Author Topic: Death Online  (Read 6108 times)

charles

  • Harem Master
  • *****
  • Posts: 3603
  • LAWNMOWER MASACRE
    • MSN Messenger - charles_wilkinson@hotmail.com
    • View Profile
    • google profile
    • Email
Death Online
« on: September 30, 2009, 05:35:46 pm »
I think it's an interesting thought

What would happen to your online contacts if you died?

Recently I travelled to NZ and my wife's grandfather told me that his daughter, who died 5 years ago at the age of 34, was quite active online and he asked if I could find some of the people she'd been talking to and let them know what happened to her.

It was quite a task but fortunately some Google searches yielded her online username to me and further searches on that put me on to a couple of forums that were still active and there I found several people who she'd talked with heavily and still posted.  They thanked me for letting them know, asked me to pass on my condolences and promised to pass on the message to some others they knew who had been in touch with her.

So what do any of you think would happen if you just stopped posting one day without warning due to your death?  Would you search for the reason a fellow forumite or online chatter suddenly stopped chatting?  Do your friends or family know of the sites you visit so they can let other know or would they be able to access your accounts/web history and discover it?  Heck, any personal experiences with an online friend who's passed away or tracking down the online friends of a friend or family member who's passed on to let them know?
CLAN OF THE CATS IS MAKING A COMEBACK! JUNE 8th.  BE THERE!

CrystalDragonSpaceMarine

  • Eternal Lover
  • *****
  • Posts: 2446
  • Show me your enemies.
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Death Online
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2009, 10:46:43 pm »
I've never been close enough to someone online to wonder where they went, i just know people sometimes get sick of it and leave.

In my case, no one else knows I post online, so I'd vanish without a trace.

charles

  • Harem Master
  • *****
  • Posts: 3603
  • LAWNMOWER MASACRE
    • MSN Messenger - charles_wilkinson@hotmail.com
    • View Profile
    • google profile
    • Email
Re: Death Online
« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2009, 10:53:52 pm »
My wife knows most of the comics I frequent and might be able to figure it out.  Otherwise a few of my mates in the real world might do some searching.  A number of people from various comic forums have me friended on facebook so since most of my family members (close and extended) also have me friended they'd probably post something there.

A friend of my sister's was hit by a speeding car and they posted what happened on her myspace page.

Actually it makes me recall a few blokes I knew from the days I was in group counseling who committed suicide years back.  I'm pretty sure a couple of them were online so I wonder if I should track them down after all these years and let their online buddies know.
CLAN OF THE CATS IS MAKING A COMEBACK! JUNE 8th.  BE THERE!

Emp_Dragon

  • Harem Master
  • *****
  • Posts: 3229
  • Submit to the power of Sam
    • MSN Messenger - erik.arteus@hotmail.com
    • View Profile
Re: Death Online
« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2009, 11:36:22 pm »
If anyone wants to find my online buddies the easiest way would be to use my computer since all the sites I regularily frequent are listed either as starting tabs or favourites, and other than that there's my msn contacts, all on permanent auto-login

Razzly

  • Erotic
  • ****
  • Posts: 1147
  • Contrast.
    • View Profile
Re: Death Online
« Reply #4 on: October 01, 2009, 12:11:33 am »
It'd actually be quite terrible, as most of my friends are from da internets. But it wouldn't be difficult for someone who knew me to get on my messenger and tell the closest ones. I've got my password remembered, so if I died, all my friend/mother/dog would have to do is open program and click log in.
Winner of Brion Foulke's "cute little panda"-award.
"Mutta rukous on vain mutina tuulessa, ei sitä kukaan kuule..."

charles

  • Harem Master
  • *****
  • Posts: 3603
  • LAWNMOWER MASACRE
    • MSN Messenger - charles_wilkinson@hotmail.com
    • View Profile
    • google profile
    • Email
Re: Death Online
« Reply #5 on: October 01, 2009, 02:04:23 am »
I tried that on the computer of this daughter my grandparents in law lost (they still had the thing, never turned on since her death) but all she had was ICQ and it didn't log on automatically.  I'm not sure if any of her contacts were also from ICQ but I can hope.  After this many years its the best I can do... (maybe I should have tried resetting the password come to think of it. If ICQ uses a personal question then her parents would know the answer. But if it's an e-mail then the account would have expired long ago).

I think the best methods are probably having people who know you personally together with people from forums, linked in your facebook or myspace account. Failing that, just make sure you have a friend or family member who knows your online name and they'd be able to google it and find the places you posted in the same as I did.
CLAN OF THE CATS IS MAKING A COMEBACK! JUNE 8th.  BE THERE!

Selan

  • Heavenly Orgasmic
  • *****
  • Posts: 4841
    • View Profile
Re: Death Online
« Reply #6 on: October 01, 2009, 03:20:56 am »
Leana knows my passwords so she could come online and find my contacts, also on my emails. She also has the code to the save i have at home so she can look trough the stuff and give it to people that would like to have it.

akashayi

  • Guest
Re: Death Online
« Reply #7 on: October 01, 2009, 12:02:42 pm »
Some of my passwords were known by my ex, but none of the ones that mattered. That's not really a problem though. I'll keep my stuff locked up. If I died, maybe I would have someone post on the forums and what not I frequent online via a new account. That'd be only fair.

