I haven't been able to read this status update (it keeps timing out for some reason), so I'm just going off the title here. *<p>The downside of these hugely public, and permanent, appeals for information on someone is that everyone will want to know every detail of what happened, will discuss it, and dissect it publicly.<p>Imagine a situation where someone in our technology community quietly embarks on a suicide plan, as many people do every day. Once the word has gone out and a public search starts, there is an enormous pressure to go through with it successfully. Knowing that you're going to step back into a shitstorm of thousands of people asking what's happened. Which is going to encircle your name for a long time, if not forever.<p>I'm not saying there's anything to learn from this - it's just something to consider. I am in no way questioning the judgement of friends raising the alarm. It's just that strangers will feel, rightly or wrongly, that having read, and perhaps spread, an appeal that they are entitled to know the details of the outcome.<p>* I have absolutely no idea what's happened in this case.
I don't really want to intrude on her life to ask just what happened---it's not any of my business---but I <i>would</i> like to know if, whatever did happen, the technorati/HN/FB/etc publicity helped find/save/help her.
From the Facebook comments:<p>Timothy Joseph: <i>Thank God! I'm so happy to hear this! What a great company to have done this. I wonder if my employer would have done this for me.</i><p>That is an interesting question. If someone where I work (ClearChannel, owner of over 850 radio stations, and dozens of high-profile websites like RushLimbaugh.com and GlennBeck.com) went missing, I wonder what company resources would/could be used to aid in a search effort.
Thank God. I'm not used to stories like this having this kind of ending, so this is a welcome sigh of relief.<p>Seeing how her friends and coworkers cared enough to start a massive online campaign to help find her reminded me of the importance of making connections and having people in my life who are looking out for me.
Not all missing people stories have a happy ending. I have a relative who's been missing since Sept. 16, last seen in Riddle, Oregon. More info at <a href="http://findmark.org" rel="nofollow">http://findmark.org</a>. We recently realized that he had his iPad with him. If you have any ideas on how we could use it to find him, I'm all ears.
Its a nice story - when people don't show up for work I think the usual attitude of the employer is to do nothing but blame the employee and penalise them to the maximum extent possible. This is less true in the privileged roles most web people have - but lets say you are 90% of the population who work in manufacturing, service industries etc...<p>Just saying.
Have any of these <i>all points bulletins</i> for a missing person ever worked? I'm not trying to be a smart ass, just curious if this method has been affective in the past.