Where are you, patrickp?

[Gamesoul Master]

It's a damn tragedy.

"Last Login Date: Sept 27, 2008, 5:17am"

I know forum activity has slowed to a trickle, but he's missed out on some of the excitement we've had lately, and honestly... I miss having random conversations with him.

Come back patrickp! Who else is going to convince me to actually install Linux someday, if not you?

[Truth Unknown]

I really don't know. About a bit more than a year ago, patrickp mention he had some health problems which resulted his initial disappearance. His second to last post was September 19th of last year and things were not going for the best or worst. His last post was him doing his moderator/administrator task enforcing the rules.

I hope he doesn't mind me posting this:

Sept 19, 2008 19:03:30 GMT -5 patrickp said:

Finally had the interview with King's College Oncology department. Although there are treatments for the cancers, they are very stressful and they think the recent deterioration in my health would make this too risky. Still, there are treatments which would help, and I think I'll try working on the state of my health.

I'll keep you guys updated.

(From Staff Section)

I'm not so sure what to think or what more to say ...

[Gamesoul Master]

I don't mean offense, but I'm quite hurt that none of you guys ever said anything about this. At least to me, considering I always felt like a friend to him. I guess you might've figured that if he wanted me to know, he would've said something, but... wow. I would never have guessed. I've been going over his latest posts here and there for the last half year, and the only thing I would've guessed is that maybe he felt tired of dealing with things here.

I don't know what to say. I'm partly hurt, and partly scared of what his long silence might mean after all this. I wish I would've known sooner, I would've tried getting in more direct contact with him.

[Ultima]

1. If he posted it only in the staff forum, then obviously, he didn't want just anybody to know. We're not the ones at liberty to just go around telling people about other people's private lives, so I'm not quite certain why the fault is ours. (So why post it publicly now? Don't know; I would probably have just maintained status quo and PMed you instead if I'd logged in sooner. But either way, other people may be just as curious as you, and it's been so long at this point.)

2. If he told people outside of the Staff forum, we wouldn't have known, and if he didn't tell people outside of the staff forum, we couldn't have known either. So how are we supposed to know whether our telling you would have been news to you -- whether you knew or didn't? In light of point 1, proactively approaching you (or anybody else) on the matter obviously wasn't something at the forefront of our (limited) choices of things to do.

Of course, your reaction is perfectly understandable. We're just as worried (I tried contacting him only a month or two after his last post), but considering how we've only interacted through the forum, there isn't much we can do about our inability to get in touch with him. (Not sure about you, though.)

[Gamesoul Master]

I was just upset at the time... it was a shock. Besides, I cleared you guys of any actual blame from me when I said "I guess you might've figured that if he wanted me to know, he would've said something". The "but... wow" that came right after that was at the revealed situation, not at you guys not telling me.

By the way, that's another thing I miss... you misunderstanding what I say and me having to correct it... XD. Like old times...

I'm seeing about trying to contact him now. For the record, his name doesn't come up in the obituaries, which is at least some kind of good news.