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Archive 1

Merge with Commercial diving

I disagree about merging the 2 articles. Commercial diving, although it's in a poor state right now, has the potential for a good article; the subject is interesting, it's not been covered elsewhere and it's worthwhile.

Underwater diving on the other hand, has an identity crisis with no one understanding what it's for, being in no-mans-land between swimming and scuba and having plenty of competition from more interesting articles about scuba equipment. Mark.murphy 19:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with this. Comercial Diving has a rich history all its own and should not be merged with Sport Diving. While the two share many common technologies which were pioneered in commercial diving, their practices are completely different. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.161.187.201 (talk • contribs) 23:59, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Underwater diving as opposed to what? As an avid scuba diver who lives in the south paciffic the term "Underwater Diving" is an odd one. The terms most used are SCUBA diving, Free diving, Commercial diving, Reserch diving. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.8.148.89 (talk) 03:39, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd say keep them separate. Neither article is that great but they are about significantly different things: Commercial Diving is a highly specialised operation which needs a separate page, but the Underwater diving page is just a general introduction to the whole topic of diving - be it SCUBA, free-diving, commercial or however else. Definitely keep them separate - but cleaning them both up and expanding would be good. If you get time before me then please do it! Iancaddy 00:16, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree to all of Iancaddy's arguments. There ought to be a link from Underwater diving to Commercial diving, but no merging. And as a further suggestion: Underwater diving should be the main article of a Wikiportal. There is one in the german Wikipedia. Open it, enter Portal:Tauchen and have a look. This could be, after all, one good idea coming from Germany ;-) Heinrich L. 20:01, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

These two pages should be kept separate. The underwater diving page should be combined with the scuba diving page. These two pages focus more on the recreational aspects of diving. The commercial diving pages should be on its own, lending to the fact that it is a completely different way of diving. The training, equipment, dive purpose and result of the dive are very different. blobublz 23:00 17 March 2006 (EST)

While I'd agree that it would be more appropriate to merge this article with scuba diving than commercial diving, I don't think there's really anything useful in this article to go into scuba diving. I'd say this article should either be wiped and made into a redirect page, or it should be made into a disambig type page which links to articles like Scuba diving, Freediving, Submersible, etc. -- David Scarlett(Talk) 23:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Use as introduction to Diving

Relatively little activity since the above discussion, so I have tried to re-write as an introduction to underwater diving. I have separated on equipment used rather than diving activity (sport v professional). I have included links to as many articles as I am aware of and will continue to search for more. Anyone who knows diving on wiki could include more links, but I think this should be a very short article with less than the introductory paragraph of any main page included. There is probably scope for something on training and gases. Finavon 19:13, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Learning to swim underwater/ basic freediving

How should that fit with/link to diver training, which starts as a better article, but deteriorates to lists? Finavon 09:19, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

"closed circuit" diving

There seems to be no info about "closed circuit" underwater diving.


Are there any civillian purposes ( or applications ) for this kind of dive ? Thanks: Sju hav (talk) 22:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi Divers

I think my resource will be useful for people interested in scuba diving. On my web site - Worldwide Scuba Diving Directory & Map We've combined a map based on Google Map's script and Web Directory. This combination allowes visitors to see information about all diving-related companies registered in the web directory. Because it is the biggest scuba diving related directory on the Web (it shows 5421 businesses but the ammount increases day by day) the map is the most precise and detailed. I've updated Google Map script so the map moves automatically to visitor's geographical point (using visitor's IP address) to make search easier. The web site also includes descriptions of the majority of the world's diving related businesses and organisations. As well as this, we publish diving related news. Please, have a look over the site and let me know what you think.Divingfinder (talk) 02:56, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

SNUBA

besides SNUBA diving, there is also another (similar) type of diving. It also uses a umbilical air hose but the air comes from the vessel (eg pressurized ? not sure on that one) and a completely closed mask (eg diving helmet) is used. I'm guessing that its mostly for deep water diving, but its also used in low depth waters eg for repair work, installing of machines (eg water turbines,...) Look into it and include to article

