You could tell a friend about this site and ask them to come here to tell us if you die.

Oh goodness. First of all, good luck on your operation! I know it’s scary, but I bet you’ll be fine. :)

We couldn’t find out if someone died unless someone who knows that person in “real life” knew about Fluther and told us. Also, many jellies are Facebook friends so I suppose someone could find out that way.

I hope that never happens, though!

Because the riches which you have willed into my possession will arrive on my doorstep?

Don’t die T!

I’ve dealt with this question before on other sites, and the best option we came up with was to give someone you trust the URL of Fluther, your scrren-name and your password and have them post your obituary, or at least tell us that you’ve expired.

Looks like any advise I would give has already been provided. That being said, I wish you All the Luck.

There should be a website for this sort of thing. You enter various email addresses and then an email is generated under certain conditions and the email notifies people what has happened. I dunno. It would probably be pretty technically difficult. You’d hate to accidentally send out the notice. And a long period of silence does not always mean death.

I have disappeared from other sites, and it doesn’t really seem to matter. The thing is, much though we hate to think about it, everyone will go on without us. They might wonder what happened, but it won’t be that long before most people never even think of you at all. The only ones who will remember are those you were closest to, and they’ll get over it, too.

It’s the nature of life, I think. Life is not sentimental like humans are.

It could happen—to you or to anyone. I am hoping that when I go one of my friends from here will be contacted by my husband and can tell everyone.

I will think positive thoughts about your surgery.

This question is sad as fuck :-(

Good luck with your surgery. I’m sending prayers/karma/good wishes/lurve/whatever your way.

I guess if this really bothered you, you could appoint someone to come inform us if something were to happen. All jellies would benefit from appointing someone like this, especially since our community here tends to be pretty personal, despite the relative anonymity.

I’ve wondered what I would do in that situ <collapses>

@Tbag

Is there any chance that the operation could prove fatal??

Oh @Tbag , I really do hope everything turns out okay. My best thoughts are with you.

I’ve also wondered about this.

My guess is it’s already happened. How many dozens of regular members over the years have abruptly stopped posting, never to return? I can think of one that specifically had cancer and suddenly disappeared.

i think in my cases we wouldn’t know. They would just stop posting, and we’d be left wondering what happened. One of the pitfalls of online “life”, I guess.

I’ll keep you in my prayers over the nest few days.
I expect everyone to just assume, if I’m not on for more than a month, then I’m dead.

Sentence should read “I think in many cases we wouldn’t know.” .. Not my case :P

We had a beloved Jelly here for several years who was suffering with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS).

He proposed to his wife-to-be on fluther (a first) and married her shortly thereafter. He disappeared in spite of the efforts of many of us to discover what had happened to him.

Here’s the link to that happy moment.

http://www.fluther.com/44307/is-fluther-an-appropriate-medium-for-proposing-marriage/ink:

Allie and Dog and my mother are in contact with each other so they would find out if I died.

Hi @Tbag

First, thank you for letting us know that you may be out of commission for a bit. While we may not know you as a physical human, there are many who care about you as a member of Fluther. I wish you the best during the operation and the recovery process. Please keep us posted if you can.

To answer your question, the answer is already posted above…tell a trusted friend of this web site, as well as others, and ask them to post a notification, either in general or to someone on the site(s) that you have befriended. For example, at the begining of September, I was called on to go take care of Mom while she was in the hospital. I let a member know that I’d be offline in case anyone asked.

In another scenario and on a different web site, an online friend did suddenly and unexpectedly pass away. One member knew his real name and where he lived, and she searched the interent and found his obituary. In addition, his ex-wife found a record of his user id/passwords, and she got in touch with one of the people in his group.

The members held a memorial tribute to him on the site. It allowed us to mourn the loss of a friend, albeit someone we never met in the flesh. Despite the lack of physical meeting, he was a close friend through his internet connections. It brought closure in knowing what happened to him (a heart attack).

As morbid as this may sound, if you cannot let us know of your status, please leave instructions for someone who can. You may not realize how many people care about your existence and want to know how you are doing.

