Deceased Forum Members

CuLT

It's something of a dodgy topic I feel, but it is something that has to happen within such a large userbase.

I think it's kind of sad that members can pass away and it will never be known, they just stop posting one day.

Does anyone else know a member who has passed away? Should there be some sort of boards.ie memorial list? Or would that be pretentious?

I feel there should be some sort of ackowledgement that a poster has passed away rather than just stopped posting, even if just a notation on their account.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Repli

My thoughts are that the majority of boards users are age between 15 - 30 so theres not much chance of them dying. Also apart from the people here who know each other in real life, there would be no way of knowing if someones after dying if you get me?

threebeards

Originally posted by CuLT
Should there be some sort of boards.ie memorial list? Or would that be pretentious?

I wouldn't see it as being pretentious at all.

I feel there should be some sort of ackowledgement that a poster has passed away rather than just stopped posting, even if just a notation on their account.

I agree. The difficulty to my mind would be knowing if a member had passed away. I know a lot of the stalwarts would know each other personally and hence word would get around in the event of someones passing but I would guess that a large number of members wouldn't know others by anything other than their usernames.

threebeards

Originally posted by Repli
My thoughts are that the majority of boards users are age between 15 - 30 so theres not much chance of them dying.

True about the user age but I've lost 2 friends in the past 8 months both under 35.

CuLT

Originally posted by Repli
My thoughts are that the majority of boards users are age between 15 - 30 so theres not much chance of them dying. Also apart from the people here who know each other in real life, there would be no way of knowing if someones after dying if you get me?

Valid points Repli, but it has happened, to at least twice to my knowledge, probably more, I only knew one of them IRL.

It's a small world, very small in Ireland, I think most posters who have been around for a while know at least one other member IRL, through college etc.

seamus

I only know of one who'd I'd interacted with on the forums, and maybe chatted to once on IRC.

I dunno, it's a nice idea Cult, but how would we go about it? Would it be something in their tagline, or a separate page of rememberance, with a picture (if we have one), a few comments from their mates, and a link to all their posts?

Third_Echelon

I think its a good idea if its done tastefully...

The previous suggestion sounded fine...

tba

and prehaps some memorable quotes from the boards, be they funny or serious

Stephen

I'm not aware of any boards users that have died - anyone care to clue me in?

Sarky

Originally posted by tba
and prehaps some memorable quotes from the boards, be they funny or serious

Good idea.

futility_

it's pretty hard to die while sitting at a computer all day.

BEAT

seeing as we are kind of a 'family' here, a 'boards family' if you will I feel it should be noted if something of that magnitude were to happen. We should be notified.

If you are saying it has already happened please let us know who it was, its sad really, we should be able to pay our respects on baords atleast.

l3rian

put it in your will, that we have to be notified of your death, and have a final post prepared, oh man that would be a sad thread

and no fakers, who suddenly post, IM BACK LOL!, that would be evil

Dont be at yourself

I can't wait for the trolls.

"I have risen from the dead!"

ballooba

The staff notice board in work is ruined with death notices and retirement messages.

If I had my way all old people would be shipped off to retirement island where they could live in crates and eat corn.

AARRRGH

I know a boards moderator who is dying...

Runfree

Hmmm sounds like a good idea.

Wonder what the admins will say.

l3rian

i dont know if its viable, everyone would be checking it all the time, and be getting impatient with the lack of deaths, which would be troll heaven

Guy:Incognito

maybe it could be like the soccer access requests where your not allowed to reply. It could be just a notice that people can see but not reply to. I think generally people respect the dead and there wouldnt be the level of idiocy seen elsewhere.

BEAT

Originally posted by dublindude
I know a boards moderator who is dying...

r u serious?

AARRRGH

Originally posted by BEAT
r u serious?

Yup.

smoke.me.a.kipper

Originally posted by l3rian
be getting impatient with the lack of deaths

lol, the ultimate troll!! 'off' someone so that they can flame their obitioury[sp?] on the 'death board'.

mike65

The business of one's one-line family dying is one that slightly preys on my mind, so far its only happened once (not here) and I knew the chap in question was ill having been through major surgery. Still a big downer when news came through of course.

The fact boards age profile is youthful is besides the point really, you only needs check the news stories for dead car drivers under 30.

How would we know someone has died? It has almost certainly already happened.

If I dropped dead no-one here would know other than I was'nt posting. No-one I know in "the real world" is aware of boards.ie or my being on it. I doubt I'm the only one like that.

Mike.