Suspected violation of copyrights

Part of the article is copied from: Diving the Skafandro suit. Binot (talk) 18:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting that. I've removed the copyvio text and re-written the section citing that website as a source. --RexxS (talk) 19:38, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
While on this subject, this article claims that sponge divers were down for 5 minutes on breath-hold. I've been told that on record-breaking no-limits freedives the divers are 'only' down for 4 minutes or so. Do we think the 5-minute claim is credible? Other peer-reviewed sources I've seen (sadly forgotten) claim 2–3 minutes down, with 2-minute surface intervals, which sounds much more credible. We shouldn't be repeating dubious claims even if they're in what look like reliable sources. --Wally Tharg (talk) 12:05, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Diving vs Underwater diving

According to Wiktionary 'diving' is both 2. The sport of jumping head first into water.
and 3. The practice of swimming underwater, especially using a scuba system, and especially for recreation.
So underwater diving is either: 2. underwater jumping into water or 3. underwater swimming underwater
Neither makes any sense. You cannot jump underwater into water and the other is redundant, since the other meaning of diving already includes underwater in it. In rather same way one could talk about racial racism. 85.217.22.47 (talk) 19:33, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

  • You are right. It is difficult to justify the article at all since all of the (very little) useful information in it is in Free-diving or Scuba diving or [[snorkelling. The title has always struck me as odd. Suggest we offload any useful informatioon int other articles and then mark it for deletion. Ex nihil (talk) 23:36, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that this article has incoming links from almost 500 other pages:
This is because the linked text diving would link to the sport of jumping into water, so whenever we use 'diving' and wish to wikilink it, we pipe it here like this: [[Underwater diving|diving]]. In other words, this page is the top-level page for the activity of swimming or moving underwater, whether using scuba, surface supply or breath-holding. It would be nice if it were just called Diving, but as that title is already taken by a different activity, it is reasonable to have the disambiguation title Underwater diving in the absence of a better alternative. That is why it is apparently a redundant title. If you delete this article, it will be recreated quite quickly as those 500 red-links will induce editors to fill in the obvious 'missing article'. Feel free to suggest a better title though, if you can agree one.
This article, being 'top-level' is written almost wholly in summary style, but that does not excuse the dismal lack of sources. I would have thought that our efforts would be better spent in improving the article as it stands. --RexxS (talk) 14:58, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Difficult to improve it in this format because its subsections are so well covered that whatever we write will be redundant. I suggest we check that it really introduces no new information and then reduce it to a disambiguation page. It would be useful as a disambiguation page. This still leaves the problem of a title, either it stays the same or we could try Diving (disambiguation), which is a different subject matter to Dive (disambiguation) but would need a link. Ex nihil (talk) 06:40, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

The sport should be "Diving (sport)", or something like that, because diving clearly indicates underwater activity. If I translate the sport's name from Finnish to English, I get swim(ming) jumps and that makes sense (to me at least). 82.141.74.224 (talk) 10:13, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
There are unfortunately two sports called "Diving" in English, so "Diving (sport)" would not distinguish them. This article is called fi:Sukellus in Finnish and the other one is called fi:Uimahypyt. I believe the second one is 'swim-jump', isn't it? --RexxS (talk) 23:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Two sports called diving? I thought the other is either "free-diving" or "scuba diving", and diving would refer generally to what is now called 'underwater diving'. Again, from Wiktionary: diving is either jumping into water or swimming underwater. So this is not "underwater diving", but rather "underwater swimming".
Of the question, "uimahypyt" sure means "swim-jumps" in english. 82.141.93.98 (talk) 00:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, all you need to do is persuade the editors at Talk:Diving (i.e. the jumping into water article) to rename their page to "Diving (sport)". Then we could use Diving as the title for this page and remove the "Underwater" part. --RexxS (talk) 00:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
And I again did a google image search, and "diving" gives mostly the underwater related while "diving sport" gives the jumping related ones. That supports this point. And I have also written in that talk page about this, but no response yet. 82.141.66.136 (talk) 22:30, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Until someone comes up with an unambiguous term which includes free diving, scuba diving and surface supplied diving, but excludes diving into the water, this is the best we have, unsatisfactory as it may be. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:43, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Major cleanup and focus on topic

