Okay, I know this is a little bit dark, but several times now I’ve been lurking and suddenly shocked by a post saying that a member of the SDMB is dead.
The most recent case was in this thread where it was posted that Opalcat died a few months ago.
I don’t suppose most people regularly check the In Memoriam thread for edits, and not everyone might see all death announcements. So it would be good if the admins would simply unlock the thread and make a new post when someone dies.
That way people would realize there’s a new post in that thread and stay informed.
What? That thread actually gets updated? I look at it in the menu, see the date hasn’t changed, and wonder why no one ever updates it when prominent Dopers die.
Now I know.
I guess the desire was to have a single message with a long list, but it does make it hard to know when it changes. I’d prefer new messages so the date is accurate.
Yeah, I realized after posting that the intent of the thread might be to serve as an “index of the fallen”, I suppose.
But I think it would be more useful if they would post new messages instead.
It is very jarring to be reading an innocent thread and then suddenly be informed someone is dead because you missed the announcement.
Well, yes. There was a huge thread about Opalcat’s passing. But if you weren’t on the boards for that particular time, you would have missed it. There was one post in it last week, but prior to that, it hadn’t been posted to since April. And the complaint is that the In Memoriam thread may be updated, but everything is put in one post and the last post date shows up in the front page as October, 2011, no matter how many times it’s been updated.
I can understand keeping it locked so that it doesn’t grow unwieldy and I can understand people could post speculation about a Doper’s passing without some official word. So I agree with keeping it locked so only moderators and administrators can post notifications. But perhaps when a Doper passes, a mod can make a new post in the thread so the date it was last posted to shows up on the front page in case the original thread disappears with the passage of time.
We could do it that way too, but sometimes you just miss stuff. The In Memoriam thread is a collection of the announcements and I didn’t really intend it to be the thread that notifies people someone has died. There’s always a new thread for that purpose.
I’m reluctant to say anything here because I do appreciate the thanks- but this isn’t how people say thank you. It reads more like a grumble and a backhanded complaint.
It’s perfectly possible to do both, innit? To thank you for doing it, but also complain that such changes are so rare? Neither one negates the other. I can do the same thing:
Thank you Marley, for considering and implementing this change. I hope that you will be as considerate in the future.
It is, yes. It just makes the thanks look insincere and that doesn’t reflect well on the speaker. I don’t want to get into an argument about it, but I thought Anonymous User might appreciate or benefit from the tip because I don’t think he intended his post to be taken that way.
A few years ago, Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra were sitting together at Yankee Stadium during Old-Timers Day when a list of deceased Yankee players was put on the scoreboard. Whitey insists that Yogi turned to him and said, “I hope I never live to see my name up there.”