Guy:Incognito

maybe every one should be "paired" with another user. they could exchange personal details and email once a week r so. if the email stops unexpectedly, enquiries could be made. Might spark a few friendships if nothing else.

tba

Originally posted by Stekelly
maybe every one should be "paired" with another user. they could exchange personal details and email once a week r so. if the email stops unexpectedly, enquiries could be made. Might spark a few friendships if nothing else.

Ah the buddy system, infallible.

Jim

Originally posted by dublindude
I know a boards moderator who is dying...

Eh, I'm sure that if this true, the person doesn't want something that personal spued on the internet. Don't say any names unless you ask the person first.

simu

This is an interesting thread. Because internet communities are so young, this issue hasn't yet been dealt with but I'm sure I and many other people here will be posting on line on the super mega ultra hyper web as long as our minds remain intact.

In the comic Transmetropolitain, there was a way of uploading your mind to the internet instead of dying and you could float around the web forever. I don't see this being possible any time soon but it indicates that on-line communities will have to face the idea of death. (Actually, you get that idea a lot in sci-fi).

Also, another thought that seems strange to me would be a message board that was a century old - that would bring a whole new meaning to dragging up old threads! Or imagine, sociology students 500 years from now doing their research on our posts here! Me, I'm doing research on manuscripts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for uni and every so often, the scribes have put in little notes saying that they're writing so that their words will live on after their deaths and they implore future readers to remember them when they read these notes. It's a weird experience because when you're reading this, you actually have the paper they wrote on in your hands and there's probably bits of their DNA (tiny skin flakes ets) in between the pages of their manuscripts.

So, hey there future sociology students, mention me in your theses!!!

KdjaCL

A poster on TMT died and his clan (all young ) wanted a memorial , very strange they wanted a tombstone with his name inserted into a Medal of Honour map.

We closed the post but the kids father emailed us asking us to reopen it and allow someone to make it for them.
Very odd its still on there server now.

kdjac

smoke.me.a.kipper

Originally posted by simu
Or imagine, sociology students 500 years from now doing their research on our posts here!

thanks. i might actually have to start putting thought into my posts from now on.

CuLT

I'm not too sure a forum is the way to go, personally I think an additional tag below the postcount somwhere signifying it would be best.

billy the squid

Well we have a prison, why not have a cemetary too.

A separate forum in say the system category could be set up have the obituary as the first post in the thread and let people pay tribute by replying to that thread.

There would have to be strict rules with it i.e. stiff moderation etc.

As for informing boards.ie of a persons death, that would be up to the friends of that poster. in the same way that a person in the real world would get a larger funeral in the real world than someone who had no friends. The people who will miss whoever goes to their eternal reward should be the ones to pay tribute in that person's favorite place. that being boards.ie

Interesting idea to having a headstone of a dead friend included in a map of their favorite game. it was a nice touch, and fair play to his parents for recognising this part of their son's life.

should this be in " forums "?

acous

billy the squid

Originally posted by Acous

I dont like the idea of editing the person's tag alone. I would still be in favour of the forum. the tag would compliment that I suppose.

oh if a forum idea is carried out. who gets to be mod

seriously though what about bogus death reports. A buddy system could be done to prevent this. or hows this for an idea. a virtual next-of-kin sort of set up where a member would nominate another user as the person responsible for reporting the death.

flogen

interesting idea indeed, although it does have problems (such as the ones raised about how we know certain people have died rather than just gotten bored with boards.ie. I must put it in my will <when I write one> to notify boards users of my passing...:D)

Anyway, if it were to go ahead, i dont think it should be open to regular users. this would be far too easy to troll. Just admins would have access, and they could put up notification and perhaps a quote or two from the person (or even a quote in honour of the person from an online friend). Rather than it being a forum, layed out the same as here, perhaps it could just be a web-page linked from here, with each tribute over the next... would look better than a thread saying 'flogen's dead' or something along those lines.

As for the buddy system, its the best solution, but i cant see it happening... i guess it will be up to the users to ensure their passing doesnt go un-noticed (perhaps my idea of will entrance is abit much, but maybe even telling a pal 'if i die, let the admins at boards.ie know' would do).
The admins could be told the real name and DOB of the person, and if they felt it was a troll, they could check it out through official means, if they felt willing enough to.

Might be completely unworkable, but a nice idea all the same, and very interesting too.

flogen

damien

Originally posted by CuLT
I'm not too sure a forum is the way to go, personally I think an additional tag below the postcount somwhere signifying it would be best.

