Mailing List Invite
The recent death of my friend was complicated in finding her other social groups and dealing with digital artifacts. This is a cognitive load I have the ability to spare those I care about by doing some logistics now. A big part of this is having a mailing list already set up for those who are offering to take care of certain roles (and sort out what's not covered), which you can join by mailing email join. You'll get an email with more detail along with this join.
If you do so, your email will be visible to others on the list. Each person there has a specific area of my life they've agreed to cover in case of my death or incapacitation. I'd prefer this not be used except in such circumstances. Anyone on this list I trust absolutely, and I will remove anyone who no longer falls in that category.
Each year, on date, I'll send a test message to everyone on the list, to be sure it still works, including the redacted auto-responder. While it should be blatantly clear from subject line, message body, and this warning, please know that someone might get falsely freaked out at some point, and that it will be an interesting social/emotional test as well as a technical test.
It is utterly, utterly ok to not be ok with doing this. Death can be an uncomfortable thing, and you need to think about if you'll be in a position to handle such a task/tasks in the condition of my perhaps unexpected death.
I'm asking you all to take on task. Others on the email list will take care of other included things. A beginning idea of how to deliver on this will be included in my 1Password Vault, which will be unlocked and tasks sent out via this list in the event of my death.
Possible tasks:
- Unlocking the 1Password account. The file is stored in an accessible place, the link to which will be sent with the auto responder email. People who understand how this works might not be the people with the password half.
- Notifying a specific group of people. Be sure to list group members or ways to determine if someone is a part of that group or not in the encrypted instructions.
- Take care of ...sensitive... things in your house. I know my mother has a right not to see my drawer of sex toys. So I've gained consent from a specific person to take care of that.
- Dealing with an online account - notification, dealing with comments, shutting down after a set period of time.