I’m pretty sure that you would hear it from my IRL Doper friends. I can’t imagine what you’d even call a thread informing everyone that a Doper died.
Jill (and any others who might remember),
In this thread is a little on the murky situation of Dr. Watson. The President of Fredonia has some interesting info which–on the surface at least–seems to indicate some reason for skepticism.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=75776
Interesting link Snake-Hips. I guess we might have to move Dr.Watson to the maybe category. But the body count remains at three with the addition of hope (last post in the linked thread).
Ah, so that would be the one Doper who killed herself (that we know of).
Actually, last fall when I was having very ugly battles with depression, I set up a file on my desktop which is intended to double as a last will and testament. I’ve just re-read the thing and, while it needs to be updated, it does contain a request to put a note in MPSIMS about my death. It gives my username and password, so I may manage to post post-humously, in name at least, if I remember to change my user name in it. If that fails, agentfroot will almost definitely hear of my death, if only through my church. I have also entrusted on real life friend who’s not a member of Cecil’s Place with the password to the moderator ID there so that if anything happens to me, the group will continue to run. I trust her with every aspect of my life, including my sanity, and she knows how much the place matters to me.
As for me, if I ever do go too long without posting, please do feel free to e-mail me and ask me what’s going on. Who knows, I might actually have run out of things to say (not likely, but theoretically possible).
By the way, this board meant a lot to me last fall and winter.
Thanks.
CJ
(formerly cjhoworth)
Well, I’m pretty sure if I died in an accident or something CrankyAsAnOldMan or Hello Again would hear about it and pass the news on. I’m planning on moving soon, and my future roommate is also a Doper, so I don’t think I could hide if I tried.
I’ve seen this on a few messageboards before. The outcome is always the same. First, everyone says they’ll miss the person and it’s a shame they died. Soon, people start poking around trying to find out more details and something suspicious turns up. Finally, the fake-deather reveals the big hoax and that is was just a ploy to get some attention. Everyone immediately hates the person and runs them off the messageboard.
A fake death on a messageboard only brings about the real death of your user name.
This is why I married a doper.
:dubious:
Bet there are other reasons…
Hmm… Any SCA dopers out there, if there’s a big ruckus in Northshield or the Midrealm about a bard named Colin Blackthorn dying, that’s me.
Aside from that, there’s not much to connect my real life to the SDMB.
[sub]still not dead yet.[/sub]
Oh yeah? Who?
Over the weekend, on the long drive back from a wedding, I had the disquieting thought, “If I crashed and died here, no Doper (or denizen of the other board I’m on) would probably ever know.” I felt pretty depressed about it for a while, before I figured that one of my RL friends who’s a mod at another board would remember my SDMB affiliation and drop in with the news.
Still, there must be a lot of Dopers out there whose passing, or, for that matter, sudden serious illness, would go un-noticed. During the rest of my drive (it’s a long drive, there’s not much to do) I came up with the idea of the “Doper Incapacitation Buddy System,” or DIBS. It’s important to have a catchy acronym, I think.
Every long-established Doper would have one “Buddy” who (1) knows his/her real name and town of residence and (2) is in e-mail contact with on at least a two-monthly basis. If someone’s “Buddy” goes silent for, say, a couple of weeks, that person would send an e-mail asking if everything’s OK, and to make sure that person just isn’t gone because they’re busy, need a break, or don’t want to post any more. If there’s no response, DIBS can swing into action, and someone in the “silent” Doper’s town can check the local newspapers for any information.
All this, I’m fairly certain, can be done in a way to keep posters’ anonymity. At the very least, it would ensure that we Dopers don’t feel all alone out there.