Hmm, the memorial thread seems to have been deleted.
Curiouser and curiouser.
There was indeed a reason not to. I don’t think anyone wants the same nasty tone from there brought over here.
quoted url deleted - see below
That doesn’t strike me as a particularly good reason, but whatever.
Certainly hasn’t prevented links to places with unpleasant tones before. And that thread has most of the information those confused people over here are going to be looking for.
Since all the people talking over there are, almost by definition, talking over here (though not necessarily in this thread), maybe rather than protecting us from ourselves, we can all just act like adults?
I send the mail to gobear and then see it’s been linked to :smack:
I noticed that the memorial thread too. Threads that were older than it remain so it’s not because of maintenance IMO.
Moderator’s Notes:
Maybe. But we really do try to keep unpleasantness at other communities from spilling over to the SDMB—and you ain’t helping. Even in the Pit and this thread’s still in MPSIMS, so my objection is that much stronger.
And it matters not a whit whether the people participating at the other place are the self-same people participating here. As an example, there are a lot of SDMB members who also post at Fathom - and we make a concerted effort to keep Fathom disputes off the SDMB.
I’d also point out that you have made an assumption which the facts do not support. I’d wager there’s a whole lot of people here that had no idea there was an “anonymous SDMB” community at the Live Journal site.
Anyone wishing a further discussion of my comments, or wanting to take exception to obfusciatrist’s linking of the LJ community is hereby notified that those remarks must be placed in the Pit. There’ll be no more commentary along these lines in this thread, this forum, or any other except as I have noted.
obfus, why did you do that? Do you enjoy being a curmudgeon?
Thnaks, anyway, **Yohimbo. It’s the thought that counts. 
I dunno why that memorial thread has gone missing. I’ll see if I can figure out the cause. I sincerely doubt that it’s inaccesible because it’s been deleted.
Gah, it’s Yojimbo! Someday I’ll become literate.
Alologies for the double post UB.
I was here back in the “old days.” Wally was well-known and well-liked, which is why so many people get mad when this subject comes up. Like everyone else, I don’t know anyone who knew him in RL.
It’s possible that he faked his death, but IMHO it doesn’t seem likely. YMMV.
I didn’t have a clue till you mentioned it in your first post. Then I went searching 
Come on admit it. It’s with the 2nd gun from Dallas and Lindberg Baby in the basement of the Reader isn’t it. We’re on to you you know 
Why has this popped up now since it has been almost, what? three years since his death?
It is all very odd.
An addendum: There are certain aspects of that LJ thread that are not going to be discussed on the SDMB in any forum, in any fashion. I’m speaking, of course, of the unfounded speculation, intensely personal, and generally cretinous remarks about Shayna and SpinyNorman. I have no control over what is posted at LJ obviously. But that kinda shit isn’t going to be brought here in any form.
My guess is that it’s because this anon discussion community formed (well, re-formed from another one) recently, and a thread was posted asking for discussion suggestions. Someone wondered if WallyM7 was real, since no one on this whole board had managed to substantiate his death, and no one had met him. So, blame brainstorming.
Moderator’s Notes:
At the risk of “over-moderating,” I’ve deleted the URL placed here by obfusciatrist. I’m not sure that it’ll mean anything, especially since I’m the idiot who kinda opened the can of worms when I mentioned the off-site discussion by name, but . . .
I’ll make 3 factual points here.
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Purely as a point of reference, major events are missed by newspapers sometimes. I personally know of a double-murder that did not get reported in the Kansas City paper. My ex-SO personally worked on one of the victims in the ER to try and save their life. So the next day, she scanned the papers to find out more about what happened, and found…nothing. And nothing the next day, and nothing on the news. However, the event was written about nearly 10 days ex post facto in the paper, as a sidebar to another story.
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Purely as a point of reference, industrial accidents are sometimes not reported either in the press. I personally know of a plant worker killed on the job at a power plant, which never made the paper, other than the employee newsletter. I also know of a near-fatal wounding of two employees who drove a crane into a high tension line (melting the crane…yeeesh!), which did not make the paper, even though the photo taken of a crane that looked like melted taffy looked very awe-inspiring.
