Last seen: 10 years ago

[Mashika]

Sorry to bring this up, but i don't know how to feel about it, it reminds me of some stuff but is not quite there

Sometimes, you find people on a forum and start reading their posts, and you think "this is such a cool, smart person, i'm going to send her a message" and then you go to their profile and it says "Last seen 4 years ago" and there's nothing you know or can figure out about it, the profile is still active but the person has not logged back in for years now. Is just like the person one day stopped coming back and just dropped from the internet/forum and it leaves you with a sad and off feeling,

Where is that person now? Why did they leave? Why just post one day and then never come back? Should i ask about it or maybe i'll overstep and end up asking something i should not?

Why does no one said anything on that person's profile page, about her not being around for years now? Maybe everyone knows something i don't. Can't lie that i wonder about all possible situations (including that one we don't like to talk about, yes) but it's a bit hard to ask about it

Somehow, it feels kind of a loss, like i missed an opportunity of meeting someone great and it matters in several ways, even if we didn't met ever it's a lose somehow, it bothers me because now there's no closure and i will never get to ask the questions i wish i could ask. Yes i'm self entitled like that by the way. But you already knew that. Now i'm mad lol

It's like now there's an empty space, it's all silence where that person used to be, a void of some sort. I know that feeling well, the emptiness of that energy once it has moved somewhere else and now you are left with the memories or the expectation of something that can't ever happen, and you are left only with your imagination and thinking of what 'could have been'

I don't know, being a human is very difficult and odd, i wish there was a youtube tutorial for that

/OddRant

[Isserley]

I can speak for myself. Over the years I've been on many forums/social platforms and it often came to some sort of saturation and the need to walk away without much explanation. Life is complicated and often takes people to different places away from their original interests. The Internet itself is such that it allows an individual to distance themselves without much explanation because such acquired acquaintances are often considered superficial and shallow.
Our ability to pay attention and the fact that we are overwhelmed with information simply does not allow much reflection.
It is a sad fact.
15 years ago when I started working I used to reply to each email with "thank you" .. that is no longer a case, it would be even absurd in those days, there is no time and nobody is expecting it.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Mashika (here)
Where is that person now? Why did they leave? Why just post one day and then never come back? Should i ask about it or maybe i'll overstep and end up asking something i should not?

Why does no one said anything on that person's profile page, about her not being around for years now? Maybe everyone knows something i don't. Can't lie that i wonder about all possible situations (including that one we don't like to talk about, yes) but it's a bit hard to ask about it

Yes, the mods think about this often. I think about it a lot.

It's all a side-effect of the strange (and very unnatural!) feeling of being connected to someone via social media who one's never met in person, lives on a different continent , and in extreme cases may not even be who they say they are. It's not like they're a neighbor where if they go quiet for a while, we can go knock on their door and see if everything's okay.

Online, people just disappear. We literally don't know if they're still alive or not. And it's likely that we may never know, so there's never any closure.

There's this thread:

• Acknowledging and honoring Avalon members who have passed

You rightly posted this under The Human Condition, and in the cases of those we faithfully remembered on that thread, quite often we only found out accidentally.

An example of that was when I happened to see, by pure chance, that much-loved member Mutchie had died under mysterious circumstances. And at other times, someone who was a family member had kindly taken the trouble to let us know that their relative (often a parent) had passed, asking that their account should please be closed.

My pure guess, knowing the human condition just a little, is that 10x as many members have passed as those whose relatives or friends had kindly let us know.

In other cases, people simply move on to more instant, fast-food forms of social media, like Twitter and Instagram. It's easier and quicker, though far more superficial, and one gets the dopamine hits a little faster.

My own very strong opinion is that Avalon is extremely valuable, as it's both a huge library and also a time capsule of all kinds of things that are important in our fast-changing world. Twitter and Facebook just aren't topic-searchable like that. Everything's designed to be instant: now, now, now. Yesterday ceases to exist, to a large degree. (Last year certainly does.)

But the rearguard battle that we're fighting is all about the fast-food thing. Many people have commented that few people read books any more. The extrapolation of that is that not that many people reads forum posts any more.

They're often just too long — seriously. I learned myself to keep paragraphs short, like this one. That way, they're more likely to actually be read.

Back to the topic of people disappearing, I don't know what the best solution may be. The mods have a private section called "contact details in case the internet goes down". That's also useful in those cases of people who live on their own (like yours truly ): if I suddenly seemed to disappear, maybe on a high mountain hike with my dog, at least a few folks would know who to contact to check up on me, or try to find me. It's a theoretical concern, living alone in a remote place.

