Arnold - FTR, If I tell you I’ve died, you should not believe it. 
The same sort of pinheads who commit all those other bannable (sp? that looks so wrong) offenses.
I think it’s a nice idea, Asylum, but a nightmare of impracticality for the administrators.
1) Do nothing. Avoids any trouble but leaves us with the unsatisfying feeling that something could be done.
2) Allow a commemorative member status and either
2a) spend much administrative work on questioning every single request for it, with the possibility of arguing and hurt feelings, or
2b) don’t.
Some people already think it’s fun trying to create as much ‘banned’ sock puppets as possible, and we don’t close the registration page because of them. A phony ‘dead’ status doesn’t kill anybody (… :rolleyes:). If someone gets a kick out of creating zombies, let him have it. Huh huh huh I’m dead huh huh. Whatever. I wouldn’t mind seeing a few of them. Certainly the admins already know to ignore the most obvious idiots in their mail. If the remainder should prove that a disproportionate amount of the world is evil and abusive we always can change it all back.
If you find out that poster A is wrongfully accused by poster B to be pushing daisies, ban B. Make clear before that there won’t be “I too am a victim of a prank” excuses. It’s a serious matter, they either know for sure, or better don’t say anything, or are a jerk.
Send an e-mail to A’s address requesting to close the account (I’m sure there’s a more tactful way than “:poke: Are’ya dead yet?”). If the family replies, try to make’em a little happier by changing the status. If A fakes their reply you can’t help it any more than if a sock creates a fake thread about it. If A himself replies, B’s in trouble.
If A does not reply, he’s either really dead and deserves the status, or doesn’t respond to administrative e-mails because he doesn’t “maintain a valid e-mail address” and the account could be closed anyway. Or A=B=troll and nobody cares if they’re alive or dead.
The ‘dead’ status would be just that - a title. It isn’t worth anything without a remembered person behind the name, except to those who would be glad to see some token of rememberance beneath it. Even if they have to share it with a few jerks.
On the whole mailing a person an e-mail to see if they’re still alive I don’t see what the problem is. Yes, it should probably be phrased diplomatically, but wouldn’t you want to know if someone was claiming you were dead?
I’m not dead, by the way. Just hurt.
Redboss
Originally posted by Antracite:
Oddly enough, Arnold, if I tell you I have died, you should believe it!
I have written, and stored a posthumous post, for MPSIMS, with instructions to my son, who also posts here, to post it to my account in the event of my death, so as to allow me to do the courtesy of a final goodbye to my much beloved friends of the SDMB.
Tris
“I’m not dead yet.”
After further consideration, I see your point, Arnold. It could be admnistratively problematic. Thanks for sharing the viewpoint from your frame of reference.
Then, of course, there’s the point that the board Administration is under no obligation whatsoever to do anything in particular for any one of us.
I personally think that some special recognition for Wally and Poopah is not out of order. In the event that someone else who has been active dies in future, the moderators and administrators know a variety of people whom they are confident they can trust the word of. E.g., I’m aware that Ukulele Ike and Manhattan are personally acquainted with Eve and several other Gothamite posters; I have few doubts that Tubadiva knows two or three other regular posters in her home town. David B is aware of the four or five regulars in Springfield and no doubt interacts with them on a IRL basis from time to time. If the Admin. decided that they would extend the “Dearly Departed” status only when they were convinced through being made aware of the death by someone they were certain they could trust through IRL contacts, I would not consider it a slight on my probity as an individual who has met only two or three of them, and then only for brief periods at Dopefests, that they would expect to have confirmation from someone they were certain of before acting on my information to declare, say, Aenea as deceased.
And, of course, in most cases the real-life identity of posters is available and an obituary story will be available to document the fact.
So effectively what I’d suggest is that the two bona fide deaths among us be recognized as the Admins. see fit, with the idea that they might well choose whether or not to do likewise in the future and that they reserve the right to decide whether or not to accept the virtual word of one of us as to the death of another, or seek out additional evidence, or (most likely) just plain not act in the absence of certitude as to the death of a member.
Polycarp - so you are saying, have the status available for a chosen, select crowd, that are the “old-timers” at the board or else known in person to moderators? How would you respond to the charge of favoritism / unfriendliness to the newbies?
There are a couple of cases at the SDMB where some posters were thought to be dead, but the SDMB members who tried to find confirmation in real life (newspaper articles, contacting relatives, etc…) were unable to find any confirmation of that fact. In that case, will I be justified, as moderator, to tell people “Sorry, I don’t have sufficient evidence to believe you?” If UserA says “I’ve been talking online with UserX for months, and his e-mail to me saying he was dying in the hospital has got to be true”, and UserB says “he must have just been scamming you, I live in X’s city and there’s nothing in the obituary or the phone directory”, do we ban UserA and UserB for being a troublemaker? Only UserA? Only UserB? Or do we let them duke it out in The BBQ Pit?
You also say “in most cases the real-life identity of posters is available and an obituary story will be available to document the fact”. That is not an accurate statement. Besides my colleagues on the board, I can count on the fingers of one hand the people whose identity I know in real life. I know some first names from meeting people at Dopefests, and some phone numbers, but that is not enough to confirm an identity. I don’t want to start calling people and asking “Is Paul from the SDMB dead? I was told this on the board.” Some people might not want their relatives / roommates to know about the SDMB, even after their death. Take this as an example: go to the GQ forum, look at the list of thread starters for today, and tell me which percentage of them is known to you IRL. Or let me take the case of poopah chalupa - no one on the staff knew his real name, so we are relying on the word of the thread starter. Would you be willing to make up for me the list of posters whom I can trust (and by implication, the list of posters I can’t trust?) What’s the criteria?
