Comment What about seeing them listed as "online?" (Score 1) 284
I am single father of a 3 year old, her mother having passed away when she was just a few months old. Back then MySpace was still big and after her death I wanted to preserve her profile (especially blog and bulletin posts referencing our daughter). I could've taken screen shot after screen shot but that seemed quite the tedious process and there were a few posts that were private. I was able to guess her password after a few tries and start to archive this information but it took all of 5 minutes for me to receive several messages stating "Oh, my God. How are you on?" followed by a few people sending her account all of these intimate things they wished they had told her. I tried to stop reading as soon as I realized what was going on but this experience was still absolutely heart-wrenching for me, as this was only a few days after her passing. It took me several days to even bring myself to respond to those messages and crush their hopes that there was somehow an internet link to their perceived concept of an afterlife. So, if you happen to log into someone's account in order to preserve it after their death, make certain that you click "appear as offline" as soon as you log in :-/.