Dying online: the rest is silence · 8:33pm May 18th, 2018
Turns out the site has a superdelete function.
I was told there had been a request made to take down the account. And I thought that was going to mean the usual strikeout mark through the name on the userpage, plus a permanent block against logging in. I was wrong, and I was wrong by magnitudes.
The userpage? It's gone. In fact, the PMs I was sent? Also gone. The replies I sent back? Wiped. At a guess, if I went through every place where this person had once left a comment -- and I believe there was at least one on an earlier blog -- I'd find a blank line. Everything this person ever did on the site has been erased, as was anything connected to them.
So you know all the times I've asked for a Delete My Own Account button? It exists. I'm just not allowed to press it.
Slightly offended by that.
I'm tempted to give out the name now. (The site ID, not the real name -- not that I have all of that.) After all, the site's rules only apply to talking directly about site members, and this person isn't one any more. The electronic traces are vanishing, and so creating new ones in neurochemical memory...
...but I don't even know if that's the right thing to do. If someone truly wants to be ghosted... well, there are enough cultures which would be horrified if a dying person's last wish wasn't honored. The temptation is there, though. And I may not be the only one who's feeling it: I don't seem to have been the sole person contacted.
Ultimately, I just feel... a little hollow right now. Tired. Emptied out, and some of that is due to expended effort.
In the first blog post about this, I mentioned that I was once online for someone's broadcast suicide attempt. That was stopped. And on the deep levels, I know this is just an account deletion. The person tied to it still exists, at least for a little while longer. But still...
I tried to talk them out of this. I failed.
One for two.
ETA: So I just logged onto the site's chat server and found a message. I'm quoting the relevant section.
If you want to write a blog and publicly disclose my old profile name, go for it. I, formerly using the handle of 'princeps' on FiMfiction, do hereby give my full permission for anything you, Estee, might want to do or to say except disclose my Discord handle. In fact, if you choose to write that blog, feel free to send a screenshot of this message to any moderators who might 'give you grief'.
I've saved a copy of the full page.
So there you go. Now we at least all know who we've been talking about.
Wow.
That's honestly disturbing. Going back and really just removing all traces of this person so it's as if they never even existed here. Did they ask for this or was this something a mod just decided to do? Who would want that?
I was just about to go back and comment on the first blog when you posted this one. I didn't know what to say so I was sitting on it for a while. I still don't have anything good or helpful to say, since I've never been in the place of trying to talk someone out of suicide. I can only say that I would probably feel the same. Especially after you did manage to help save one before. Guilt from not being able to pull off a miracle twice.
In the end, this person is gonna do whatever they end up doing no matter what any others say. Just know you did everything you could from your remote position. That's not a failure.
4863592
Direct request, probably to Knighty. I just wasn't aware it was possible to take it this far. The most I've ever witnessed on the site before this was a permaban, and that left everything created standing.
4863598
Sheesh. Well at least it's by request. It's really depressing though. I'm sure there were people out there who gained something from their comments or PMs and now they don't even get to keep their own records of past conversations or anything. I would say it's unfair, but if they want to be erased so badly it's not really my place to.
Damn, thats crude of the dingbat to do such. You posted a thoughtful, meaningful, and honestly well composed series of thoughts, just to have one vidiot drop a snickers bar on the whole thing.
I'm sorry, but i'll stand by what I posted there. Silence hurts, when its an inner one. And I still thank you for what you wrote, what you had done, and the fact you were willing to do this, to help and aid. As a good individual. As a caring individual. Thank you.
4863604
{dark}At least the first blog is still up.{/dark} Losing the PMs... well, I can argue against having a well-composed series of thoughts because nothing worked, but I'm slightly downcast at having my replies removed. But I don't think that was done as a deliberate move: it's probably a piece of code which just removes anything with that user's name in the address -- coming or going.
4863603
And there's definitely an argument to be made for leaving those in place, especially when it comes to removing someone else's words -- but by definition, a universal delete isn't going to have exceptions.
Background Pony.
Well, as long as we're all depressed, behold an abomination birthed by purest darkness and released to corrupt all which is still good in the world.
Also known as the Thundercats 2019 intro sequence.
4863606
True. At least in the future you can screencap the PMs for yourself if you think they could end up removed.
4863617
I just saw that, and well, there goes a bit of childhood that I just wont be able to forget about.
4863579
4863592
4863614
4863628
Just made a very major edit to the blog post and wanted those who've already commented to see it.
Sounds like Knighty can comply with the Right to be Forgotten laws in the EU if requested.
4863630
Thank you for letting us know. I've seen the name around a bit, but I never knew them that well. I'm glad they felt ok giving out the information, at least.
4863630
I definitely appreciate the heads up on this, thank you again.
