old instructor on a website designed for younger divers. Im trying to keep that out of the forums.

BTW, anyone with ideas or something they would like to see on the website is welcome too add imput and ill look into it biggrin

agreed, that chapter was a waist. And now, jsut to play it safe with padi, they are offering the pool diver specialty that you can take before your open water. the worst thing is thier actually letting that count as one of your five specialties towards your master scuba x.x