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Grex > Coop7 > #106: Retiring the ID of someone who has died | |
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steve
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Retiring the ID of someone who has died
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Oct 1 07:58 UTC 1995 |
Should we think about retiring the logins of people who
have died, who were active users of the system?
I had originally thought so. We're having discussions
about this in several items, so I thought I'd make this one
and hopefully corral them here.
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| 326 responses total. |
adbarr
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response 1 of 326:
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Oct 1 10:30 UTC 1995 |
If the purpose is to honor the dead and preserve their memory, there
should be some other way to show respect. I'm not sure I totally
buy the "fetish" spin as suggested by rcurl elsewhere, but
generally I agree with his position. I would not establish
a policy of retiring login id's.
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iggy
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response 2 of 326:
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Oct 1 14:35 UTC 1995 |
you may get more of a response if this were linked to agora.
this is my first time in the coop conference..
anyway, i dont think that logins should be retired. i dont think
it would be fair. you cant retire EVERYONE who has died, so you'll
end up just retiring those who are judged popular enough. and
too bad for those who didnt make the grade. "sorry kid, you just
werent liked enough to be memorable."
when athletic jerseys are retired, dont they have them on display?
people can file past and gaze at the jersey, and see the photo
and stats of the wearer.
what will you do with a retired login? make a conference specifically
so users can wander through and pay homage to the retired logins?
it doesnt seem practical. you'd just retire it, and soon people will
forget. my vote would be to use it, so people will remember.
people will argue it will be "confusing" to see the same
login associated with a new user. confusing how? how could
the new id be mistaken for someone who is DEAD. i dont know any
user so dedicated to grex that they would login from the afterlife.
so again, no. i dont think logins should be retired.
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katie
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response 3 of 326:
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Oct 1 14:59 UTC 1995 |
Nope.
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srw
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response 4 of 326:
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Oct 1 16:11 UTC 1995 |
Nope.
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rcurl
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response 5 of 326:
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Oct 1 18:29 UTC 1995 |
I've had my say elsewhere (many!). I respect the motive, but think
there are more meaningful ways to show respect for friends that have
died, in addition to the invidious consequences of retiring logins.
If friends want to memorialize someone, I suggest they ask that a
cf be created for that purpose - "In Memory Of...". Then those that
knew that person can discuss their lost friend to their heart's content.
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lilmo
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response 6 of 326:
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Oct 1 18:47 UTC 1995 |
Or better yet, one cf for ALL of those items, not one cf for each memorial
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rcurl
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response 7 of 326:
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Oct 1 18:57 UTC 1995 |
You mean, your Loved Ones don't deserve a Memorial Conference, only a
Memorial Item?
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adbarr
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response 8 of 326:
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Oct 1 20:03 UTC 1995 |
Frankly, I would prefer my Loved Ones to get their own system.
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popcorn
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response 9 of 326:
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Oct 1 20:19 UTC 1995 |
After reading this item and the discussion of it in the agora announcements
item, I'm thinking it *does* make sense to retire login IDs of people who
died. Login IDs aren't exactly the same as names. Lots of people have the
same first name, but a specific login ID is supposed to identify a unique
individual. For example, lots of people are named "steve", but, of the
several Steves in the world named Steve Weiss, only one exact person has the
login ID "srw" on Grex. Other Steves have to take different names. It
isn't comparable to say that because several people can be named Steve,
it's OK for several people on Grex to have the same login ID over time.
Computer communication is missing a lot of other cues about which person
is which. If I see three Steves in a room, I can tell which is which
by looking at them. If srw moved to a telephoneless island in the south
pacific, gave up his ID, and someone else started using it, that new srw
on-line would "look" *exactly* like the old srw: the other cues that are
present in pesron, such as physical appearance, aren't there on the
computer. Once upon a time in a galaxy far away, I had a very hard time
convincing people on-line that I was a *different* trillian than the
previous person who they'd known by the login ID trillian. I don't think
it's fair to the new user to leave a familiar login ID available to
accidentally stumble onto. I could see retiring login IDs for frequent
well-known users who go away, not just for ones who die. There's a huge
number of possible login IDs; reserving a few isn't going to create any
great hardship.
(Technically, it's *very* easy to reserve a login ID. A staffer needs to
add a line to Grex's list of mail aliases, saying to forward the user's
mail to /dev/null, and then newuser won't let anybody take that ID.)
