11 ms·

GitHub Deceased User Policy

• dannyw 6y ago
  GitHub/Microsoft is really setting themselves up to be a customer-centric (different to user-centric!) tech platform. If you try doing this process with Google, you are given a canned form and you'll probably (not) hear back from a robot.
  • wdb 6y ago
    Yes, even LinkedIn is problematic. My dad is still listed on LinkedIn and Google while he passed away few years ago. Total silence from both, even when sending the death certificate.
  • modeless 6y ago
    Google has Inactive Account Manager, a dead man's switch for your account: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en
    • monadic3 6y ago
      Their activity detection does not inspire confidence. Google is an incredibly bad proxy for user activity. Edit: downvoted but no substantive responses? Guidelines are for thee but not for mee, I guess.
      • freddie_mercury 6y ago
        a) The guidelines don't say anything about needing to give a substantive response instead of downvoting. b) The guidelines do say not to complain about voting. c) Both the creator of HN and its moderators have repeatedly said that downvoting for disagreement is perfectly fine. "Downvoting has always been used to express disagreement." Paul Graham, February 16, 2008. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16131314
        • DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
          off topic, and it makes for boring conversation. but: > "Downvoting has always been used to express disagreement." Paul Graham, February 16, 2008. this is something that bothered me for years. I know this is how people behave, that the workflow allows and enables it, and the culture we've built around our tools enforces that. When I watch my own feelings before downvoting it isn't my rational self but my petty lizard-brain which does this. It feels good for 1 second before I feel small and petty. Often it bothers me that I did it and I return to the button 3 minutes later undoing the downvote for a neutral no-vote. Who is served by the downvote? Is it the downvoter who feels upset another person disagreeing and now able to vent? Or the downvotee who can use the experience to learn what language to avoid? Or is it only the platform provider that benefits? If it's only the platform it seems like a very blunt and rudimentary tool IMHO. Perhaps a downvote is still less inflammatory for discourse than an angry reply and so a compromise? Regardless it's still lizard-brained and impulsive every time I use it and the more I think about it the more I'm puzzled that this is form of behavior modification is all we have after so many years on the Web. The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that sharing these thoughts are actually well thought-through "opinions" when in reality it's just "thinking out loud" or "reactions to other people thinking out loud". It's not like writing a letter, diary or journal. The Tech moves fast but our social collective behavior takes millenia to adjust and cope. Anyway I wish there was a switch that allowed me to hide the downvote button, and if I wanted to enable it, then it could only be done by a forced delay of X hours into the future when activated. I'd like to eliminate downvoting as a behavior in myself in 2021 - not for others sake but for my own inner peace. And also because none of it matters really.
          • sokoloff 6y ago
            Edit: I took a quick look at this at it's even easier than that. You can do it with just stylus/Stylish. @-moz-document domain("news.ycombinator.com") { [title=downvote] { display: none } } As a personal experiment, I'm going to leave this enabled for myself and see how long before I find the urge to downvote some comment. :D Original: You could hide the button with TamperMonkey pretty easily (send an email if you genuinely want to, looked at it, and couldn’t figure it out, and I’ll try to help) Then, the “only after reflection” I’d implement by forcing myself to use another browser or toggling the element title or the extension. I don’t downvote very often (probably 20:1 up to down vote ratio), but I do know that some of mine are still lizard brain.
      • medecau 6y ago
        > Their activity detection does not inspire confidence. Google is an incredibly bad proxy for user activity. I mostly agree with you on Google but your post has no substance either.
      • WolfRazu 6y ago
        I mean, if you use Gmail for instance it's incredibly likely I'll be dead when I stop checking my email for a year.
      • pc86 6y ago
        Where in the guidelines does it say you must provide a comment if you're going to downvote? I've just read them twice and don't see it. In fact, the only thing I see relevant to your comment is: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
    • Diederich 6y ago
      Thanks, I wasn't aware of this service, even though I've been a pretty heavy Google services user for (looks it up)...holy crap, almost 17 years now.