But it's not a perfect solution, at all. Several mods have disappeared over the years. We never found out what had happened. Phone calls and emails went unanswered. No closure. And those people were our friends.



One paradox there is that there's the modern fear programmed into us all — which of course may be justified in some cases — of never giving away personal contact details online. But that's a double-edged sword. The mods have a record on the Avalon database of members' real names (or what they say are their real names! ), and their email addresses, at least when they registered maybe many years ago. (But NOT phone numbers, or postal addresses.)

That means that we could at least attempt to find "missing" people if we felt we really should swing into action to try.

But that's a huge amount of work for a very thin and often-not-there mods team. We're thinner in terms of active mods than we've ever been, often because of mods' personal and domestic issues, which many people have these days. That's a problem, too. So to embark on trying to find missing members is a huge task for a tiny handful of people. It'd be an idea to form a members' team to do that... but how is that possible without violating confidentiality?

The other thing that kind of shocks me a little — and this is where your post started, @Mashika — is that even I, and I take great care to know all members' real first names so I can address them personally by PM or email, can be unaware for quite a while that someone's not around any more. It's hard sometimes to notice an absence, like "seeing that someone's not there".

I started this post by saying that I often think about ALL of this. And again, it bothers me quite a lot.

[DNA]

I'm off the opinion that the mods should be talking to each other, and be okay with providing a phone number at least and also having at least one initial conversation with Bill before becoming a mod.
I think a mandatory but simple phone interview should be done with all potential moderators.

I also think a lot of these problems could be solved if Bill took Facebook just a little more seriously.
If folks on Avalon thought the real Bill Ryan was on Facebook it might serve as an alternate way to contact folks being as they are keeping up their Facebook page, especially in so far as looking up vanishing members.

Also...
Just throwing this out there.
Why not a weekly or bi -weekly Avalon video chat.
Bill could ask for participants and after deciding on a certain amount and then getting volunteers for that amount do the video chat and allow the other members to participate via text chat.
I think something like that could be really fun and help folks feel more connected.

Just a thought. 🤔

[Denise/Dizi]

Perhaps you could share the name of the member?

I have had some success merely asking, For example, Barry King disappeared for awhile... And I did ask if anyone knew where he went... He is back now, but it never hurts to ask?

[Wookie]

Case file: Wookie lurked on the forum for almost 10 years as a guest untill the disire to post a meme was just too strong, also i forgot the password of the email account that would allow me to retrive the password for the Wookie account.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Pi8f9g8-Wpc

Peaceful Journeys

[Mike]

I like that Avalon is a relatively small community with a family-type feel. I'd never want it to be overrun with a bunch of mostly anonymous hit n run posters or anything. We all know each other to some degree, which is wonderful on the one hand. But on the other too much familiarity can create a sense of staleness. I like to be surprised now and then, and I like to surprise.

I've been on Avalon for 10 plus years, so there's no way I can surprise or impress you guys anymore. You already know what I'm gonna say before I say it!

To stay vibrant and relevant, we not only need to keep current members active but we need new members. I don't think we need to play the social media game too aggressively, but maybe just enough to say, "hello folks, we're over here having a nice discussion if you'd like to join."

If we had a twitter account (do we have one?) and Bill maybe made 1 or 2 videos a month - small ones even, 5 or 10 mins in length, talking about world events, or David Paulides latest video, or whatever! - and we posted links to it there(and on FB), it might just get some attention! I think it would energize current members and draw some new ones.

My 2 cents anyway.

[onawah]

This may not work for everyone, but I have exchanged email addresses with a few members, and am Facebook friends with a couple.
So if I were to "disappear", at least those people would probably notice and would know something was up.
I suspect a lot of the disappearances are simply due to people moving on to their next lifetime.
And perhaps the relatively subtle kinds of connections we have here are not requiring a lot of fanfare about that, so the quiet exit is just the natural result...

[Ol' Roy]

If I go it will be "Go quietly into this good night"! Not only on Avalon but, also quietly at the end of life! No hoopla, no expensive funeral, no extension of life by mechanic means!

[onawah]

Hey Mike, I think you underestimate yourself.
It may not be obvious to you, but I think you have been growing and becoming a wiser and more discerning person over these 10 years, and I am still surprised and impressed by what you share here.
Just being persevering considering all we are up against is impressive!
You continue to make me laugh as well, and help me keep my sense of humor, which I probably appreciate most of all--laughter really is the best medicine in these dark times.
I do agree that attracting new members is a good idea, as long as they are well suited to Avalon.
Growth in membership seems to have come in unpredictable spurts, but I agree there may be some actual deliberate ways to attract more viable members if the right people put their heads together and make some concerted effort.
We should know by now what doesn't work, from painful experience! Hopefully it really is time for a new, more successful chapter in Avalon's ongoing saga, since more than ever the truth needs to see the light of day.