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lilmo
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response 10 of 326:
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Oct 1 21:18 UTC 1995 |
I know what pocorn means about having difficulty with "taking over" a familiar
id... I got on a MUD as Lilmo, and had some difficulty b/c I had to
continually tell others, "No, I am not Limo, I am Lilmo." Not exactly the
same problem, but much the same difficulties. (A bit less so, I imagine,
since Limo was actually on-line; a very nice lady, in fact.)
Even if only alphanumeric chars are permitted, that's 36^8 + 36^7 + 36^6 ...
+36 possible id's. by my estimate, a VERYvery large number.
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adbarr
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response 11 of 326:
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Oct 1 22:09 UTC 1995 |
Ok. Lets just use our social security numbers. Helps the cops.
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davel
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response 12 of 326:
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Oct 2 01:09 UTC 1995 |
Why limit it to people who have died, Valerie? If longtime users let their
logins lapse, should we reserve *those* automatically? I can't see any
difference. I don't think we need any kind of rule prohibiting any reuse of
user names.
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ajax
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response 13 of 326:
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Oct 2 02:10 UTC 1995 |
I see a diff: dead people *can't* renew their logins if they care; longtime
users usually can. I don't see the popularity issue being a biggie - we
don't know about everyone who dies, but an easy rule would be "anyone we
know has died, retire their id." or perhaps "anyone who died and someone
requests their id retired, we retire their id."
I don't have a strong opin, but it seems like a simple enough respect-for-
the-deceased gesture that may provide a bit of comfort to grievers. Only
non-simple part is verifying deaths and such.
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scg
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response 14 of 326:
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Oct 2 03:06 UTC 1995 |
If we're doing this to prevent confusion, I would be far more likely to
confuse somebody with someone I knew was alive than with someone I knew was
dead.
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steve
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response 15 of 326:
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Oct 2 03:21 UTC 1995 |
I can see both sides of this so well.
Rane's comments are really good. He's certainly right; we're
all going to die at some point; if Grex stays around for another
35 years (certainly a possibility, I think), we'll have an ever
inceasing numebr of people who have simply died from old age.
Computers in general are still new enough that many of the
original generation of software/hardware people are still around
today. We as a whole just don't have the history of other things
yet. The conecpt of Cyberspace is even younger, at about 25 years
old if we want to go back to the IMP days of what is now the net.
Back when I was the cheif root ("Social Director", I think I
was called) on M-Net, a woman by the name of Kelly Troldahl died
(Feburary 1990). Out of respect for her, and her husband who
was still a user there, we reserved "kel" in /etc/passwd; just
about everyone thought that was a good idea. At the time, I
thought it was a good thing to do, and still do now. What M-Net
is doing about this these days, or whether "kel" is still reserved
I cannot say.
Thats why I said somewhere in Agora that I thought we'd (staff)
made a boo boo in not reserving mlady--I was thinking back to the
one time I'd done that before. Yet, Rane's comments are with me
now, and they do make a lot of sense. I see exactly what Valerie
and Rob are saying. I'm in this odd position of agreeing with
two opposite thoughts.
It doesn't happen very often however, people dying on systems
like this, at least now. Given the fact that this is the first
time this has happened on Grex in its 4.2 year history, would it
be so improper to reserve ID's whose owner has died? I admit
that this is somewhat akin to pushing the problem off into the
future, becuase if Grex is going to be around in 35 years hence
with 40+ year vetrans on it, we'll have to do something at that
point.
Would it hurt us to do this, at least for now?
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lilmo
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response 16 of 326:
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Oct 2 04:33 UTC 1995 |
Again, the likely number of times this will occur simply will NOT put a dent
in the number of login id's available, even if Grex continues in its current
form for another century.
Yes, famous people are honored by having children named after them, and I'm
sure that there are ppl who have named themSELVES after Elvis, but it is
unlikely that any new user would be ABLE to purposely name him/herself after
a well-known Grexer.
I am in favor of retiring id's of users if there is a request for it, on a
case by case basis.
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scg
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response 17 of 326:
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Oct 2 05:50 UTC 1995 |
The more I think about this, the more confused I become about what the right
thing to do here is. Certainly we should not take this login away from the
current mlady, since she's gotten it and it would be unfair to make her switch
logins now. That aside, I can certainly see the value of reserving a name
to prevent confusion, but I wonder how somebody being dead makes it more
confusing than if somebody is still alive, and there is a possibility of them
returning at some point, for somebody else to have the same name.
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rcurl
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response 18 of 326:
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Oct 2 06:47 UTC 1995 |
There are probably many, if not hundreds, of srw's and scg's on line
somewhere in the world right now. Is Grex so insular that the only srw or
scg we can ever recognize are the one's using grex at this moment?
