Settings for a deceased members account

[Gazhyde]

We had a very active member die earlier this month, and I'm not really sure what is the best thing to do with his account. Obviously I don't want it to be deleted, but we did just get a for sale thread he posted beforehand bumped by a new member.

Clearly I should spend a bit more time keeping on top of that that section, but to be honest I'm really not sure what I should or shouldn't do with his account!

Is there some way I can set the account as inactive, and perhaps stop him from being tagged (granted I know it only generates an email which won't ever be read)? If anyone has any suggestions or guidance on how they have dealt with deaths on their forum let me know (by PM if that's easier for you!).

 

[Paul B]

I have seen some forums add the member to a 'Deceased' user group, which adds a custom banner to that effect.

 

[FriscoCharlie]

We have a usergroup called "In Memoriam." We have had several notable members and 6 or 7 staff members pass away during the run of our forum. I have changed the custom title under Edit User > Profile Info to "Passed away - January 1, 2015," etc., on each profile. I just checked and we have, unfortunately, 41 members in the In Memoriam usergroup.

I'm sure there are others because you only hear about this if you know that someone is ill or their family contacts us to let us know. In some cases, people have simply vanished from the forum and we have searched online in their local newspapers to find their obituaries.

I am working on a tribute page to memorialize some our well-known folks. There's an idea for an add-on.

 

[empire]

We had this happen recently and updated the member's signature to indicate that they'd passed away, and added the name of the person who'd agreed to be contacted about transactions on their behalf.

 

[Amaury]

Set their Watch threads when creating or replying setting to no. Then under Privacy uncheck all these:

• Receive site mailings
• Post messages on this user's profile page
• Initiate conversations with this user
• View this user's identities

 

[Gazhyde]

Thanks peeps, I appreciate your suggestions!

I've created a deceased group, and also changed his Custom Title with "Passed Away, July 27 2015". I'd already been through his privacy settings, thanks @Amaury. Will leave his signature as I think the other changes cover what we need. Also retrospectively changed the settings on another member who passed in 2012.

 

[Stuart Wright]

To date we have banned deceased members in order to stop messaging etc. and added a custom title. R.I.P. I think we use, though Deceased is better.

 

[FriscoCharlie]

To follow up on my earlier post, we make the In Memoriam usergroup such that it does not allow any activity (in case someone logged in as a deceased member), and does not send e-mail alerts, etc.

They look like this on the forum:

 

[ActorMike]

You can also add a link to the obituary under their home page.

 

[FriscoCharlie]

I'm working on a static page on some of our friends that have passed away. Unfortunately, we have lost a lot of people that made our forum what it is.

 

[ActorMike]

Set their Watch threads when creating or replying setting to no. Then under Privacy uncheck all these:

• Receive site mailings
• Post messages on this user's profile page
• Initiate conversations with this user
• View this user's identities

One more thing, I would suggest not showing the birthdate either, otherwise it will keep adding age to their profile each year.

 

[Alpha1]

Some great suggestions here. I feel that a deceased userstate is missing from xenforo.

 

[Nelson T.]

We also have a "deceased" usergroup. The banner says "Rest In Peace." All the usergroup permissions are set to "don't allow" in case the account is accessed.
We have sticky posts honoring each of them. Sad, but a fact of life.

 

[dvsDave]

We've had a couple members and even volunteer staff pass away in the past year. We setup a usergroup, "deceased" and after MUCH discussion, set the banner to "Departed Member" (used a dark purple as the color)

All the settings suggested above look great, but I'll add two steps we took. Especially for our volunteer staff member, we took all the messages from our members offering condolences and put them in a nice email, sending it onto the member's family. If we didn't have a point of contact, we emailed the funeral home and they were able to forward the message on on our behalf (this is part of their job and you can trust that they will pass this on)

We also check with the funeral home and see if the family left any instructions "in lieu of flowers". If they didn't leave any instructions, then take up a donation to have a flower arrangement sent for the viewing or the funeral service (ask the funeral home which would be better).

If they did leave "in lieu of flowers" suggestions, then let your members know how they can help. For instance, when our volunteer staff member passed, his wife was raising money to participate in a walk to raise money for the Lymphoma & Leukemia Society (what he passed away from). Our members raised thousands of dollars and in each comment mentioned how much he meant to them on ControlBooth (our community). I've never been so proud of my community to see they way they rallied around our fallen friends widow to help support her.

 

[Gazhyde]

Some nice general points @dvsDave. I hadn't covered most of that as it didn't relate to the tech side, but things went pretty similar to what you said.

 

[1966Mustang]

This is a relavant post for a solution in XF2.2 as well.

 

[Mendalla]

Not sure I have much to add. After losing a popular founding member to cancer in 2019 we created a "Rest in Peace" user group to apply to deceased members' accounts and also an In Memoriam forum where staff can start threads to share the obits and for members to share their reminiscences. We have had a couple more threads started since then but they were for members who had been gone for a while due to illnesses. Sadly, we are an older bunch so I suspect it will get used some more before too long.

 

[1966Mustang]

Not sure I have much to add. After losing a popular founding member to cancer in 2019 we created a "Rest in Peace" user group to apply to deceased members' accounts and also an In Memoriam forum where staff can start threads to share the obits and for members to share their reminiscences. We have had a couple more threads started since then but they were for members who had been gone for a while due to illnesses. Sadly, we are an older bunch so I suspect it will get used some more before too long.

I do like the creating a forum with staff threads idea. All of the above suggestions seem appropriate and are working well on my site. From a 'Best Practices' standpoint, this is a great thread.

Best regards

 

[ActorMike]

We make a note in profile and add to user group "In Memoriam"