I have done a major cleanup and changed a lot of text to focus on the topic of the title, please don't make reverts without discussion, particularly not replacement of trivial items which belong in a more specific article. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 10:36, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup appreciated – a lot better! One thought for the future: under 'Reasons for diving' there's a table that lists the types of apparatus used for each task/reason. Freediving should feature in this table, not just under recreational uses, but practical ones as well. A lot of ship hull inspection is done using freediving, as is much shallow-water scientific work. Also, it's frowned upon (and illegal in some countries I believe) to spear-fish on SCUBA. I'm not an authority on this though as I only do one type of diving. --Wally Tharg (talk) 11:19, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
Go ahead and add for freediving. Just realise that relatively unfamiliar applications are more likely to be challenged for references. You might want to pre-empt the challenges and set a good example by putting them in early. (I could ref pretty much everything in the current table, but almost everything there is common knowledge/uncontroversial, so not worth the trouble until somene asks). Spearfishing is illegal on scuba in South Africa, but I dont know which law, regulation, ordinance or whatever it is specified in. I know several scientific divers who occasionally do breathhold work in shallow water, and yachties who inspect/clean their own boats on snorkel, but don't know of commercial diving on breathhold. Then again, in South Africa, commercial diving is defined as using breathing apparatus, and breathhold is specifically not covered by the diving regulations. No doubt it is different in every jurisdiction. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 13:01, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
Peter, will have a think about this one. I think it will be relatively easy to find where fishing on SCUBA is illegal (includes UK and USA I think) but like you the other stuff is 'common knowledge' – marine biologists I've known who freedived, and the fact that the RN used it (in the 1980s at least) for quick preliminary inspections (e.g. is this bent, or do we need to send a welder down?). --Wally Tharg (talk) 20:18, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

"underwater diving" a pleonasm?

granted, there's also skydiving, still, "underwater diving" seems redundant, so is that really the correct term?---178.199.97.81 (talk) 19:46, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi 178.199.97.81, I think the term "underwater diving" is necessary - please refer the section above under the heading of "Diving vs Underwater diving" for a previous discussion re this matter. Regards Cowdy001 (talk) 21:46, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog, I see you consider the linked catalogue to be spam. Did you actually look at the catalogue? Do you disagree that it complies with WP:ELYES condition 3? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 20:04, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for talking! Hmmm, so you wanted to add this for the images and captions describing historical equipment. I can see why you added it, the pictures and captions are very nice. You can see why I removed it, right? Maybe better options would be this gizmodo piece; this museum... I just poked around and it turns out there is a big market for this antique diving equipment, and lots of enthusiast websites too. I also tried to save the auction catalog to internet archive so we wouldn't suffer linkrot when the sale is over, but the pdf is so heavy that it timed out. I guess I would be OK with listing the catalog as an EL with some archivelink .... Jytdog (talk) 20:32, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Best quality set of images on the subject I have seen on the net, and good provenance, therefore reliable, which is often a problem. The diving heritage site is good too, for information, but the image quality is not so good. The gizmodo site is a bit dubious in places and covers a different part of the subject, but still useful. As to why you removed the link, that was the point of my query. I assumed good faith and asked. I now see that you have concerns about long-term availability, but you only found out that it would be a problem to archive after trying. My guess was that you removed it because it was an auction catalogue and assumed it was just advertising. My point is that the stuff will be/has been sold once, but the catalogue remains a valuable visual resource on the range of historical diving equipment after the sale, but we cannot use the images directly as they are copyrighted. I have no idea of how to archive a website, so did not try. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:45, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
OK, i'll self revert. (they are really great images) Thanks for talking! Jytdog (talk) 06:04, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
You are welcome, it is how we are supposed to work here. Thanks also for the revert. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:31, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Reorganise?

This is a top importance article on WPSCUBA and Level 4 vital article. Worth getting to GA. I am going to do a fairly major reorganisation of the sections, but if anyone has better ideas please chip in at any time. If you think something should be added, either just add it or leave a note. For deletions, please discuss first unless it is trivial or unlikely to be controversial. Feel free to tag anything that needs citation, verification or clarification. In other words, go ahead and do any of the good stuff. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:43, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I have managed to find references for most of the text, but there are still a few items left. Some of them are probably uncontroversial, but a few are claims about historical details, in some cases also used elsewhere on WP, and not cited there either. One or two are a trifle dubious, though not implausible. Others are cited to dead links in other articles and cannot be verified. I will leave them in for now in case someone else can source them, but if challenged during GAN they will be have to be deleted. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:53, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Lex Rhodia - portion to divers

