Ah... did Ike tell you his real name then? Because otherwise, he's Ike Willis to us... and if he's really John Smith and I contact his brother Joe Smith, it would pretty assuredly been a "private investigation"..... no? If I have flawed logic there, point out out, S'il vous plaît.
I can see both sides of the coin here...and yes we're all concerned about Ike....and yes my first instinct was to say as you do Lara, that it might be a good idea to contact his FB friends and ask if he's ok....but then I also think you have a point too @Mari North because perhaps Ike might not want his personal family and friends knowing he's a member of a forum (for any amount of reasons)...and asking ''about our friend *ike*..when clearly to his family if you were a ''friend' you would already be on his FB friends' list....so it's a very hard bridge to cross. One of deep concern for a friend we have here ..but also one of trying to respect his privacy ...
Mari, like I said, I wasn't thinking about the fact that we use names other than our real name here in this forum.
Yeah, it is a tough one, @Holly Saunders ... but the decider for me was the fact that Ike chose not to reveal his true identity to anyone here, even those closest to him apparently, and I think that should be respected. If he'd have shared his real name, I certainly would have been among the first to ask someone about him, call local hospitals... police. Like I said before, I'm a Mama Hen.
I understood that, yes, @Lara Moss ... but I'm not catching your bottom line. You're saying that since you hadn't remembered that, you would not advise contacting family after all?
I was just about to post something very similar to your assessment of the differing views. Perhaps, if indeed Ike's true FB page is known, then a look at the last time he visited his page would be enough to allay any alarms. Either way, I do appreciate the manner in which you have presented your case @Holly Saunders for indeed you show much wisdom.
His last visit to his Facebook page was at the end of February, most of the people that looked like they were related to him posted a couple days ago with no mention of anything bad. He has the same photo in his Facebook photos as he does on here, I'm sure if any of you can do an image search, it will take you to him, I can't on my ipad so I went the long route trying to find him. I did once contact a daughter thru Facebook of a forum and Facebook friend of mine. The daughter replied and said she had died. Got a diagnose of cancer on her spine the last she posted on the forum I moderated on and we didn't hear anything for a few days. Seems she died in her sleep. I felt comfortable asking the daughter though Because I've known this woman about 8 years.
The way I found him was that he did put his real bday in his profile. I remembered he posted a pic of a diner his wife worked at when they met and he said it still existed. I looked for that photo, saw the name on the diner and looked it up and that gave me the name of the town it was in. Then I did a birthdate search of people in that town using his date of birth and his name came up. I googled that and that showed some sites he's on with the name Hoppy connected to his real name. Then I checked Facebook and was sure it was him because his pic was there. Being on forums even with a username, you will show up in searches and lots of your posts can be found.
Yes you are good at it Chrissy, as you have found it's virtually impossible to hide on the internet if you post anything, as it all leaves a trail and we are all connected very closely via facebook and other social sites we use. I am amazed by the daily emails I get from Facebook which I never use, but it suggests people I may know through a route of common friends and so on. I am available for the position of Dr Watson
Well @Chrissy Page...you could just send him a private message through his FB page and tell him as a friend you hope he is doing well.
I could but if he didn't reply to Kens email, I'm thinking one of his problems may be internet access. I will think about that though.