Posted by Mike (here)
I like that Avalon is a relatively small community with a family-type feel. I'd never want it to be overrun with a bunch of mostly anonymous hit n run posters or anything. We all know each other to some degree, which is wonderful on the one hand. But on the other too much familiarity can create a sense of staleness. I like to be surprised now and then, and I like to surprise.

I've been on Avalon for 10 plus years, so there's no way I can surprise or impress you guys anymore. You already know what I'm gonna say before I say it!

To stay vibrant and relevant, we not only need to keep current members active but we need new members. I don't think we need to play the social media game too aggressively, but maybe just enough to say, "hello folks, we're over here having a nice discussion if you'd like to join."

If we had a twitter account (do we have one?) and Bill maybe made 1 or 2 videos a month - small ones even, 5 or 10 mins in length, talking about world events, or David Paulides latest video, or whatever! - and we posted links to it there(and on FB), it might just get some attention! I think it would energize current members and draw some new ones.

My 2 cents anyway.

[Mashika]

Some years back, i had a terrible experience which i'm still not able to fully leave behind


Basically i had a friend who went to do a task and never returned, i sent her messages and then called and no response, then her phone was offline, then next day after a terrible night of having a feeling something was very wrong, which was very destructive, she never showed up again. It was found that she has passed that previous day at around 8 pm, around the time i was trying to call her was 9 pm or so, she had already passed one hour before but i did not know that and no one, even her family did


Ever since, and since i know the feeling of that, i at least try to have someone close to me that will notify people who may care, in case i can't come back some day. Because i found that for people that care it's most destructive not knowing about the fate of those you care for. I don't want anyone to suffer through that terrible moment, rather they know right away so there's closure and they can move on without the terrible doubt that keeps you up until the morning hoping to hear back. Sometimes there's never a message or call back, and no one will be able to say what happened? It's better to just say "She died, sorry" and that's it, then people can move on


But this is for people who care about the other person of course, some people may not even ever know and that's fine, i just don't feel it's right to leave every single person behind just out of nowhere, close friends don't deserve that, even if they are just 'online' friends


I don't know if you can read this post, in any case, thank you for expressing your feelings around this, and i know this message was not meant for me, but i wanted to also put my 2 cents, as Mike said

Posted by onawah (here)
Hey Mike, I think you underestimate yourself.
It may not be obvious to you, but I think you have been growing and becoming a wiser and more discerning person over these 10 years, and I am still surprised and impressed by what you share here.
Just being persevering considering all we are up against is impressive!
You continue to make me laugh as well, and help me keep my sense of humor, which I probably appreciate most of all--laughter really is the best medicine in these dark times.
I do agree that attracting new members is a good idea, as long as they are well suited to Avalon.
Growth in membership seems to have come in unpredictable spurts, but I agree there may be some actual deliberate ways to attract more viable members if the right people put their heads together and make some concerted effort.
We should know by now what doesn't work, from painful experience! Hopefully it really is time for a new, more successful chapter in Avalon's ongoing saga, since more than ever the truth needs to see the light of day.

Posted by Mike (here)
I like that Avalon is a relatively small community with a family-type feel. I'd never want it to be overrun with a bunch of mostly anonymous hit n run posters or anything. We all know each other to some degree, which is wonderful on the one hand. But on the other too much familiarity can create a sense of staleness. I like to be surprised now and then, and I like to surprise.

I've been on Avalon for 10 plus years, so there's no way I can surprise or impress you guys anymore. You already know what I'm gonna say before I say it!

To stay vibrant and relevant, we not only need to keep current members active but we need new members. I don't think we need to play the social media game too aggressively, but maybe just enough to say, "hello folks, we're over here having a nice discussion if you'd like to join."

If we had a twitter account (do we have one?) and Bill maybe made 1 or 2 videos a month - small ones even, 5 or 10 mins in length, talking about world events, or David Paulides latest video, or whatever! - and we posted links to it there(and on FB), it might just get some attention! I think it would energize current members and draw some new ones.

My 2 cents anyway.