The claim that certain percentages of salvage were apportioned to the divers is problematic. I have not been able to find a reliable source for this. If nothing comes up by the time I am ready to nominate for GA it will be removed. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:55, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Deleted These salvage divers faced many dangers on the job, and as a result, laws, such as the Lex Rhodia, were enacted that awarded a large percentage of the salvage to the divers; in wrecks deeper than 50 feet, divers received one third of the salvage and in wrecks deeper than 90 feet they received half. as unreferenced. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:33, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Name derivation

I can't find any reliable source to support the statement: This tradition started with the World War II Italian navy combat divers of Decima Flottiglia MAS, the Uomini Rana, named for the frog kick style of underwater swimming used at the time. The statement is plausible, and the Decima Flottiglia MAS was a major player, the term Uomini Rana appears to be in general use in Italian, and frog kick was used by underwater swimmers particularly before the availability of swimfins. It is quite possible that someone will find a source, but until then I will have to remove the claim. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:37, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Underwater diving/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Atsme (talk · contribs) 16:40, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Rate Attribute Review Comment
1. Well-written:
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. (1) The first sentence in the lead should be more concise. For example: Underwater diving is the practice of descending below the water's surface to conduct underwater activities, typically for sport, recreation, commercial, military or science and research purposes. ✅

(2) The diver may be is exposed to the ambient pressure when underwater and may use breathing apparatus such as that used for scuba diving and or surface supplied diving, or when freediving, will breath-hold for the duration of the dive. in free diving. ✅
(3) Diving activities are restricted to relatively shallow depths - relative to what? Needs perspective for non-diving readers, such as the range of depth considered "shallow". ✅
(4) Don't use two conjunctions together: it can be and though or although but not "and although".✅
(5) ...including the standard copper helmet, and other forms of free-flow helmet and lightweight demand helmets. Suggestion: and various forms of free-flow and lightweight demand helmets. ✅
(6) On 2nd review, move the last orphaned sentence of the lead - The diving environment exposes the diver to a wide range of hazards,... - to the beginning of the 2nd para as it speaks to hazards and reason for diving restrictions. 14:38, 27 September 2016 (UTC) ✅ That's it for the lead...well done! ✅23:59, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Body
Some of the sections throughout the article contain either one or two sentence paragraphs that look more like lists. Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles#Paragraphs. For example, the section Diving modes contains subsections wherein more complete paragraphs could be formed by combining what's there or adding information that supports the main idea of the respective subsection. See Freediving, Surface oriented diving, and Reasons for diving. If they're intended to be lists rather than prose, it's best to use one of the list formats. There are also a few orphaned single sentence paragraphs that need attention such as in the subsection Depth range. I'll give you some time to work on those areas. 12:21, 23 September 2016 (UTC) ✅

I apologize for not being more specific about prose vs lists, particularly with regard to embedded lists. Hopefully the following MOS example will help.
The Diving modes section contains subsections with subsections when embedded lists should be used instead of sub-subsections. Also, use wikilinks for the relevant main articles instead of references to main articles. If we already have a main article on the topic, there's no need to go into too much detail but you do need to provide the basics. I also added a few wikilinks but more may be needed so I'll leave that up to you.✅
MOS example:
Scuba diving:
Scuba diving is diving with a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, which is completely independent of surface supply, and provides the diver with the advantages of mobility and horizontal range far beyond what is possible when supplied from the surface by the umbilical hoses of surface-supplied diving equipment (SSDE).[4] Scuba divers engaged on armed forces covert operations may be referred to as frogmen, combat divers or attack swimmers.[5] Needs a bit more information to segue into the embedded list, such as Two types of scuba systems are open circuit systems and rebreathers. (or something along that line).✅

  • Open circuit scuba systems discharge the breathing gas into the environment as it is exhaled, and consist of one or more diving cylinders containing breathing gas at high pressure which is supplied to the diver through a diving regulator, and may include additional cylinders for decompression gas or emergency breathing gas.
  • Rebreathers are closed-circuit or semi-closed circuit breathing systems which allow recycling of exhaled gases. This reduces the volume of gas used, so that a smaller cylinder, or cylinders, than open circuit scuba may be used for the equivalent dive duration, and giving the ability to spend far more time underwater compared to open circuit for the same gas consumption. Rebreathers also produce far less bubble volume and less noise than scuba, which makes them attractive to military, scientific and media divers.[4]