  • zxcvbn4038 6y ago
    I think you are giving them too much credit - Microsoft won’t talk to anyone who isn’t a partner and GitHub tends to just be silent on anything they can’t cut and paste an answer to. It’s more an issue that mumbling on about your algorithm and submitting support tickets while bereaved kin desperately seek access to a loved one’s account is just incredibly bad PR and always makes the front page - and nobody wants the job of dealing with that.
    • Closi 6y ago
      Microsoft will definitely speak to people who aren’t partners - I work for a small business (12 people) and the two times I have had to go to Microsoft for support on 365 they have been incredibly helpful.
      • modo_mario 6y ago
        That's support you pay for tho. We also were surprised when i worked at a 9 person company to get someone from google on the line too when we were considering using google maps api for a project. Support which wasn't payed for but which I assumes comes from the expectation that we might become a paying customer.
        • tinus_hn 6y ago
          The other side is that with some companies you can’t even pay for support if you wanted. I’m looking at you, Google.
        • matkoniecz 6y ago
          Good luck with getting to Google support if you are paying customer. "Terraria canceled on Stadia after developer gets locked out of his Google accounts" is just recent example
    • coderintherye 6y ago
      Have to agree with the other commenter here. I'm not a big Microsoft fan, but for organizations who use them that I've helped, I found it relatively straight-forward to get through and talk to someone at Microsoft when needed.
  • szszrk 6y ago
    On my local market it's the reason Google cloud adoption among medium to large companies and institutions is laughably low. Microsoft's support exists, it's a real argument towards them.
  • vgalin 6y ago
    It may depend on the services. A few years ago I lost an old email account, a hotmail one, because it was flagged for being potentially compromised. An account flagged as so has its password wiped and you have to reset it by following a link that is sent to your recovery email address. Somehow, and I don't know how my 10yo-self managed to do this, but the account's mail and the recovery mail were the same, so I wasn't able to recover my account this way. The only alternative was to fill up a form with your full name, date of birth (probably lied about it at this time), passwords you may have used for this account, people to whom I had sent emails (I only used it to register to websites)... I have never been able to do a "perfect score" to this test monitored only by robots. Now my account, from what I've read online, is probably disabled forever due to a 2 years inactivity.
• vbsteven 6y ago
  It’s nice that they built something into the service but I think can this problem can be solved independent of the service. One of my weekend project ideas is a small deadman-switch service that pings you every X days to press a button, if it hasn’t heard from you in Y days it sends a private key encrypted file and some instructions. Think onetimesecret with a button and a timer.
  • toomuchtodo 6y ago
    https://www.deadmansswitch.net/ https://www.deadmansswitch.net/ Built by /user?id=StravosK
    • RogantisAgat 6y ago
      Now the question is: What happens to the DeadMansSwitch service if something were to happen to its maker? It's like we need to form mini multi-generational cults to keep human services like that going for as long as humans keep going until the point they stop.
      • bastawhiz 6y ago
        Uhhh...you mean like, a company?
        • jtms 6y ago
          Yeah, but multi-generational cult sounds way cooler
      • mhh__ 6y ago
        The research people have been doing into conveying the dangers of nuclear dumps to potentially primitive future peoples is quite fascinating.
        • PebblesRox 6y ago
          Agreed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warning_messages https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warn...
• ktross 6y ago
  I lost my fiancée to cancer a few years ago, and this just reminded me that I suggested she create a GitHub account years ago. I didn't know she had used it, but this post prompted me to check, and it turns out she created some (good) issues on a few Minecraft/CraftBukkit projects. It's great to see companies dedicating resources to putting these policies in place. It can make a huge difference while someone is going through the most difficult time in their life.
  • divtiwari 6y ago
    Sad to hear about your fiancee. Good that this helps in keeping her alive in your memories.
  • devwastaken 6y ago
    Speaking of bukkit, bukkit based minecraft servers are still cool. There's a new one called Paper that's been working out well for my small group.