[Matthew]

I follow the notifications of one (pariah) ex-member on github which makes me feel good because I liked them a lot and was not personally hurt by them (I put that down to luck). I have developed closer friendships with some members, one which transcends the forum. Those last logged in an age ago posts can be SO good. I just want to say hello to readers in the next age, and I hope you liked my generation's posts, but I recommend going back a few years

[Mike]

Posted by onawah (here)
Hey Mike, I think you underestimate yourself.
It may not be obvious to you, but I think you have been growing and becoming a wiser and more discerning person over these 10 years, and I am still surprised and impressed by what you share here.
Just being persevering considering all we are up against is impressive!
You continue to make me laugh as well, and help me keep my sense of humor, which I probably appreciate most of all--laughter really is the best medicine in these dark times.
I do agree that attracting new members is a good idea, as long as they are well suited to Avalon.
Growth in membership seems to have come in unpredictable spurts, but I agree there may be some actual deliberate ways to attract more viable members if the right people put their heads together and make some concerted effort.
We should know by now what doesn't work, from painful experience! Hopefully it really is time for a new, more successful chapter in Avalon's ongoing saga, since more than ever the truth needs to see the light of day.

Posted by Mike (here)
I like that Avalon is a relatively small community with a family-type feel. I'd never want it to be overrun with a bunch of mostly anonymous hit n run posters or anything. We all know each other to some degree, which is wonderful on the one hand. But on the other too much familiarity can create a sense of staleness. I like to be surprised now and then, and I like to surprise.

I've been on Avalon for 10 plus years, so there's no way I can surprise or impress you guys anymore. You already know what I'm gonna say before I say it!

To stay vibrant and relevant, we not only need to keep current members active but we need new members. I don't think we need to play the social media game too aggressively, but maybe just enough to say, "hello folks, we're over here having a nice discussion if you'd like to join."

If we had a twitter account (do we have one?) and Bill maybe made 1 or 2 videos a month - small ones even, 5 or 10 mins in length, talking about world events, or David Paulides latest video, or whatever! - and we posted links to it there(and on FB), it might just get some attention! I think it would energize current members and draw some new ones.

My 2 cents anyway.

Aw thanks Nat

I hope I've gotten a little wiser. I think we all have. The Avalon forum has been a hugely important place for me for all sorts of reasons. It's taught me to think and write. Long form forums like ours could be at least part of the antidote to the degradation of thinking and writing we see so much of today. Over time It's a great education, but you gotta stick with it, and fewer and fewer people want to put forth the effort.

If the ship ever goes down, I'll still be on it. But I don't want it to go down! Maybe I'm naive, but I still think long form forums like ours can not only survive but thrive. Trends are fickle, and tho social media is firmly entrenched and not going anywhere anytime soon, all it would take is a little momentum in the other direction for us to get a little attention. Im gonna write about Avalon over on medium and see if I can draw a little traffic over here.

[Mike]

Posted by Mashika (here)
Some years back, i had a terrible experience which i'm still not able to fully leave behind


Basically i had a friend who went to do a task and never returned, i sent her messages and then called and no response, then her phone was offline, then next day after a terrible night of having a feeling something was very wrong, which was very destructive, she never showed up again. It was found that she has passed that previous day at around 8 pm, around the time i was trying to call her was 9 pm or so, she had already passed one hour before but i did not know that and no one, even her family did


Ever since, and since i know the feeling of that, i at least try to have someone close to me that will notify people who may care, in case i can't come back some day. Because i found that for people that care it's most destructive not knowing about the fate of those you care for. I don't want anyone to suffer through that terrible moment, rather they know right away so there's closure and they can move on without the terrible doubt that keeps you up until the morning hoping to hear back. Sometimes there's never a message or call back, and no one will be able to say what happened? It's better to just say "She died, sorry" and that's it, then people can move on


But this is for people who care about the other person of course, some people may not even ever know and that's fine, i just don't feel it's right to leave every single person behind just out of nowhere, close friends don't deserve that, even if they are just 'online' friends


I don't know if you can read this post, in any case, thank you for expressing your feelings around this, and i know this message was not meant for me, but i wanted to also put my 2 cents, as Mike said

Posted by onawah (here)
Hey Mike, I think you underestimate yourself.
It may not be obvious to you, but I think you have been growing and becoming a wiser and more discerning person over these 10 years, and I am still surprised and impressed by what you share here.
Just being persevering considering all we are up against is impressive!
You continue to make me laugh as well, and help me keep my sense of humor, which I probably appreciate most of all--laughter really is the best medicine in these dark times.
I do agree that attracting new members is a good idea, as long as they are well suited to Avalon.
Growth in membership seems to have come in unpredictable spurts, but I agree there may be some actual deliberate ways to attract more viable members if the right people put their heads together and make some concerted effort.
We should know by now what doesn't work, from painful experience! Hopefully it really is time for a new, more successful chapter in Avalon's ongoing saga, since more than ever the truth needs to see the light of day.

