Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

Recently, a former academic supervisor of mine, who was also a friend on facebook, passed away. Having posted a note of condolence to the family through her page (which they used to spread news of the passing), I am now wondering should I continue to keep this person, whom I have never met in the flesh, as a friend. It seems a bit pointless to have someone there who will never again update their page, although dropping them as a friend might seem to be insulting their memory and in poor taste. What would you do?

[Captain Corea]

The people I've known and had as 'friends' on facebook that have passed - I kept them as friends. No reason to take them off.

[RACETRAITOR]

This is something that I don't think netiquette has covered yet. I think it should be up to the site itself to close the account, or convert it into kind of a memorial.

One site I frequent changes the member status to deceased, which allows their messages to stay up, and freezes their age at the time of death. That seemed respectful.

[The evil penguin]

It might be a bit tactless to update their photo every few months..... although interesting in a macabre kind of way....

[fighton]

IMO, the only time you should drop someone as a friend on Facebook is if you're not on speaking terms with them. Other than that, why bother? It's not like there's a friend quota and you're getting dangerously close to your limit.

[Illysook]

yes, dropping people from your myspace or facebook profile is sorta ugly. I've done it, and I've had it done to me and in the end I'm sure that everyone regretted it.

[Missihippi]

I had a friend commit suicide about 2 years ago, and his page was only up for about 2 weeks before facebook pulled it down. I'm not sure if a family member suggested it or someone else randomly.

[HapKi]

Why drop them?
Can you really be so sure that they still don't check it?
And what if, in that big PC Bang in the sky, they found out you dropped them?

[Panda]

[trish91198]

I don't understand why you would want to delete him. It's not like his page is taking up a limited space or anything. Similar to another post, a friend of mine committed suicide a couple years ago...people still post a comment every now and then just to keep his memory alive.

[BrianInSuwon]

I think there needs to be some tagging or marking to denote deceased.

[D.D.]

Do you think there are ghosts on facebook. Maybe they could open a group for ghosts.

[John_ESL_White]

Drop him if you want. Kepp him if you do not want to drop him. How hard is that?