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Purely as a point of reference, sometimes people don’t have obituaries. A relative of mine had no obituary printed, by request of the family. I have no idea exactly why.
Aside from all that, I can think of no positive result from digging into this history. At best I can only think that a discovery that things were not as they seemed would give people gloating rights - as in “Told you so!” At worst, it could result in re-opening wounds with an IRL family and friends that cared about a person now gone. And anyone who was close enough to Wally knows the truth, and the rest don’t have any driving need to know. In addition, if there was anything about the situation which concerned the SDMB Staff, I’d think they are more than capable of deciding how and when they might ever want to broach that issue.
Sure, the goal of this site is to fight ignorance and ask questions and seek answers - and it’s understandable when a popular poster goes that people want answers, for various reasons good and bad. But sometimes tact, decorum, and just not being a jerk means that some questions just aren’t worth knowing those answers.
It’s the result of a chain of discussions throughout LiveJournal. It started with a discussion about bannings from this very site. This naturally led to discussions of the various episodes the SDMB has been through. I’m not going to give you any more details than that, mostly because the administration has made it abundantly clear that several of the topics involved in this chain are <b>NOT</b> suitable for discussion here, and though I’ve dropped below the activity level I had when most of these events took place, I do not wish to be banned.
I was here before, during and after Wally.
I did not know him personally. Never exchanged emails or do the chat room/ICQ, but I always found his posts to be of an excellent caliber. Frankly, his humor and wit is sorely missed. He did say something nice about me once, so I remember that, even when I can’t remember what it was.
He was a nice guy, at least on line. Off line, feh, who knows, I tend to think of all of you as trolls sitting there in your Star Trek uniforms.
I’ve never once thought his death was faked nor did I ever think he was anything than what he was. Then again, I live in a bubble when it comes to these things. I tend to think that after all this time here, I feel most dopers are who they are, not posing. Posers tend to be outed before long and just disappear, not go out in some big dramatic style, that would be too risky.
Nor was it suspicious of his daughter registering just short time before his accident. You can go at any time people. Death isn’t scheduled like a Carnival Cruise.
There were a doper or two who were fairly close to him at the time, as close as one could get via chat rooms and emails, and I remember Wally’s death affecting them. I won’t say who as frankly, as it is up to them if they want to jump into this with their two bits or stay on the sidelines.
As for the No Obituary. At least in the states, there isn’t a law or rule that says an obit must be run in a paper for the deceased. It is something that has always been done, at a courtesy for the family and friends from the funeral home handling just another detail during a tragic time in someone’s life. Sidebar: I’ve often wondered if funeral homes get a kick back or a deal in advertising for help the family with the details of the bigger obits.
Those little teeny tiny Death Notices are the freebie ones, if I remember correctly, or is a nominal fee, say $25, which is easier than calling 100 friends to tell them the when and where. The bigger the space used, the more money. If there is a picture in with the obit, that is alot of money…$200 or more, depending on how many words, if I remember correctly. And that is just one paper. Most bigger towns have at least two papers. We have three major papers and a minor one in the Metro area here
( Free Press, News, Oakland Press and Daily Tribune.) to place a medium or picture obit in all of them is quite a drain financially, especially if it was a sudden loss of life. ( Remember, $200 may not seem like much, but when you are burying someone, the average funeral is around $7k and I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that much liquidity on me. You cut corners when you are rational enough to do so.) Cremation would save a buttload off the burial fee. Don’t say you weren’t told.
Obits are a consistant source of income for papers. There can be a chance that when Wally died, the family had a private affair and did not utilize the newspaper services. A close friend of ours died in September and I could not find his obit on line nor in the paper, yet the funeral home was packed. Same things go for my brothers funeral info. Nothing online that I could find ( and I did have all the info) yet it was in the papers.
I can understand the newer dopers thinking something is odd with this Wally chap and somehow, as these things happen, bizzare rumors are created of affairs or something to do with a rifle and a clock tower over looking a glassy knoll, where I do not have the power to make the Real Wally Stand Up wouldn’t that be something? I can state what I know an feel and hope my good standing here in Doperville means something.
**Where Shirley Gives Herself An Out [/size]Then again, if Wally somehow did fake his own death, I’d love to read more of his works since then. He had style.