    • teekert 6y ago
      +1 for Paper, also works well with GeyserMC [0] so your Bedrock friends can join. BTW, the GeyserMC community is really great, top notch support via Discord with a fancy integrated bot and automated builds that you can just drop into you plugins folder. I use this Docker image with Docker-compose: [1] [0] https://geysermc.org/ https://geysermc.org/ [1] https://github.com/itzg/docker-minecraft-server https://github.com/itzg/docker-minecraft-server
      • andrewzah 6y ago
        One thing to note is that paper breaks technical redstone builds. For redstone parity, Fabric [0] is what we use, along with Phosphor + Lithium + Carpet. [0]: https://fabricmc.net/ https://fabricmc.net/
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • 6y ago
• dazhbog 6y ago
  I was thinking the other day that I would like to open-source all my random projects or startup files if I die but I couldn't think of a good way to do it. I guess maybe a private repo with instructions could do, but it requires a technical person in the family or friends to check it if/when GH gives them access. The way that Facebook does it with their memorial service is not bad. You can set what happens with the account and repos if a death cert is received.
  • galkk 6y ago
    As an option you can do dead man switch + some automation. Once per month script sends you an email with link. If you don't click the link in 1-2 months, script opens everything. Of course, that won't handle corner cases like jail or coma, but should work for most everyday scenarios.
    • ssijak 6y ago
      I am building such service, will release it in 2 weeks. It would check on you by email or sms in periods you define and if the trigger is met (eg you did not reply in X days/hours) it would send your predefined messages or webhooks or zapps or...
      • galkk 6y ago
        I think most complex part there is testing it from receiver's side.
      • isabelc 6y ago
        Do you have a link to this? I would be interested in checking it out.
  • rlayton2 6y ago
    I have a document outlining to my (non-technical) wife where all the secret keys can be found, and some suggestions on friends to contact for help using them.
  • deleted 6y ago
• wereHamster 6y ago
  Can I only have one successor?
  • anticensor 6y ago
    If you have multiple heirs, the oldest one is supposed to be entitled as this is an unsplittable item.
    • wereHamster 6y ago
      Sure, but what if I put someone as an successor and they pass away before me? Wouldn't it be useful to have at least a (prioritised) list? If the first one becomes unavailable (deletes GitHub account, passes away etc) then I could at least be notified by GitHub that I need to update that list.
    • acheron 6y ago
      If you have gavelkind succession then each of your repos goes to a different heir.
  • freebuju 6y ago
    Yes. Just sign up your SO as the designated survivor :)
• tedivm 6y ago
  Everyone is acting like this is a great policy, except even if you specify a successor it only lets them transfer public repositories.
• joseluisq 6y ago
  The website is not reachable anymore looks like. For me it just keeps loading. > Error 503 first byte timeout > first byte timeout > Guru Mediation: > Details: cache-hhn11525-HHN 1613548903 1064572670 > Varnish cache server
  • smilespray 6y ago
    It has deceased.
    • joseluisq 6y ago
      fn main() { println!("{}", "GitHub Deceased User Policy has deceased.\n".repeat(2021)); } Edit for the downvoters: - https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&edition=2018&gist=9979b95e1f4cb81e75a0dc72aff0c221 https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&editio... - https://gist.github.com/rust-play/9979b95e1f4cb81e75a0dc72aff0c221 https://gist.github.com/rust-play/9979b95e1f4cb81e75a0dc72af...
    • tinus_hn 6y ago
      Pining for the fjords
  • Sebguer 6y ago
    Their entire docs site is down, yep.
    • andrewinardeer 6y ago
      https://www.githubstatus.com/incidents/yxpgm9766lp0 https://www.githubstatus.com/incidents/yxpgm9766lp0
• andrewinardeer 6y ago
  What have we done? https://www.githubstatus.com/incidents/yxpgm9766lp0 https://www.githubstatus.com/incidents/yxpgm9766lp0
• legec 6y ago
  So, on top of financial debt, you can also transfer technical debt to your successors ?