A tag saying "Remembered" instead of something like "Dead" or "Deceased" would be more tasteful too.

pork99

Originally posted by CuLT
It's something of a dodgy topic I feel, but it is something that has to happen within such a large userbase.

I think it's kind of sad that members can pass away and it will never be known, they just stop posting one day.

Does anyone else know a member who has passed away? Should there be some sort of boards.ie memorial list? Or would that be pretentious?

I feel there should be some sort of ackowledgement that a poster has passed away rather than just stopped posting, even if just a notation on their account.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Maybe the guys on the paranormal board can contact them for you? :rolleyes:

Victor

Didn't one of the CTYIers die? Or was it someone who had attended CTYI but not a boardster?

Statisticly, several boardsters will die this year.

simu

Originally posted by damien.m
A tag saying "Remembered" instead of something like "Dead" or "Deceased" would be more tasteful too.

Why? Is it tasteless if I say that Mozart is dead?

Zaph

It is difficult to know what's happened to a person you only know through somewhere like here when they suddenly stop posting. I've actually experienced this as I became friendly with an American poster on another, long since defunct forum. The person in question turned out to be a retired guy in his 70s living in Alabama, and he was one of the most interesting people I've ever met, either on the net or IRL. Then suddenly, about 18 months ago, I stopped getting replies to e-mails I sent. Other than a now non-responsive e-mail address, I've no idea how I could contact this guy. Given his age there's a very real possibilty that he died or suffered something like a stroke that would prevent him using his PC. Personally I feel a bit sad that if he did die I had no way of expressing my condolences to his family.

billy the squid

What if the submission of a family members email address was made part of the registration process or was asked for say 12 months after a person became a member of boards.ie

or even ask for it after a certain number of posts say 1000 that way if you get no answer from the users email address you have an alternative contact address.

seamus

Originally posted by Victor
Didn't one of the CTYIers die? Or was it someone who had attended CTYI but not a boardster?

Statisticly, several boardsters will die this year.

Yeah, died of cancer sometime last year afaik . Lovely guy. He was a community moderator.

I think talk of a buddy system, or a next-of-kin system is a bit OTT IMO. As someone said, the demographic here is very young. I for one wouldn't be arsed going to the bother of contacting someone every 2 weeks on the off chance that I might die.

If it's a real issue that people are actually worried about, then best we can do is encourage people to go to boards beers. Organise them around the country, encourage everyone and anyone to go. People get to meet others boadsters, they no longer become words on a computer screen. Plus it's more fun than an email every two weeks - "Howya. Still alive?".

At least in Dublin, I'd say there's a gathering almost once a week at this point, with the different private boards, and if not, there'll always be people up for beer, if you post up a request.

Victor

Originally posted by billy the squid
What if the submission of a family members email address was made part of the registration process or was asked for say 12 months after a person became a member of boards.ie or even ask for it after a certain number of posts say 1000 that way if you get no answer from the users email address you have an alternative contact address.

That would be over the line I think. It's one thing to care about people and watch out for them, another to track them over hte internet.

Of course, none of these suggestions really work, what you need to do is tell people in your real life about boards.ie, then if anything happens they can tell us.

OLDYELLAR

yea lets pair up , whos my guardian angel?

Beruthiel

Originally posted by seamus
the demographic here is very young.

not everyone....

anyways, this is not a bad idea as such

perhaps this thread should be moved to feedback?

Tommy Vercetti

Originally posted by OLDYELLAR
yea lets pair up , whos my guardian angel?

*raises hand*

yeah, nice idea but probably unworkable, there's bound to be a flood of people trying to get dead status, and some of the more goth-inclined members would probably be in the grey area between life and death, thus causing immense confusion

seamus

Originally posted by Beruthiel
not everyone....

Listen Ber, if there are oldies around here, then we can't hear them. It's only whippersnappers like you and me that matter

Beruthiel

seamus = my new bestest friendie

OLDYELLAR

ok tommy your lookin after me and me you eh?

Tommy Vercetti

Originally posted by OLDYELLAR
ok tommy your lookin after me and me you eh?

yeah, I must warn you that I am an alcoholic drug addict so you have your work cut out

OLDYELLAR

ah sure we can work around that , i must warn you my neighbour threatened me with a gun the other night , so you better watch my back

Amz

Kurdt passed away quite recently after a sudden illness, his brother is now organising a Pub Crawl in his memory.

I'd worry about online tributes to people not sure how they'd be handled, they could end up looking rediculous and a little tacky. I think the only people who can make the decisions on this are close friends/people who knew them well and family.