I think that the new mlady that has arrived has a right to use a login id
that I would think she uses elsewhere, if it will otherwise not be
actively used.
Another incidental fact: I had not heard of the prior mlady until she
died. She had not been an active participant in the life of Grex, by
contributing in coop. Even if she had, I don't think that the login id
should be made a fetish, when she died, but this case does not appear to
me to be the proper test case of whether any user should or should not
have their longin id deep-sixed if they died. I'd prefer to be discussing
the issue about a founder (or major contributor 8-}), (and I am not in a
hurry to do that). When that does eventuate, though, I'd prefer to have
the decision made by a vote, and not on the basis of the sentimentality of
a few users.
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scg
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response 19 of 326:
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Oct 2 07:01 UTC 1995 |
So nothing on Grx counts for anything except participating in Coop?
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ajax
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response 20 of 326:
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Oct 2 14:04 UTC 1995 |
Rane probably meant "in the administration/planning of Grex." mlady was
certainly an active participant in other areas of Grex. I think lilmo's
case-by-case idea is reasonable, given the frequency of occurrence. As
for this case, since there's a new mlady, I'd explain the situation to
her, and see if she'd be willing to switch to a variant; if not, hmmm; I
guess I'd say let it slide.
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rcurl
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response 21 of 326:
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Oct 2 16:32 UTC 1995 |
I thought someone would take my remarks as scg did. I will admit that I
consider those that actively participate in the issues that concern the
existence, philosophy, management, growth and health of Grex, to be more
part of the organization, than those that do not. If Grex is going to
officially memorialize someone (which I hope it never will - its not
supposed to be a graveyard, although by the activity in some cfs....), I
would prefer it be those that have made significant contributions to the
existence and development of the greater community.
I will observe, in that regard, there also exist communities within the
greater Grex community, that largely keep to themselves. I have no
problems with that fact, and indeed if *they* want to memorialize a
deceased member of themselves, that's up to them. The greater Grex
community should not, IMO, either interfere or participate, in order to be
fair to all.
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selena
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response 22 of 326:
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Oct 2 18:15 UTC 1995 |
Grex is a form of life. Part of life is death. If we don't find
some way to memorialize our dead, we will be a new, and IMO poorer, culture:
one with no respect for the deceased.
Listen carefully to what I am about to say- I won't scream, I won't
yell, or pul any of the crap that you guys have gotten so used to from me.
But, please listen.. I feel as deeply, if not deeper about this than anything
I have ever screamed for..
Mlady was someone we knew had died.
Many people loved her.
She was as much a part of grex as any of you. She lived in Seattle,
so who are we to say she didn't want to help out with the running of
grex? She may have simply not felt it right to interfere in the
running of something that was totally out of range to her, in real life.
This does not happen frequently.
This does not require a committee all its' own.
It simply asks that, when we know someone has passed from us,
that we do the honor of giving them a proper burial. In cyberspace,
the only way that this can be done is to take out the login. logins
are different than real names. On here, we have both. Valerie is not
just valerie to me- she's popcorn.. and the only one who, on here,
can hold that name for me. I know plenty of other Valeries.. most of them
from on here.. but there's just one popcorn.
What if steve <login> died? Woludn't it be ghoulish to just throw
the login away, and let someone else pick it up? It feels like the
online equivilent to letting a body of a loved one get posessed and
re-animated, because we thought that burial was wrong.
That's what the login is like- the physical body you and I
have. There may be more than one Selena on earth, but no one looks
exactly like me.. there may be *tons* of steves.. but, scg, who looks
like you? How about you, steve? This may sound very aesthetic, but we are
not the cold, calculating machines that we use to communicate..
so we should not feel it wrong to respond to what some might call
irrationality with action.
Especially when the action is so little.
If someone wanted to be have the login "selena" after I'd left, and
assuming I asked to be taken off the immortals list, then that is
my doing. If I died however..
<Selena looks very sad, and softly types in the next few lines:>
I, Selena Anne Barwens, being of sound mind and body, do hereby
decree that in the occurrance of my demise, I should like to have the
login I use at the online
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selena
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response 23 of 326:
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Oct 2 18:18 UTC 1995 |
(continued) service known as grex.cyberspace.org preserved,
so that the ones I love will not suffer from it's recurrance, and the
ones who do not care for me will not needlessly harass anyone
who would accidentally take the login.
I do this, this Monday, October 2nd, 1995
SIGNED Selena A. Barwens
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selena
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response 24 of 326:
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Oct 2 18:19 UTC 1995 |
Now, how can we, calling ourselves human, not respect these wishes?
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