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April 22, 2003
“Deathblogs:” Morbid, interesting
This Wired article talks about blogs that live on after their owners …uh…don’t. It is an interesting read, discussing how most blogs are a reflection of their writers, and can be considered an electronic memorial detailing their daily thoughts once they are gone. It is odd to think that blogs have been around long enough for a significant amount of bloggers to die to actually have this be an issue to be written about.
Most people not in direct contact with the bloggers they read would probably just think they stopped writing, as is most often the case, not breathing. Death, generally a sudden event, does not usually permit the convenience of one last blog entry to give readers notice (or closure).
One major issue with this idea that your blog will live on after you die is the problem with electronic media versus physical — if you are paying to host your blog, it will die, shortly after you, when the checks stop coming. For those of you using a free host, the Wired article mentions the policies of free blog hosts LiveJournal (ironic?), Blogger and Slashdot of removing blogs of the deceased.
Slashdot, which hosts thousands of user journals, has a less ironclad policy, said founder Rob Malda. ‘So far the issue has never been really addressed, so I can’t say that we have a policy,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we’ve taken a journal down for any reason so far, so I don’t think death would be different.’
Posted by paullheureux at April 22, 2003 05:55 PM