I knew people faked illnesses and deaths online; I just never knew there were so many....

BTW, there's no Guy Straley at www.ratemyprofessors.com, either.

Hah. That was the first place I checked. Of course, I have colleagues that don't appear there despite teaching at multiple universities.

Regarding PhD/teaching evidence: There is no reference for my dissertation that shows up via Google. However, there are conferences, articles, university websites, etc. In the past, I've googled people that have gotten jobs I applied for and found no trace, so it is possible, just very unlikely.

I think it is good that we have this conversation and do what we can to figure out what's what. At the same time, I really don't think we should repeatedly try to contact "kimi" to find out. Either it's a complete ruse, in which case, what's the point?, or she has just lost someone close to her and I think we should be sensitive to that.

FYI, in googling myself, I found a whole string of email messages from the DCista list. I thought that was a bit troubling.

.

Did Trudy just mean she asked in the Bitches thread?

Yup, that.

When do we stop? When do we say, this is the most information we're going to get, and we aren't going to know any better than this?

Yup, that.

Thanks, I'm sorry I misinterpreted that. I misstated it a handful of times in this thread.

Off to thread suck and edit.

When do we stop? When do we say, this is the most information we're going to get, and we aren't going to know any better than this?

Well, I'm thinking we're starting to hit diminishing returns. I mean we could write the States of WI and MN offices of records thingies and ask for death certificates, but I think it's unlikely we'll find any.

eta: Anyway, after that the steps get to be more work, and the probability of finding out anything gets lower.

Or we could do what P-C says and look for evidence he's alive.

Tommyrot's call resolved my doubts. Thanks to everybody who did research; it all cumulated for me. I don't begrudge anybody who needs more information; I'm just saying that I'm not going to worry any more.

I'd agree, with the exception that I do think that an exploratory email would be worth doing. After that, I think we'll eventually learn more, but it may not be by our doing, or any time soon.

This raises the question of whether people would like to leave their real names and addresses and perhaps a contact person with the stompies, in order to have a way to check if someone announces a death or illness. It would need to be voluntary.