Tbag Oh my goodness! What questions you ask lately. I read your story about being beat up and your head pushed into the steering wheel and I was worried about you (that was you, wasn’t it?) even though I never posted a reply. And now this. First of all, I hope you do well in your operation. I hope you come through with flying colors! I just read your answer about one thing you like about yourself and it’s so appropriate! You never give up! Other jellies have suggested that you notify a friend on Fluther to give out the news should anything happen. Good advice, but hopefully you won’t need it! You are young and youth gives strength. Think positive and come back ASAP!!!

If it were me, I would hope augustlan might message my husband or sister on facebook and find out what happened. But, we knew each other in high school, and so I think she would probably eventually want to know why I dissappeared from fluther and didn’t tell her.

So, my suggesstion is have a friend on fluther or a friend in real life who will somehow get the message to us, so we know what happened.

Can you tell us when the surgery is, so we know when to expect you to check in and say hello once you have had some time to recover?

Awww, @Tbag you’re going to be okay. Big hugs. <3

I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t know if you died. I don’t know how to feel about that.

We’ll all be sending positive thoughts your way for a successful surgery and a quick recovery!

In my case, my kids would let you know. I do think everyone should have someone in their life designated to do this kind of thing. Maybe include instructions in a will, if you don’t trust anyone with your sign on info.

If Heaven is truly Heaven, I’ll be able to post from there.

Sample post: Hey, all you atheists! You think there is no God??? I’m fucking looking at Him!

He might not let me drop the F bomb.

The person who notifies us of your improbable demise should also be the one charged with wiping your hard drive clean before family and friends show up.

@filmfann And I’d be all like ‘sucks to be you, have fun’.

Well, we don’t have a system of notification, so you’d better decide you are NOT going to die at this time! I join the others here who are sending good thoughts your way. Be good, follow instructions and think happy thoughts despite your fears. We’re with you in spirit.

You never die in cybernet, you just have a hard time buffering. Take care. You will be fine and eat ice cream again shortly. :)

This is something I was paranoid about for years. I even put in for some sort of service that supposedly would check for your obit a few times a year and then send notice out to a list of people and usergroups if you died. For all I know, they are still checking on me, but I haven’t spoken to most of those people in at least a decade and most of the forums I was on back then no longer exist.

Anyway, my solution to this turned out to be Facebook. I have had friends who died and people who know you start posting memorials and condolences to you shortly after you die. I have a few friends on my account who occaisionally use this site. I have never formally asked them, but I’m sure they’d say something here if something happened to me.

@Tbag Good Luck to you!! Hope everything goes well. You’re going to be okay :)

@Tbag : With all these Jellies sending great energy you’ll do fine. I’ve had a boatload of medical issues, and bunches of surgeries, and I always assume I’ll be fine. I’m neither stupid nor uninformed, I know what the risks and percentages are, but I go in knowing I’ll come out fine. You will, too. And isn’t it cool to know that a whole bunch of people you’ve never even met are going to be waiting to hear how you are?

@Tbag

Don’t know how you feel about this, but I’ll be praying for you! : ))

{{{Hugs}}}

I must admit that when someone just disappears from this site I do wonder if they are ok. With some of the veteran users (ie: Lucille for example) here we hear through another Jelly (who happens to a friend of absent Jelly) why they have left but some just stop coming without deleting their account. This makes me wonder.

I miss WTF.

I lost one of the jellies I followed. Her avatar is still in my fluther, but no activity since June.

@Tbag, firstly I will keep you in my thoughts and I hope we will see you back here very soon and very well.

It is a good question though and one that has crossed my mind. @augustlan, is it possible to have a Contact Person in our private data so that if a long standing jelly does disappear, you can privately contact that person and just make sure the jelly is okay? Putting the information in our contact details would be our way of giving consent for you to contact that person. I would happily put my husband’s name and email address on the site if only you or someone in your position could access it.

@Adirondackwannabe Only one? You’re lucky. Who is it by the way. Maybe one of us knows – Lisa would if anybody. PM?

Edit: Bellatrix cute idea. Like contact person for when you get into an accident? In Lost, season 3 (I’m just catching up) Jack’s ex-wife shows up at the hospital after his accident. At one point in the <del>conversation</del> argument he says to her “what are you doing here anyway?” she replies that she is still his %$# ing “contact person.”

