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https://twitter.com/#!/textfiles/status/121436177298493440 https://twitter.com/#!/textfiles/status/121436177298493440 "Mark Pilgrim is alive/annoyed we called

https://twitter.com/#!/textfiles/status/121436177298493440 https://twitter.com/#!/textfiles/status/121436177298493440 "Mark Pilgrim is alive/annoyed we called the police. Please stand down and give the man privacy and space, and thanks everyone for caring."

chrismsnz 15y ago
Annoyed someone called the police when he vanished? What a schmuck...
- pgroves 15y ago
  He deliberately deleted some files from websites he had admin access to. Not exactly the behavior of someone in need of help from the police.
  - glhaynes 15y ago
    It sure scared a lot of people into thinking that perhaps he was going to commit suicide (or already had), which is something that cops get called about and try to stop.
    - mpyne 15y ago
      I'm actually kind of surprised about how many people are not aware of the suicide concern. But then, I worked for a couple of years at a large training site where suicide awareness was a Very Big Deal so perhaps I'm just suffering from transference. The symptoms displayed by Mark here are very similar to some kind of "classic" pre-suicidal actions (i.e. "putting his affairs in order") so I can definitely see why suicide would be a concern among his friends.
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  - msbarnett 15y ago
    He'd specifically rigged his servers to return 410 Gone, a status code an aside in one of his most famous works equates with the Impermanence of life. It's not a huge stretch to follow that train of thought to the notion that his actions amounted to a somewhat obscure suicide note. And giving away your stuff/deleting accounts en masse/shutting your life down is a fairly classic behavior among suicidal individuals.
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- cjbprime 15y ago
  Then I (and perhaps anyone with experience of the behavior of suicidal people) ought to be apologizing too. I'm glad Jason called for help, and think he did the right thing. I'd rather look a fool and check, than not check and regret it, and Jason looked like a fool so I don't have to. (I also think it's sad that you think the loss of diveintopython.org, which is the one of the best Python references out there, is a non-story..)
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ethank 15y ago
That man knows how to flounce. Much respect. I should note that the concern isn't without merit. If you read Howard Rheingold's "The Virtual Community" which is one of the earliest discourses on Internet and online community, the concept of "virtual suicide" isn't new. http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/1.html http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/1.html In this case, someone created a tool to eradicate their online identity, then did the same in real life. I've had this issue twice in my 16 years of running Murmurs.com. In one case, the person was in chat on a Sunday and threatened suicide before deleting all her posts. We had to track down her university police department and they found her on the lawn outside her dorm overdosing on sleeping pills. The other was more sad. The guy disappeared and posts were removed. Only later did we find that he had left his suicide note on Flickr. He was Norwegian and we had to do a lot of digging to find more info. In the end his mom emailed me a very poorly translated English message, and it was heartbreaking. The moral is: I don't think there was any over reaction. This pattern has precedent and not a good one. I've never felt that in my 16 years of doing online community work I've ever over-reacted when I saw this behavior transpire. In one case we saved someone's life, and in the other we didn't.

chrismsnz 15y ago

Annoyed someone called the police when he vanished? What a schmuck...

pgroves 15y ago
He deliberately deleted some files from websites he had admin access to. Not exactly the behavior of someone in need of help from the police.
- glhaynes 15y ago
  It sure scared a lot of people into thinking that perhaps he was going to commit suicide (or already had), which is something that cops get called about and try to stop.
  - mpyne 15y ago
    I'm actually kind of surprised about how many people are not aware of the suicide concern. But then, I worked for a couple of years at a large training site where suicide awareness was a Very Big Deal so perhaps I'm just suffering from transference. The symptoms displayed by Mark here are very similar to some kind of "classic" pre-suicidal actions (i.e. "putting his affairs in order") so I can definitely see why suicide would be a concern among his friends.
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- msbarnett 15y ago
  He'd specifically rigged his servers to return 410 Gone, a status code an aside in one of his most famous works equates with the Impermanence of life. It's not a huge stretch to follow that train of thought to the notion that his actions amounted to a somewhat obscure suicide note. And giving away your stuff/deleting accounts en masse/shutting your life down is a fairly classic behavior among suicidal individuals.

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cjbprime 15y ago
Then I (and perhaps anyone with experience of the behavior of suicidal people) ought to be apologizing too. I'm glad Jason called for help, and think he did the right thing. I'd rather look a fool and check, than not check and regret it, and Jason looked like a fool so I don't have to. (I also think it's sad that you think the loss of diveintopython.org, which is the one of the best Python references out there, is a non-story..)

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ethank 15y ago

That man knows how to flounce. Much respect. I should note that the concern isn't without merit. If you read Howard Rheingold's "The Virtual Community" which is one of the earliest discourses on Internet and online community, the concept of "virtual suicide" isn't new. http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/1.html http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/1.html In this case, someone created a tool to eradicate their online identity, then did the same in real life. I've had this issue twice in my 16 years of running Murmurs.com. In one case, the person was in chat on a Sunday and threatened suicide before deleting all her posts. We had to track down her university police department and they found her on the lawn outside her dorm overdosing on sleeping pills. The other was more sad. The guy disappeared and posts were removed. Only later did we find that he had left his suicide note on Flickr. He was Norwegian and we had to do a lot of digging to find more info. In the end his mom emailed me a very poorly translated English message, and it was heartbreaking. The moral is: I don't think there was any over reaction. This pattern has precedent and not a good one. I've never felt that in my 16 years of doing online community work I've ever over-reacted when I saw this behavior transpire. In one case we saved someone's life, and in the other we didn't.