Comments on: Self-employment project 1

By: VelociraptorBlade

VelociraptorBlade — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:33:38 +0000

I figure if I ever get offed, I’ll have a program set up to make me a LiveJournal account just so I can update my status as “Dead lol”

By: Jody

Jody — Sat, 28 May 2011 17:40:01 +0000

Seriously though…I have told Paul to inform ya’ll if I kick the bucket…but it is actually more like aw fuck it.

By: Eri

Eri — Fri, 27 May 2011 14:40:41 +0000

Better not be or I’ll find you and kick your butt.

By: Jody

Jody — Fri, 27 May 2011 13:24:13 +0000

Well I ain’t tellin’ ya’ll when I kick the bucket.

It will be a secret.

By: Eri

Eri — Fri, 27 May 2011 06:17:01 +0000

I think they would if it were small. I would. That would take it off my mind. I’d designate a couple of friends to notify the database of my passing.

By: Eri

Eri — Fri, 27 May 2011 06:14:53 +0000

Yes.

My idea would be a proactive one and death notices would not be sent until verified by a friend or relative or obit. Then each of the sites to which the person belonged could be notified of the death.

By: mcfly

mcfly — Fri, 27 May 2011 05:39:47 +0000

Interestingly, it’s a concern of Facebook’s as well, not to mention other widely-used public sites. They’ve floated the idea of asking users to respond to a periodic email–annually, perhaps–in order to wean out accounts belonging to the departed. I can’t recall why they don’t want to rely on the tried-and-true “if you don’t log in for six months, you’re toast” rule.

Of course, another question is would people be willing to pay a small fee in order to have such accounts remain open as a kind of memorial.

By: TB

TB — Fri, 27 May 2011 04:28:05 +0000

Sounds similar to credit reporting services. You lose your wallet and call them, and they call everyone else.

It does sound like a very good idea, so I ran a search to see if anyone had done anything like it yet.

The general category seems to be “online death notification services.”

Here’s one called “Deathswitch.”

If you fail to enter a password at regular intervals, the system assumes you’re dead or critically disabled and fires messages in all directions.

Useful for some circumstances, but I could see opportunites for unfortunate outcomes for absent-minded users who go on vacations…