Posted by Mike (here)
I like that Avalon is a relatively small community with a family-type feel. I'd never want it to be overrun with a bunch of mostly anonymous hit n run posters or anything. We all know each other to some degree, which is wonderful on the one hand. But on the other too much familiarity can create a sense of staleness. I like to be surprised now and then, and I like to surprise.

I've been on Avalon for 10 plus years, so there's no way I can surprise or impress you guys anymore. You already know what I'm gonna say before I say it!

To stay vibrant and relevant, we not only need to keep current members active but we need new members. I don't think we need to play the social media game too aggressively, but maybe just enough to say, "hello folks, we're over here having a nice discussion if you'd like to join."

If we had a twitter account (do we have one?) and Bill maybe made 1 or 2 videos a month - small ones even, 5 or 10 mins in length, talking about world events, or David Paulides latest video, or whatever! - and we posted links to it there(and on FB), it might just get some attention! I think it would energize current members and draw some new ones.

My 2 cents anyway.

Ugh, that was heartbreaking. Sorry Masha. I can't get the vision of that phone ringing out of my head..with no one there to answer anymore. That's so damn sad.

[onawah]

Good idea, Mike! Your fans on Medium might be good candidates for Avalon.

Posted by Mike (here)
Im gonna write about Avalon over on medium and see if I can draw a little traffic over here.

[Mashika]

Posted by Mike (here)
Ugh, that was heartbreaking. Sorry Masha. I can't get the vision of that phone ringing out of my head..with no one there to answer anymore. That's so damn sad.

Thanks, no worry, it's ok

As humans we all die, i do believe in living our lives with acceptance of it (build your life around the notion that yes you will die at some point, so don't think of "i have time, maybe later next year or 2 years from now" or "i'll tell this next time we see each other, it can wait") but also in avoiding hurting other people who care about us as much as possible once death happens

It's just a messy thing lol, one second you are alive, then you slip on the soap bar and then you are dead

Is not funny sometimes, but it's just natural. This may be odd but i care more about how people will feel about my death than about me dying, it's just like "welp", not like i could do anything about it, but i don't want people to feel sad or suffer for years not knowing what happened. It's always better to just simply learn about it and then let the soul heal a bit

It's a bit odd that feeling of the phone ringing and no one will ever answer it, or reply to the text messages. So many things unsaid, and plans cancelled and so on, but that's just how life&death works i suppose

It's like "I'll go to the store, will be back in 2 hours"... no you won't

[jaybee]

Posted by Ol' Roy (here)
If I go it will be "Go quietly into this good night"! Not only on Avalon but, also quietly at the end of life! No hoopla, no expensive funeral, no extension of life by mechanic means!

I'm in the process of deciding to have what is called in the UK as a Direct Cremation .... it costs lots less than the usual kind of funerals - you can pay for it yourself up front and when you die the whole thing is taken care of with a phone call from your next of kin or who ever.... they don't have to do anything and they just get your ashes about 3 - 4 weeks later .... (or not if you don't request it...)

In the folder that I've put together for when I pop my clogs with bits and bobs of info... will etc... I've made a couple of suggestions of what my daughter (or a friend) might like to arrange - very low key like a picnic under a tree at a place where I go a lot to walk my dog... but no one has to anything if they don't want to...

But anyway... re the topic at hand... even though I'm not what I consider to be a Big Character on the forum I think I'm going to take the liberty to add a page to my folder with a note to email Bill if/when I die ...

That is, of course, if we don't all go up in a puff of smoke (or down in a deluge) together due to war or natural disaster -

Sorry to end on that note but you never know ... do you

[Jim_Duyer]

People with big hearts and high intelligence are often less pushy as well. And thus sometimes they allow the madness that we are currently suffering under to overwhelm them, to the point that they only post when something is super good.

In their humble opinions, it has to be more dynamic than the everyday announcements of everything from the end of the world to the end of a country or otherwise they remain silent. But silence will not help us to climb out of this mess - good people caring, will. Just my two cents.

[JohanB]

For the Ozzies that starts 2023 in minutes “have a good one, mate”

As this “issue” frequently comes up in my mind I thought perhaps some of the “old” members that I really miss, still visit PA as guests, by name:

Hervè
Constance
Cidersomerset
Kiwi Elf
Noelle

Wish “you” were here to “educate” me as before.

To all the others, may 2023 be full of “pleasant” surprises for all of us.

Cheers from here in SA