Finally, I think that we already have a method of commemorating our absent friends - memorial threads. The big advantage of that, from our point of view, is that those do not require moderator confirmation of the unhappy event.
I was not promoting it ‘just for long-timers’ but merely suggesting that a very restrictive criterion (that the information needed to be confirmed by a staff member, who might not want to take the time and trouble to ferret out the confirmation) would be acceptable – and suggesting that most staff do have at least a few member acquaintances they would feel comfortable relying on the word of.
However, as you point out, whatever criterion you use opens a can of worms, so please consider my previous post as not being useful. Sorry!
The very act of confirming the facts can lead to all kinds of trouble. Someone posts on the board “PosterSoandso is dEAd, here’s the newspaper article talking about it.” Arnold, living in the same part of the country as Soandso, calls the family to verify / give his condolences. The family asks “who are you and why do you care?” Arnold tells the grieving widow “I’m sorry for your loss; it might console you to know that your husband had a lot of friends at the SDMB and we have a memorial thread for him.” The widow, surprised at this news, goes to the SDMB, reads the memorial thread, in the memorial thread follows a link (this is my favourite post by Soandso!) to a previous thread by Soandso that describes his humorous attempts at seducing his secretary / something else embarassing. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
My scenario is not that far-fetched. We have received many times requests from people saying “someone I know has joined the boards, you need to delete these threads of mine, STAT!”
I have to agree with Polycarp. Why can’t the staff “award” this status to a poster on an ad hoc basis? They can apply whatever criteria they like. I’d suggest:
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The staff is reasonably sure the poster is actually dead – this can be confirmed in any number of ways that would satisfy the staff.
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The poster has granted permission, perhaps in the member profile, for such a tribute. (I’d suggest this be an opt-out rather than an opt-in.)
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the poster hasn’t posted – or logged on-- for some period of time, say, three months. This would help insure 1).
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In the opinion of the staff, the poster has made a “significant” contribution to the SDMB. The staff might do this on some objective basis like number of posts and length of time registered. This will make it pretty tough for someone to “manufacture” this status. I mean, really, if the best thing someone can do with his or her life is to fake death, let them. This also will dramatically decrease the hassle this would cause the staff. If the allegedly dead poster hasn’t been a member for at least a year and doesn’t have at least 1000 posts (or whatever) the staff wouldn’t have to bother with any of the rest of it.
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Once the status has been awarded, the poster’s account is terminated
By the way, there is only one possible title for members who are, shall we say, having trouble logging on from their new location – Member Emeritus.
Sure, why not? I’m sure no SDMB poster would be pugnacious enough to call the moderators to task for being unfair and inconsistent in the application of their criteria. :rolleyes:
You gloss over step 1):
Which is the most difficult part of your proposal.
In any case, my main answer to your post is to repeat the objects I’ve already stated, and also repeat this:
“We already have a method of commemorating our absent friends - memorial threads.”
What if the poster doesn’t want any kind of special status? I take a look at the sticky threads every now and then, but even if such an opt-in/out were announced there’s a good chance many will miss it. Personally, I’d rather leave my own status untouched if something were to happen to me.
Well, hurry up! Now we’re curious. (Honestly, how touching!)
If you just disappeared, nothing would be changed at all. If you have someone who would tell us about your death they probably know your wishes and would say so. If not, it wouldn’t be any more unfair to those who don’t want it than to those who do.
If UserA asks to change UserX’s status, knowing what the consequence would be if he’s proven to have made a false statement about this matter, and doesn’t retract, then the only reasonable thing you can do is to assume UserX is dead and act accordingly. What’s your reason to believe UserA is a liar until proven otherwise? Why would we apply a different credibility standard to the status than if UserA created a thread about UserX or makes a statement in his signature?
Ban whoever keeps spreading unverifiable statements after being asked to back them up, just like how you already deal with arguments about any other topic. Show some Swiss neutrality, it’s not the administration’s job to get drawn into it, prove something, or to act until sufficient evidence to the contrary makes it an easy decision.
Why do you believe it would be your duty to investigate the facts or to inform someone? It’s the other way around. If the family knows about us, they will inform us if they want. If Soandso kept his SDMB activities secret they won’t. If we hear about the death from another source, then certainly the family already knows it too, and there’s no need to call anybody. Checking the e-mail for a sign of life would suffice to sort out the obvious pranks. This wouldn’t even mean extra work if we assume you would try to tell us anyway if someone’s claiming we’re dead.
How is allowing us to request a commemorative status different from allowing us to make a statement through a memorial thread, except that we don’t have to ask an admin to install the latter? Both are just a form of expression, I don’t see how the one would need more confirmation work or has a greater potential to create trouble than the other.
A thread soon will die too and disappear from view. The status field is always connected to the name.
But the name will disappear, too, unless someone begins posting for him.
Staff have debated this at length, and the pretty much unanimous decision was that it would take more time from administrators and moderators. We’re all volunteers, we don’t get paid, and we don’t need additional work.
We understand and appreciate the concern. A memorial thread is a way to express our feelings and share our sorrow. And we encourage people who feel strongly, to donate money to charity in memory of those we have lost.
Oh well. Thank you for considering it though.
one last comment -
The motivation wouldn’t be to keep them in our minds forever, rather to have the recognition there where it’s needed most. If someone browses through older parts of the forum or gets there through a search hit, they would be informed that it would be rather pointless trying to continue a discussion with somebody about a literally dead topic, for instance.
Do you?
Larry Bee: << Do you? >>
Yep. Usually, “My girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband has joined the boards, please delete these threads…” is a fairly common refrain. Granted, we don’t get a huge number – it’s not like a daily or weekly occurence – but we’ve had several over the last few months.
We usually shrug our shoulders and remind people they should not post anything here that they are not willing to see on a billboard across the street from their house.