Another suggestion for Rebreathers: it currently states This reduces the volume of gas used, so that a smaller cylinder, or cylinders, than open circuit scuba may be used for the equivalent dive duration,... - syntax issue with "than open"? ✅
Rebreathers also produce far less bubble volume and less noise than scuba, which makes them attractive to military, scientific and media divers. - Why?✅
Surface supplied diving
The lead-in paragraph needs to a bit more info with a segue into the embedded lists like the Scuba diving section (and the future updated sections you will revise for MOS consistency). Example: An alternative to self-contained breathing systems is to supply breathing gases from the surface.... needs a bit more clarity for non-divers. Suggestion for expanding: "An alternative to self-contained breathing systems is surface supplied air or various mixtures of breathing gases via cable to the diver. In commercial and recreational diving, surface supplied air to diver is called hookah diving." Here's a potential source. 16:44, 27 September 2016 (UTC)✅
Reasons for diving Following is a bit choppy: In some jurisdictions the professional nature, with particular reference to responsibility for health and safety of the clients, of recreational diver instruction, dive leadership for reward and dive guiding is recognised by national legislation." Suggestion: In some jurisdictions, national legislation regulates health and safety in various aspects of the dive industry, which may include specific safety requirements for commercial work, dive instructor training, recreational dive instruction, dive leadership for reward, and dive guiding. (see [1] as a potential source.) 23:47, 28 September 2016 (UTC)✅
 I'd scrap the following sentence: Divers may be employed professionally to perform tasks underwater and go with something along the line of There are various aspects of professional and commercial diving that range anywhere from part-time work to lifelong careers. Professionals in the recreational dive industry include instructor trainers, open water dive instructors, assistant instructors, divemasters, dive guides, and scuba technicians. Commercial diving is industry related and includes civil engineering tasks....(etc). 00:53, 29 September 2016 (UTC)✅
To be continued.....
Lastly is so finite...ugh. Suggestion: drop "Lastly", perhaps begin a new paragraph, and try something along the line of: Professional divers can choose from a variety of careers in an industry that focuses on the vast expanse of the underwater world. Some may prefer a career in underwater photography or filmmaking where the work focuses on documenting various species of marine life including fish, coral reefs and other underwater structures, natural or otherwise. Other professional divers may prefer a career in scientific diving, including marine biology, geology, hydrology, oceanography and underwater archaeology. Professional Wreck divers may be commissioned to retrieve critical information from submerged aircraft, or they may be collectors of historic artifacts they find on sunken war ships, sailing vessels or downed aircraft provided they follow regulations and have obtained the necessary clearances to do so. (See for citing a source.)✅
 History
The first basic diving bell was probably constructed in 1535, by Guglielmo de Lorena. "Probably" is a bit weasely. Suggestion: Records indicate the first basic diving bell was constructed in 1535.... or something along that line. You can be more specific if needed. 19:34, 29 September 2016 (UTC)✅
 Diving suits
The next advance in diving technology,.... Too vague, better to name than leave it for readers to calculate. Suggestion: Diving dress designs were developed in the early 18th century including the first pressure-proof diving suits developed by two English inventors in the 1710s. 19:52, 29 September 2016 (UTC)✅

Need to go back through the article and make sure all monetary & measurement conversions are included. Example: £200,000-worth of treasure needs US monetary conversion. Also check for proper spacing after periods.

Development of salvage diving operations
Redundancy of Pasley's "operating in pairs" scenario. Tighten section.
At the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in 1842, Sir John Richardson described the diving apparatus and treatment of diver Roderick Cameron following an injury that occurred on 14 October 1841 during the salvage operations. And? What is the relevance?
Self-contained air supply equipment
This section is redundant as it is also described in Diving modes. Since there are already main articles on the topic, why is it necessary? The same for Saturation diving and Atmospheric diving suits 22:04, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). Footnotes 11 & 19 20 are dead links.14:10, 27 September 2016 (UTC) See link check results http://dispenser.homenet.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webchecklinks.py?page=Underwater_diving&lang=en
2c. it contains no original research.
2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
3. Broad in its coverage:
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
7. Overall assessment. Pass - well done!

