h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Would it be a difficult thing to temporarily relable 'Who's online' to 'Recently viewed homepages'?"

I was thinking exactly that, but hadn't found the words.

About posts 35 and 40...

My facebook list includes a few people I went to school with 20+ years ago.

Last December, one of those former classmates died. It will be a year in about a week. Another of our former classmates said that whenever the other's name and smiling face is in the visible friends list on their page it made them smile back and there was no way the deceased would be removed from the friends list.

It's really a matter of perspective. As long as no one is posting from those accounts, without saying they are a relative or friend who logged in to edit, delete whatever, it doesn't bother me.

I found the constant notices I kept getting on Facebook, saying "Terri likes Smirnoff" to be upsetting.

I removed her from my friends' list for just that reason, Gnomon

To Gnomon, I would have found that a reminder fo her nature and a reason to smile. But then, that is just me. She is gone, but who and what an ecclectic person she was, that is a memory and a smile.

(I don't babble well with this stuff)

Do Not Feed the Troll!! 3 pages of attention is not the way to go.

To follow on from posts 47, 48 and 49 ...

My Dad is just in the ground this past April (awaited spring thaws, etc). If I were to see pics of him, references to his taste for the whiskey, brandy and tobacco pipe as mournful things, ... I'd be quickly beginning to hide away. I remember him for his nature, vivacity, just so many things. As I do Terri and Pheloxi. Yes, each absence leaves a vacancy that is felt. But each also brings on a lot of warmth and good memories. I won't shut out reminders of them, any of the many, many friends come and gone

Ooops. mis-counted. Posts 46, 47 & 48?

Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks
a post mortem remembrance is a good thing.

But I have now decided that when I die I am
not going to tell any of you about it.


~jwf~

No I am not gonna tell ya.
No use in begging.
I can't hear you.
La-la-la-la-la-la.

~jwf~

Hows about disabling just one of the eyes until the issue is sorted?

Be like a knowing nod

People, you really are kind, so kind that it starting to hurt.

Ignoring the trolls would be the right thing to do, but it is difficult, that´s why I´m posting here.

They are resentful with the place, and the threads they open is to annoy, to be disruptive... because I find hard to believe that they are so heart broken with the memory of the dead people... It´s annoying really to read so much hypochresy, so much over-sugary stories of hypothetical sad grandmas, future legal problems with this place for showing the eyes of dead people...
All that sounds like a tragicomedy written by two wannabe artists. Pathetic.

The legal part of the story is brilliant. Questions asked in parliament? Equivalent to phone hacking? It's a farce par excellence.

Eyesgate?

Perhaps we should set up a commission of enquiry to get to the bottoms of this?

We could call eye-witnesses

Bah! Mountains out of molehills.


Some folk need to get a grip..

As heretical as it sounds, this is only a website on a transient medium. No doubt our dead friend's messages are echoing through the cyberlanes much as the Earth's TV and radio waves spreads out through space.It's a nice way for one presence on this plain of existence to be remembered, as just as good as any marble headstone.

This thread explains some of the questions I was asked earlier in the week. I really must reiterate, if it's tech feedback, bugs or requests, please post over in the tech feedback where I'm subscribed, and I believe that this has already been mentioned.

I've spent a lot of time looking at ways to fix this bug, and during the move even crashed the site a couple of times with patches.

The bug is due to an implementation of something that must have seemed like a good idea at the time. When you go to your homepage, a set of data is stored about you being online. This is then used to populate the who's online popup and the eyes. The problem is that it doesn't distinguish between you going to your homepage, and anyone going to your homepage. The code that handles this is precompiled and buried deep in the heart of DNA.

I'm afraid I can't just turn it off. And to re-lable it would also annoyingly not be easy. We tried to change it when we were moving and ended up breaking something else.

We're currently in the process of getting Barlesque up and running, and we can change the label there.

I have also recieved a few direct emails from people asking me not to fix this particular bug because they like the random reminder if friends they had.

This thread touches a general issue and so I am going to philosophise for a moment.

Bereavement is ultimately a personal experience and I cannot speculate how feel - I just trust what they tell me to be true. For me, I want to remember people that have died as they were in life as I don't think they should be defined by their death or my sense of loss.

So if I get reminded of someone who is dead, I try to remember them in life and this helps me be glad that I knew them and learnt from them and shared moments with them. If my memory of them makes me feel sad then I feel that is unfair on "them" and that my sadness stems from my own selfishness of wanting them back - thinking of my own want and not of there memory in life. However this is just a personal view and others may have different feelings on the matter.

Best wishes to all during the seasons festivities and good cheer to all for the new calendar year.