I don't like the idea of my data being deleted upon death though. I basically live most of my life connected to the wired, as do many of my geek friends. The data footprint I leave behind is much like the evidence that I was once alive in the analog. It is perhaps a more honest and persistent mark of who I was, and what I've contributed than anything else. The data I've left behind on the nets is subject to the natural data entropy the internet tends to have. It'll be gone someday. But I'd like to think that the mark I've left on the internet would remain for as long as it can, given that eventuality. :P

see: MC Frontalot's Secrets from the Future: http://frontalot.com/media.php/325/MC_Frontalot_SFTF_%2801%29_Secrets_From_The_Future.mp3
"They’ll glance you over, I guess, and then for a bare moment
you’ll persist to exist; almost seems like you’re there, don’t it?
But you’re not. You’re here. Your name will fade as Front’s will,
‘less in the future they don’t know our cryptovariables still. "

Course, I don't plan on dying anytime soon. Cybernetic upgrades should keep me good for at least several hundred more years. </dead_serious>

Emp_Dragon

  • Harem Master
  • *****
  • Posts: 3229
  • Submit to the power of Sam
    • MSN Messenger - erik.arteus@hotmail.com
    • View Profile
Re: Death Online
« Reply #8 on: October 01, 2009, 01:16:44 pm »
Course, I don't plan on dying anytime soon. Cybernetic upgrades should keep me good for at least several hundred more years. </dead_serious>

Then you won't be alone, I intend to do the same if I can :) Who needs organic?

RoninAngel

  • Eternal Lover
  • *****
  • Posts: 2896
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Death Online
« Reply #9 on: October 01, 2009, 01:20:08 pm »
I am a online ghost. I put my soul into my computer like Matoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell.  :P
I got 99 problems but a nymphomaniac jester girl ain't one.

Dragonizer

  • Guest
Re: Death Online
« Reply #10 on: October 05, 2009, 07:10:09 pm »
You know, pretty much the only real big fear I have is someone I know online dying and me not having any way to know about it. Like Razzly, most of my friends are people I know online. Come to think of it, I'm not really close to anybody I know in real life. I like staying home, I hate talking on the phone, so it's not like I ever hang out or talk with the people I do know much.
A few people I used to talk to a lot online disappeared ages ago. I have no idea what's happened to them and, well, that still feels horrible. Even if the news was bad, I'd rather find out what happened to them than continue to be left wondering.

If I died though, um. Well, all the forums I'm a part of are saved in my Favorites. AIM and Trillian keep my usernames and passwords saved so all anybody would have to do is hit "connect", so there's that.

CrystalDragonSpaceMarine

  • Eternal Lover
  • *****
  • Posts: 2446
  • Show me your enemies.
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Death Online
« Reply #11 on: October 05, 2009, 10:16:55 pm »
You know, pretty much the only real big fear I have is someone I know online dying and me not having any way to know about it. Like Razzly, most of my friends are people I know online. Come to think of it, I'm not really close to anybody I know in real life. I like staying home, I hate talking on the phone, so it's not like I ever hang out or talk with the people I do know much.


You sound a lot like me. I despise talking on the phone. If I need to quick chat with someone, I'd prefer IM, and if I need to take care of something, I'd much rather go in person. I've spent tens of minutes being anxious over a phone call to my school office, when I could walk straight in there and take care of business so problem. One of my really weird anxieties.

And while I don't really have anyone I can say I'm "close" to online, there are very few people IRL I think of as being worth knowing (and ironically, most of them do not live locally with me anyway).

So yeah, as a major introvert, 2-3 hours of anime club twice a week is all I can handle of social life. Well, that and work.

Oddball

  • Moderator
  • Nymphomaniac!!
  • *****
  • Posts: 17152
  • Me the 13th Duke of Wymbourne are they quite mad!
    • MSN Messenger - oddballsco@hotmail.co.uk
    • Yahoo Instant Messenger - oddball24sco
    • View Profile
    • Myspace Profile
    • Email
Re: Death Online
« Reply #12 on: October 06, 2009, 09:02:24 am »
If i was going anywhere for example disapearing up into the hills for awhile would post a note in the forums I visit, or just leave a list at home of names,numbers and forums +passwords for them and messengers in case anything did happen.
What good is dreaming it if you don't actually do it?.

No.Na.

  • Red Light Worker
  • **
  • Posts: 280
    • AOL Instant Messenger - Illusionslostone
    • View Profile
    • Deviant art
    • Email
Re: Death Online
« Reply #13 on: October 12, 2009, 12:50:50 pm »
it seems i am the opposite, I don't think if i died many people online, would get the memo, due to many erratic factors of my online habits, such as:

-i almost never use the same username

-i almost never use the same passwords

-every password I do use is stupidly long phrases that have nothing to do with me personally

-i update myself so scarcely that it would seem like a long hiatus

-i give out lots of fake info in most profiles. I.E. the fake facebook zartain fleets that I have used twice in 3 years (somehow zartain i have been told has a fanclub, weird right?? )

-my my brother wouldn't much give a shit, my mother cant use a computer without me, and the rest of my family has no idea where i go online.

I think most of the people i know offline would, know right away considering i live in such a small town, and word travels really fast. I also love to hang out with people, so i know a lot of people, or a lot of people know me. i have waved to a few people and had conversations with them... and as soon as i left my friends would ask if i knew them, and I usually don't XD. i sometimes wonder where people who used to frequent went cause I miss them, like P-fea, and mr gallant( he apparently sends me things on my fake facebook that i never use though).
In the three fates we trust