Discussion

1a(1) The first sentence in the lead should be more concise. For example: Underwater diving is the practice of descending below the water's surface to conduct underwater activities, typically for sport, recreation, commercial, military or science and research purposes.

The typical reasons are mentioned in the third paragraph of the lead in slightly more detail, making this a bit redundant. In the interests of keeping the lead concise, I prefer to only mention them in one lead paragraph, but this could be the first if you think it would be better.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:20, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

1a(2) The diver may be is exposed to the ambient pressure when underwater and may use breathing apparatus such as that used for scuba diving and or surface supplied diving, or when freediving, will breath-hold for the duration of the dive. in free diving.

Not all diving is at ambient pressure, as mentioned later in the paragraph. Unless one intends to exclude diving in armoured suit at atmospheric pressure, the diver is not always exposed to ambient pressure during a dive. I have made this more explicit and improved the description of freediving as suggested.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:40, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

1a(3) Diving activities are restricted to relatively shallow depths - relative to what? Needs perspective for non-diving readers, such as the range of depth considered "shallow".

Added "compared to depth of the sea", Difficult to concisely explain what is shallow, as it varies depending on the equipment, as discussed in a later section. A one-liner is more likely to confuse than clarify. Do you have any suggestions? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:06, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
I have done something like that based on the values in the depth section. Let me know if it is satisfactory. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 19:56, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

1a(4) Don't use two conjunctions together: it can be and though or although but not "and although".

Fixed • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:26, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

1a(5) ...including the standard copper helmet, and other forms of free-flow helmet and lightweight demand helmets. Suggestion: and various forms of free-flow and lightweight demand helmets.

I am not sure of what you mean here. Standard copper helmets are a class of free-flow helmet, though there were also rebreather copper helmets (Draeger, for example made copper helmets which were a type of semi-closed circuit scuba), and a some demand copper helmets using the Denayrouze regulator. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:26, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Right, got it, and done. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 19:28, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

1a(6) Done • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:49, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

1a Body:

