Category: Zone BBS Suggestions and Feedback
Hi all.
I don't know if this has been suggested yet, but after I ran across, quite by accident, a board discussing the passing of Dave (AKA Whosurdaddy), I thought I'd finally open this up for discussion.
This is the first I've heard of Dave's death. I didn't regularly log in for a bit of this year, and so I just didn't hear about it. And I would probably not have known about Chuck for a long time either, if I didn't happen to hear about it from someone who logs in rather infrequently who saw it on messenger. While I didn't know Dave or Chuck that well, I'm saddened by their passing. But I did know David (AKA Lightningglider) very well and had quite a hard time dealing with his death.
So that brings me to the suggestions I have about remembrance of our late Zoners:
1. I think that when someone passes, there should be a news bulletin with a formal announcement, so that everyone finds out as soon as possible. This will reduce the amount of misinformation about the death in question and also give everyone a chance to mourn and pay their respects together and support each other through the time of grieving.
2. Something like a Remembrance Board would be a great way for us to continue to keep our departed friends' memories alive. Personally, a lot of random things remind me of David, and I would love to be able to post on a board frequented by his other friends and say, "I heard/thought of such-and-such today; David would've loved that!".
3. Something in parentheses next to their username and/or some kind of Rest In Peace message added to their profile would, I think, be a nice little tribute.
What do y'all think? They're suggestions that I hope to all the powers that be that we don't have to put into action often, but I think it's of great importance.
Namaste,
Becky
These sound like good ideas to me. I especially like the one for having something in their profile so that when new people join the zone and search through profiles they don't send a PM to someone whose profile sounds interesting and then wonder why that person never replied to them. Maybe something could also be done to indicate next to a person's name on the boards so that when people are reading old posts and want to respond to a point that someone made they won't be responding to a post from someone who is no longer with us and will never read the post.
I like the reasoning behind the idea, and most of the suggestions, though from what I can recall about past members that've died, the news spread before there was necessarily anything formal to confirm it, and we only find out when a member has died by chance or by someone being nearby or something. So I'm not sure how we could really make any sort of announcement before the news got around. I'm not sure that made any sense to anyone but me...
i think that is a very nice idea, and shows a lot of respect. :)
i didon't get the news for a while either with the exception of lightning glider (i happened to be on vt at the time). as for the others, it just came up in conversation. count me in... i support what you are trying to do!
I aree with the first poer.
Ah yes, I like the idea about profile search and the boards.
And to Singer of Songs, I believe it was, yeah, when something like that happens, it's always talked about in QN's at some point, so everyone finds out quickly; I just think that it would be a good idea for one of the staff to make a formal announcement (once they have all the facts) to cut down on misinformation and also so that everyone in the community can be aware (as some people have publics off).
Hi, folks. I agree with Becky on this. like instead of where it would say "account disabled," in the status, it would say, "rest in peace," or something.
Speaking as a former member of staff I can certainly see where SingerOfSongs is coming from with his comments on suggestion 1. The biggest problem with it is that community leaders don't necessarily have anymore access to other peoples lives than anybody else does. The point being that they'd only be hearing the news third party as it were so by posting a news bulletin you may well actually just be proliferating the spread of misinformation and not preventing it. All that said I do believe these to be good ideas even if the practicalities get in the way. Suggestions 2 and 3 are definitely workable though. Hopefully they get taken up.
I like the idea of the message board especially because although I didn't really know any of the people that you mentioned other than fleetingly, I can understand how others could benefit from a place to talk about friends that had passed on.
Dan.