  • exo762 6y ago
    Immortality (in minds of pissed off relatives), here I come!
    • prepend 6y ago
      They say that every man has two deaths. The first when they breathe for the last time. The second when their name is screamed out and cursed at for the last time.
      • reasonabl_human 6y ago
        *the second when their last bug in production code is squashed
        • sellyme 6y ago
          Sweet, I'm going to be immortal.
• carlsborg 6y ago
  It’s possible and likely that next of kin has no idea what to do with a GitHub account. Would be better to add a deceased.txt or a text box in settings somewhere.
• sn41 6y ago
  This is great, it will be great if tech companies can also start working with the government systems which recognize the legal heirs as well. In the case of GitHub it may not be so pertinent, but with email ids etc. where bank account details and OTPs are sent to, it may be important for email providers to recognize real world legal entities and work with the usual estate management legislations.
  • mytailorisrich 6y ago
    This is not a new problem. This happens all the time when someone dies: Executors must put the deceased' affairs in order and contact all the companies the deceased had business with. It's just that tech companies tend to think that this does not apply to them and that they don't need to be able to deal with actual mail or this sort of process. Github's policy is simply how things ought to be (and credit to them for doing it). People find it so great simply because the industry is so appallingly bad.
• sverhagen 6y ago
  It's thoughtful they have a policy at all. I'm sure, at their scale, this happens all the time. I just can't stop wondering how much of a vector for abuse this is? Ie. hostile takeovers of accounts. Yeah, I get it, they probably have some checks in place, but I imagine the legalities are very different per jurisdiction, and people gonna find loopholes. No?
• mst 6y ago
  If one of your friends is a freenode user and comes down with a slight case of death, please contact the freenode staff via chat.freenode.net #freenode and their account will be memorialised. (I had to do one of these a few days ago and it's sadly not the first) A lot of providers will be happy to figure something out, too - the previous-to-this one situation the deceased also had a linode account and once I got through to them they put the deceased's account onto a deep freeze where the systems were off but the data was kept to give the deceased's family time to get everything else done, with an understanding that once they sent a death certificate through that would allow for the data to be released to them. Also, if you're lost, contact me as 'mst' on irc.freenode.net or irc.perl.org - I make no guarantees as to how much I can help but everything I've learned from dealing with my friends' passing I'll be happy to do my best to use to help you deal with your friend's passing. My friends would, if they were around to do so, appreciate the re-use of effort and sharing of knowledge.
  • dgellow 6y ago
    Sorry for your loss, I wish you all the best
    • mst 6y ago
      Thank you. I get better at the "paperwork" parts every time. And I know my friends I've done it for before wouldn't be surprised that I keep volunteering to do it, and would, if they were around to do so, grin and say "yep, that's mst" at the fact I'm willing to use my experience on behalf of them to make it easier for others. This really isn't a selfless offer. It makes -me- feel better, and I know they'd approve. So, yeah, seriously people, if you need a hand with this stuff, come poke me with a stick (and I mean that in general, freenode I know far too well, anywhere else I might not know that well but I'll try to help anyway because it'll be easier for me to think it through than it will for you if you just lost a friend).
  • andai 6y ago
    What does memorialized mean in IRC?
• sorisos 6y ago
  Sometime ago I stumpled upon a github repo that interested me. Due to several reasons I suspect the maintainer might be dead. I tried to verify it somehow but no luck. Might be easier if you are a Greek citizen. Suggestion? Of-course a persons death is tragic, but it is also a shame no one will start maintaining a fork while the original repo is in limbo...
  • detaro 6y ago
    I feel like if its clear the maintainer has dropped off the internet, forking and dropping an issue "Something is up with XYZ, lets work in this forked repo until its clear whats going on" is fine. If they come back you can still offer to shut down your fork/help them transfer added content/...