Diving modes
Scuba diving section edited as requested. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk) : 06:07, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Surface supplied diving section edited similarly.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:17, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Looks like that edit was lost, I will have to do it again.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:47, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Reconstituted edits as well as I can remember. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 19:41, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Reasons for diving
I agree it does not flow well and should be improved, but the point is also that while mainstream commercial diving is regulated by legislation in many countries, recreational diver training, and dive leading are industry regulated in some of those countries, and only directly regulated by government in a subset of them. Unfortunately I don't have an exhaustive list of diving legislation, but the UK is one country where HSE legislation specifically includes recreational diver training and dive leading for reward, while the US and South Africa are examples where industry regulation is accepted, though non-specific HSE legislation would still apply. I will try to improve the flow while retaining the distinction.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:56, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
I have made the second change as recommended, and am now wondering whether the legislatory aspect should be somewhere else, possibly in a different section, as it is not really a reason for diving. Perhaps in the Risks and safety section? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:15, 29 September 2016 (UTC)✅
I decided it would fit better in Risks and safety and have made a new section for it there. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 11:45, 29 September 2016 (UTC)✅
History
Changed more or less as suggested and added a bit of context with reference. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:36, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Diving suits
Removed unnecessary text and made small correction. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:36, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Conversions
The monetary conversion troubles me. How should sterling from 1687 be converted to $(US), and which other currencies should be represented?
I think I found all the other missing conversions, Please let me know if I missed any. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 19:31, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
See for the conversion Atsme📞📧 00:26, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
The conversion app does not work for contemporary (1687) dollar values, possibly because the US dollar did not exist at the time. The £200 000 was probably a historical evaluation, and converting to a current value in another currency is likely to cause confusion unless explained. Since the actual value in any currency is not of core importance to the mention, I don't see how giving a 2016 US dollar value to a 1687 sterling estimate is useful to the reader, and it will also go out of date as the exchange rate varies. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:34, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Gotcha, so what is needed is a bit more info & clarity to maintain encyclopedic accuracy and avoid sounding purely anecdotal. Suggestion: In late 1686, Sir William Phipps convinced investors to fund an expedition to what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic to find sunken treasure, despite the location of the shipwreck being based entirely on rumor and speculation. In January 1687, Phipps found the shipwreck off the coast of Santo Domingo. Some sources say they used an inverted container for the salvage operation while others say the crew was assisted by Indian divers in the shallow waters. The operation lasted from February to April 1687 during which time they salvaged jewels, some gold and 30 tons of silver which, at the time, was worth over £200,000. Also see this source which is available online and supports the information. Atsme📞📧 16:31, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
I like it, and will probably use it pretty much as you wrote it. • • •
On further consideration, is this extra information all that relevant for this article? If we are trying to trim the summaries down to a minimum, and this use of a bell is uncertain, should it not be better to omit it entirely? (I have used the information and reference in the history section of the Diving bell article, so it is not wasted.) • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 04:30, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Agree it's more detail than summary which you've addressed by moving it to the main article. Atsme📞📧 16:48, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Development of salvage diving operations
Duplications deleted, and text condensed a bit.
Rewrote paragraph in the hope of making the relevance of the scientific report on the barotrauma incident more clear.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:59, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Self-contained air supply equipment
The earlier sub-section "Scuba diving" in the section "Diving modes" describes the equipment in that context. The sub-section "Self-contained air supply equipment" in the "History" section describes the history of the development of scuba. There is very little, if any, repeated content. Also the link should have been to a section, which I have corrected. That said, I also don't really like the repetition of similar section headers, but have not come up with a satisfactory alternative. I will prune down the subsection to a less detailed summary.• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:16, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Changed links from main to history sections The listed section has also been trimmed somewhat. Let me know if you think more is needed, or some other approach might be better. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:58, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
We already have a main article on this topic. Merge Self-contained air supply equipment with Scuba diving and condense. Atsme📞📧 17:07, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Saturation diving
Changed link from main to history section. Not much there at present, but that could change, and it will be the appropriate link. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:58, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Same thing here - the information in Saturation diving needs to be merged and condensed into the section Surface supplied diving where Saturation diving is first mentioned in the bullet points. In other words, when we have a standalone article on the topic, all we need in this article are overviews or summaries without redundant details.
Atmospheric diving suits
Changed link from main to history section, where there is quite a lot more detail. I am considering trimming this section a bit more. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:58, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Merge Atmospheric diving suits with the section Atmospheric pressure diving and condense since there is already a main article about the topic.
Trimmed to the bones. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:53, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
There is still far too much detailed information as I noted above. Verbosity is not reader friendly, especially when we have standalone articles that provide the same information. Use wikilinks, condense & merge per WP:Summary_style#Rationale. I love to read about diving but this article is too long because it is not staying focused, and will be a far better read (and read more often) if tightened. See WP:Good_article_criteria #3b, also WP:Article size and WP:Summary_style. Please don't get discouraged, we're almost there, and what we're doing now will save you a ton of work when you nominate it for FA promotion. Atsme📞📧 17:07, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
OK, It looks like instead of having some information about the history of each of the modes in the history section, you want me to put less information about the history of the modes into the modes subsections along with the technical explanations about the modes, leaving a heavily cut down history section? I see it as a perfectly acceptable alternative, just did not quite get what you were asking for. Either way is a compromise, and that way may be a more compact compromise. Please confirm whether I understand you correctly, but I will probably go ahead and do it anyway. Improving the article is what this is about. Getting constructive criticism is welcome. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:14, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
I am trying to get my head around what we are trying to achieve and how best to get there. I think we agree that trimming the history section would be an improvement, but not necessarily on how best to do it. To trim it, some content must be omitted. Whether this removed content should be transferred to other sections is another issue. Doing so does not shorten the article. "Readable text" size is 45kB/7158 words, which is generally acceptable, but there are a lot more words in lists and tables. One of those, the table of reasons to dive, is quite big, and might be too much detail for the article. Perhaps it should be split off into a List of underwater activities? (If it would qualify as sufficiently notable, which I think should be the case as can be seen by the number of references already in the table. It could be expanded if split off in this way.) Another thing that might be worthwhile is creating/splitting off a main article on the History of underwater diving, in which case the history section could be condensed into one level 2 section without subsections. There is already a list Timeline of diving technology. This could handily reduce article size to allow for possible additional sections if required to be more comprehensive for FA. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 12:18, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Sounds like the perfect plan to me. Atsme📞📧 16:48, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

2b Footnotes 11 & 19 are dead links.