For the longest time, I didn’t, or couldn’t change my ex as the contact person – and I have a couple of, say, dangerous occupations. One of them is in the military. For a while, I wanted to change it to the woman I was seeing when it got serious – but after a couple of break-ups, I realised I couldn’t count on that her. So I put down mom. And mom it remains; mom who will probably outlive me anyway.

So Lisa, if I stop flunking, even for more than 48 hours, contact my mom.

:-)

And hey, extra {{{hugs}}} for the Bella-babe for even thinking about this. She’s only been here a few months, is loved by all, is a volunteer Mod, and gets my vote for bestest jelly ever.

Gotta lurve the Fluther – just saying.

Blushes… aww Mr Zen… how gorgeous are you!!!

@Bellatrix Not a bad idea! I have no idea how easy or difficult it would be for the guys to implement it, but I like it in theory. :)

Auggie – you have everyone’s email and contact info anyway – I’m sure if you set it up – people might actually use a real, traceable email address and actual name. Then, we could sign some kind of waver – like the websites that make you click on something to receive all kinds of ads and crap – only it would be to give you the right to contact us if, say, we were dormant for over a week/month/three months, depending on what the jelly wants. Soe only come on here on the weekends, there are students who are away for weeks at a time. Some people get busy and can’t come on as frequently. I always notice when Matt is away – and I don’t need to check the date stamp on his profile for that. What say you?

@zensky But if you’re dead… who’s answering your emails? I think we’d need a third party’s email address to make it work. ;)

I never said I was smart nor thought things through til the end, now did I. That’s what the founders, Ryan, Matt and the others are for. Wunday and I are here for amusement purposes only. You’re not fooled by my avatar, now are you?. Kisses. Gotta run.

@augustlan

“But if you’re dead… who’s answering your emails?”

Googhoul email now has postmortem forwarding to a designated survivor’s address. ;-)

Thank you all ^^ I feel loved.

If you have people from Fluther on Facebook, your Fluther buddies might get the message when your friends write things like “RIP… I miss you so much!” on your wall.

I read that Mrs. Dufresne (who happens to be a member on this site) passed away young. That news makes me sad. She was an active member on another site I use. She was a real sweetheart, too, and a strong woman. A user on that other site informed us all and that user seemed to find out from Facebook or another source.

@zensky MrsDufresne.

@AnonymousGirl I remember her. I wasn’t aware that she had died :(

Lung cancer. Very ironic, as she was a singer. She was a beautiful woman. So sad.

I’m so sorry to hear about her, I liked her. This was her last Q, I always hoped she’d come back well. My cousin (whom I mentioned in my post) passed six months after that Q, and I wondered what had happened to Mrs. Dufresne.

@JilltheTooth For some reason her last Q passed me by so I wasn’t aware she was even ill. I just assumed she jumped ship as many people have come and gone in recent months. So sad.

That makes me so sad, but I’m glad to know. Thanks for telling us, @AnonymousGirl.

@Leanne1986 That was my reaction as well when I found out. I definitely understand.

@JilltheTooth I checked out that thread and it was a painful thread to check out, especially as she was fighting so hard to survive by not wanting to make the same choices as someone else she herself lost. :(

@augustlan Yes. I understand that closure is important, too. You’re welcome.

After thinking about this question I told a friend of mine to come here and post a message that I had died if that should happen. Then I got to wondering how the mods would react to something like that. If someone posted “I’m a friend of Chyna and wanted to let you know she died.” That isn’t really a question and my friend knows nothing about fluther or how it works. So would the mods just remove the post?

I’m pretty sure we’d let it stand. Some things defy all the rules. <3

Some rules are meant to be broken, and in that case, they should be.

Does Fluther really have rules that are set in stone, though? I had a conversation with someone on here through PMs and I asked her if I should view the rules here more as guidelines instead of taking them so seriously (because there seemed to be loopholes in them to me from what she was saying) and she told me she thinks they actually are called guidelines. I checked the “Help” section out for myself after that and there is a section in there called “The Guidelines”, so it appears that what she told me is correct.

I actually addressed this issue in my will. I assigned someone to handle notifications when I’m gone.

^I hope to never have to read that here.