• junon 6y ago
  Worth mentioning, this wasn't always the case. Github didn't really have much of a policy until recently, if memory serves. The author of the Sprout library, Bolero Murakami, passed away a while back and I took it upon myself to ask Github what they do in these circumstances. It was shortly after that IIRC that they introduced the account successor settings functionality and updated their death policy. This part of the internet's functioning has always fascinated me, even since a kid - the fact that your online presence acts as sort of a living obituary, and what happens to your data after you lose ultimate control over it.
• offtop5 6y ago
  Would be pretty cool, to use your GitHub as a part of your memorial. Open source the will, with the names anonymized of course. There's a part of me that would just love for my next of kin to read some of my code to see how I thought when I was alive. Feels like a very interesting tech TV miniseries, an Open Project that's passed down from generation to generation.
• sp1rit 6y ago
  I guess somewhat related to this: "Respectfully dealing with fedizens who are deceased" [0]. [0]: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/respectfully-dealing-with-fedizens-who-are-deceased/1278 https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/respectfully-dealing-w...
• hushhush 6y ago
  Github suspended my account after 12 years and ignores me in every possible way to try to fix it, even though I know various company that work at the company. Github=Microsoft, Github died the day MSFT bought it.
• joeblau 6y ago
  Is there a standard internet graveyard? For example, some place where all of your social media, blog posts, code and platform data can live under one ID after you pass away?
  • reasonabl_human 6y ago
    Interesting idea. Like a centralized memorial with curated data from your online presence over time?
    • joeblau 6y ago
      Pretty much. I’ve always heard people say that they want places like Twitter and IG to keep accounts open for memories, but what you described is exactly it; a centralized memorial.
• DebtDeflation 6y ago
  A former co-worker of mine passed away 8 or 9 years ago, and every year I get a LinkedIn notification asking me to congratulate them on their upcoming work anniversary. It's terrible.
  • asidiali 6y ago
    Same thing was happening to me - LinkedIn has a solid deceased policy. I submitted a request with a link to a public obituary, and less than 24hrs later their page was gone. Bittersweet, I’ll miss seeing them pop up now and then, but also won’t feel like they are being disrespected by inaccurate online updates and notifications. https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/2842/deceased-linkedin-member?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/2842/deceased-...
    • bredren 6y ago
      I too submitted a request to LI regarding the passing of a colleague. Support handled it the very same day.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • inetsee 6y ago
    Facebook sends me emails every year suggesting that I post birthday wishes to deceased relatives.
• zouhair 6y ago
  Now we need Steam and other companies that "sell" you digital products to do the same. I don't want my Steam library to go to waste when I die.
• mark_l_watson 6y ago
  I would hope that they would keep accounts open. I have written several books that rely on GitHub for the examples. I am almost 70, and if I should disappear unexpectedly, I would hope that readers would have the code available until the material is no longer relevant.
  • LinuxBender 6y ago
    I can't speak to the legal options available and I am not a lawyer, but if there is a beneficiary you can put in your will/trust that you trust with access to Github, then you could put a couple copies of a keypass database, or even a text file on a couple of USB sticks and put them in a safety deposit box for someone to inherit. I would assume they have power of attorney. Perhaps you can make an agreement with them to periodically push a commit to a README.md file. This assumes you are not making payments to Github. If so, the executor / beneficiary in your will or trust would have to take over making payments. If that is not an option, then maybe the account will stay active if you make them contributors to your project. I don't know if Github will keep a project live if at least one contributor allowed read-write access is active. Everything I am suggesting may violate some AUP/ToS, but I have never been one to let such things get in the way when no other options make themselves available. On a side note, something I do with VPS providers is to prepay them extra so that I have credit in my account. Even if I stop paying them, my services will stay live for years, if for no other reason than to have cron jobs email people I know so that my morbid bad humor can live on for some time. Perhaps you could do something similar so that your book continues to make money for your estate? Maybe another option would be to find a site that specializes in hosting static content specifically for this purpose and put in redirects on github to that site.