What would happen to your online accounts if you were to die?

My Facebook page could be closed down as my family know about my account but as for other sites no one knows I use them so I guess they would just stay dormant. I don't know what could be done an interesting question.

I have a bookful of websites that my husband used to go on. Every so often, I check to see if he's still on, and he is on some of them.
I had a website for my business, which I sold over five years ago. I can still see it on various links. That's because they keep the link to it so that their site stays further up the lists.

On Gransnet, someone could just vanish and not post any more. Unless one of us were in contact with them outside GN, we would never know what had happened to them.

I seem to remember that this topic came up before, and someone mentioned a way to make sure that someone knows all about your online stuff. It was probably just to keep a note of important sites and passwords in that safe place where we keep the other important things (and can't find them when we want them) - and to tell someone what to do about the information.

Don't you remember it was Greatnan's "silence" on Facebook that alerted us to her disappearance? I think an element of "overlap" I.e.friends on different forums might be helpful as it was then.

I used to be quite a prolific poster in some forums. Not so much now though, so I probably won't be missed online when I die. Any posts will just sink down the lists into history and that will be that. There's not much need to protect or do anything about any traces left behind.

I don't have a Facebook account and have never posted photos of family or friends anywhere, so there's nothing that especially needs removing. Photos of scenery, screenshots of computer problems or my vector drawings can be left online to be found (and used if people want to) by anyone falling across them.

This is the only forum I post on and I don't do Facebook or twitter or anything else. No-one but me knows I post on here so I would just disappear in more ways than one. I will try to give you a heads up if I feel ill sometime. Not that I really feel I would be missed.

Facebook - deleted it today. I dont like it. People want to be friends with me, but I dont like posting on there, so closed it.
The final straw came when a friend/neighbour wanted to be friends. Plus the wife of a 3rd cousin in another country.
Someone deleted it for me, and discovered that I had 36 people wanting to be friends which I hadnt clicked on.
I am glad to be free of it all.

Gransnet - I am not the slightest bothered by my gransnet personality. It can go up in smoke.

photos - A job I keep meaning to get to. It really is going to have to be done soon.
[I know someone who was switching computers, and somehow managed to wipe 10 year's worth of photos, so I dont want that to happen to me].

annsixty - I think that you would be missed.

I think facebook closes the account of someone who has died, as they have had experience of trolls posting nasty things on dead peoples pages. I do know of a mum who wanted her daughters facebook photos etc and not being allowe access to them . I'm not sure how they get to know the person has died though.

I dont trust computers not to go wrong in some way.
So I personally dont use it for "storage".
[photos have been taken by other people].

But Facebook was a help in solving the murder on Vera last night!

I am not sure that I would want to have access to my childrens or even husbands' or whoevers' online account?
I dont know. I probably havent thought it through or even know all the ramifications about this.

Let's face it (no pun intended) once we're dead, who cares?
My details are all in alphabetical order in a notebook, my dc know that, but if they don't delete me it won't matter.

annsixty I'd miss you!

People are going to have to[if they want to] make will provisions I assume?
If say there are plans on there for something that are worth something for example, I would have thought that the law needs to catch up, and then the person has to think to put clear instructions[plus passwords] in their will.

The link in the OP included the story of someone who did want to preserve something online belonging to a relative, but could not.

Will reread the link. I cant have read it properly!

Ah, you are talking about preserving a memory, rather than something financial?
The link says that it is all currently a legal minefield? And depends on which site it is, by the terms and conditions? Much like reading the small print on insurance policies?

I am still on FB as it is a way of catching up with family overseas, but I am not 'friends' with many people and just ignore friend requests unless it is someone special.

I do wonder about some of the people who were on here and posted quite a lot then disappeared from the site. Are they OK? Or have they changed their names.

They may have changed their names, or they may be on a FB group - there are a couple at least comprising GN members, some of whom no longer post on here. Sometimes people get fed up with a website for one reason or another and form a 'breakaway' group elsewhere!

I wonder about them too. I think about them quite a lot.

I don't.

Why on earth soontobe?
Ana has the right idea.

Because most posters "help" in some way, at some time or another. I remember their help and think of them fondly.
[I realise that I probably havent got the hang of the new internet age, of people sort of coming and going].
I also have come to realise Soutra, that you and I are almost complete opposites in character! But I might even miss you!

Have you been on here long enough to think about people who have left, soon?
You've only been on here since November.

Yes durhamjen. Nonu and MiceElf spring to mind for instance.
I was missing rosesarered but she popped back again!