Yes, I tagged them. The statement referenced by footnote 19 is also referenced by footnote 20, so that should not be a problem. the reference in footnote 11 is more of a problem. I tried googling it but no luck. The paragraph supported by that reference is uncontroversial. The only statement that is not fairly obvious is the depth mentioned. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 20:24, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
I found a new ref for the ADS and for the depth record, so that is also fixed. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 03:51, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
Ok, but you need to fix the dead link. Since two sources were cited and the live one supports what was stated, why not just delete the dead link as one of the cited sources? Atsme📞📧 23:57, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Mainly because of the guidance in WP:LR which states Do not delete cited information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer. Verifiability does not require that all information be supported by a working link, nor does it require the source to be published online.. I don't know which source is better, as I can't see one of them. My interpretation of WP:LR is that a dead link does not negate the validity of a source - if there was no link in the first place the source would probably never be questioned. Is there other MOS that overrides this? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:03, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes, if you want the article promoted to GA. See Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Preventing_and_repairing_dead_links #5 and also WP:GACR. If you don't think the one good source that was cited supports the information, then find another source that does and replace the dead link. Atsme📞📧 11:53, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Dead links commented out. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:19, 28 September 2016 (UTC)✅

PS - I found the following link that may work to support the statement [2]. You may be able to find something better. Use your good judgement. 12:04, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

interesting paper, I will read through and see what I can use. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:24, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Very interesting and potentially useful, as it is well referenced and knowing that a reference exists is half of the work done. It is good for the purpose suggested and I will add it there. Thanks, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:02, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Pbsouthwood - be sure to check in the GA review box above which is where I'm adding new review comments. Have a great weekend. I'll be traveling most of tomorrow, and getting setup in a new location on Sunday. I'll be checking in from time to time when I have access. Atsme📞📧 00:02, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

No problem, I will also be away part of the weekend. Getting some survey dives in. I am watching the review box. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 03:51, 24 September 2016 (UTC)✅

Suggestion for fairly big change

The table in Underwater diving#Reasons for diving is quite big and I now think unnecessarily detailed for a summary style section. I propose splitting it out to a new article. Possibly Classification of underwater activities, to be a list of underwater activities classified by occupational field and the diving modes usually associated with them.

I am also going to start a new article History of underwater diving some time soon, as there is plenty of scope and no problem with notability. Should this affect how we deal with the history section here, or do we deal with them in isolation? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:59, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

My suggestion is to condense the information into an overview if a main article exists. The entire section about the History of underwater diving could be condensed into one or two paragraphs - like the way Hawking's A Brief History of Time condensed the infinity of the universe into 224 pgs - you can do it! X-) You might want to use your sandbox to save some of the information for the new articles you intend to create. Example of condensing :

Historical records indicate commercial diving dates back to ancient Rome as evidenced by the use of sea sponges for bathing. Weights (skandalopetra) up to 15 kilograms (33 lb) were used to speed the descent of breath-hold divers who collected sponges at depths of around 30 metres (98 ft). Mediterranean divers were hired to salvage what they could from shipwrecks and the seabed. Divers were also used in warfare for underwater reconnaissance to locate enemy ships, defense by disassembling potential mines, and to sabotage enemy ships. Diving bells were developed in the 16th and 17th century as the first significant mechanical aid to underwater diving. In the 18th century, diving suits....yada, yada

Highlighted advancements written in prose with wikilinks to the respective main articles. Voila, a brief history of underwater diving. You can also add a sentence or two about the history of each Diving mode, like when it was invented, for what purpose, if it's still in use or was replaced and if the latter, with what. That will eliminate the lengthy History section considerably. What you keep will be condensed to a few paragraphs and merged into the relevant section, or bulleted list. Atsme📞📧 18:10, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
OK, I am busy with a 3-day workshop and my eyes feel like they have been lightly sandpapered, so might only get properly back to it about Friday, but have already started work on draft articles in userspace. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:49, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
History of underwater diving is now a large article. I have linked to it and condensed the section to the extent that it may be nearing its Schwarzschild radius. Underwater diving is now significantly smaller. I also surgically removed the table of diving activities, which is now in my user space as a draft awaiting inspiration and hopefully transformation into a useful article. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
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