My relationship with princeps has been... fraught. Friendly, but fraught. I first met him when he signed up for the contest I ran last March. We've pretty much had an ongoing PM discussion since then. I haven't been the best friend to him; I once tore apart one of his stories for flaws that existed largely in my own head and shoved his face in the entrails, and I've been trying to make up for it since. He's disclosed personal details to me that I am tremendously honored and humbled to be trusted with. His story ideas were brilliant and beautiful in their intricacy and complexity. We were actually discussing a possible story I'd write in his setting, hashing out how to make it compatible with the setting, even as he kept some details close to his vest, along with trying to figure out how to address the flaws that actually were present in his stories.
Then that last PM arrived. He thanked me for what he felt was unearned kindness. I've yet to get him to accept that he's not a terrible person. I'm going to keep trying. After all, I still have that Sunday RPG.
I find myself trying to figure out if there's anything more I could've done. How responsible I am for this. I should've been more direct when warning him about unpublishing stories and starting over from scratch. I've seen it before. It's the kiss of death for a fan author. I should've been faster when responding to his PMs, stop putting it off and making him think he'd upset me. I should've...
I don't know. At least I brought him some happiness, and I've been able to make him laugh out loud in the game sessions so far. I am upset with him pulling the plug on everything the way he did. I can't not be a little angry with a content creator I enjoy when they do something like this. But I still can't help but feel I could have averted this.
Estee, I know you've looked for that Delete Account button in the past, but if for some reason you do decide to follow in princeps's footsteps, please give us all some warning first.
4863617
& I thought that the Teen Titans reboot was lame. Well, someone made Santa's Naughty List
Reminds me of an old Harlan Ellison comment (PG version) "Hollywood needs an extra credit line. In addition to "Written by", "Produced by" etc. they need "Concept screwed over by"
Huuuuh dang...
I debated about answering your earlier post until I saw this one. Glad I held off until now.
This situation reminds me of several movies I've seen where one person is dangling off a cliff, facing certain doom, and is slipping. Another character holds out his/her hand and begs the first person to take it -- only for the one in peril to slap it away.
Estee, you've done all you can. Don't torture yourself because this other person didn't take your hand.
Also, joke's on them. Once it's on the Internet, it lives forever.
I'm honestly shocked this happened. I mean, maybe I'm just used to other websites where account deletion policy is "We don't do that" and users are left to take down their own stuff if that's what they want to happen. I mean, if you look at comments on really old stories, you'll often find the earliest ones belong to dead accounts. You know, greyscale pone head avatar, blank nameplate? But I didn't think they'd go and do it. c.c
I know it won't be much help, but all I can say is, this is what he wanted, it's not any of our fault (@ 4863649 ), all you can do is try and not let it bother you. But I know how that goes. :/
4863617
HOLY FUCK
Is this what it's like to be a Teen Titans fan when TTG comes out? ;_; Because fuck's sake, the anime was so goddamn good, and instead of give us another season to an actually good show, they're going to do this? D: Corporations need to be stopped.
4863678
Eh... this version of Thundercats doesn't seem as bad as Teen Titans Go because it at least it seems to have its own soul. Teen Titans Go tried to steal the soul of Teen Titans, then proceeded to try and take from every trope in Humor and Parody that was and end up the cartoon equivalent of a Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer project.
Um, perma delete?
So what happens when Facebook screws up and not only accidentally activated death to data on the given account but automatically follows all the linked accounts, marking all backup links, and then through affiliate and third party?
Trumps Twitte nearly nuked half the net. This thing will shut it down irevocably. Because in order t comply with the law, there cant be a recovery option, which means it has to fail in totality?
4863649
At this point, I'm just hoping he shows up for your game session tomorrow. And my guess is that you hold about the same amount of responsibility for his decision as I do: realistically, it's just about none -- but try telling that to the guilt.
(I felt he might have contacted you because he'd mentioned you in one of the PMs. (For obvious reasons, I can't check his wording.) I didn't realize there was quite that much going on.)
Good luck.
4863678
Oh, now he gets it...
Would you like to see the (re)creators trying to explain some of their choices? Because that will make things so much worse.
4863617
that is SO MUCH WORSE than I'd heard. I thought the artstyle complaints were exaggerating... But... yeah. that's drawn in the OK K.O.! artstyle.
I wouldn't have high hopes anyway. this new series is either going to go the route of TTG! and be driven into the ground, or it'll be TTG! does Thundercats.
either way... I still can't believe we live in a world where THIS happened. 78.media.tumblr.com/37f5e109fc8172dd70d116c5516273e8/tumblr_p13hcu9uQ01w60vv7o1_1280.png
TL;DR? All that yellow is Teen Titans GO! Episodes. they literally aired TTG! episodes back to back 06;00 to 20:00 every day for a week, except a half-hour break to run two new episodes of Steven Universe on Thorsday. They had to REPEAT episodes of TTG! to fill the whole week. Some episodes ran THREE TIMES. People who complain about TTG! aren't always just salty about losing the original Teen Titans. Sometimes they just hate that CN loves it so much they let it strangle everything else.