I have In Memory notifications that get emailed to me but not sure how I approve them to be added to the site. Is there something that I have to do?

Rick Belscher wrote:

You just verify the information if you can (don't want a classmate to find out that they are considered dead). If not, just post the information to the "In Memory" page in a format that you like.

So your saying it's a manual process? There is no way for the admin to approve the In Memory notification and have it post to the site?

yes, it is a manual process. On the menus, select "Edit Site Pages" menu, then edit the "In Memory" page. Select the name of the deceased classmate from the drop-down menu. Click the Add Deceased Classmate button. Then edit the details of the newly added deceased classmate, adding the information obtained from the E-mail and any other information.

One other question, how come the information in the email isnt the same as what can be added, is there a way to modify the entry so the same data is added?

In the email I received there is this data:

Deceased Classmate: Bob Jones
Date Deceased: 02-12-1990
Age at Death: 23
Cause of Death: Failing Health
Classmate City: Springville
Classmate State: NY
Classmate Country: USA
Survived By:

We are having some problems with finind out people are alive when we have them in "In Memory". Our data came from a company who hired people to call all alumni. I gues they have some quality control issues.

Rick Belscher wrote:

This is a very, very sensitive area. If we made any mechanism to make data go live with a click it would lead to all kinds of issues. For example many people don't want to list the cause of death. And, some people do. It all depends on the class, the Administrator, the Classmate, etc.

The In Memory area is set up to mimick an obituary, where somebody creates a nice writeup about the Classmate. Many Admins often include many photos, music, animated candles, and much more. We wanted to leave the area open so somebody can create whatever type of obit entry they want, rather than trying to automate the data, which could result in a rather "cold" entry.

Having said that, the In Memory Contact form is exactly that -- it's just a way for a Classmate to contact an admin and inform the admin that a Classmate has died. The form is meant to collect whatever pertinent info may be necessary for an obit, but it's solely up to the admin to decide what info that comes in on that form gets used in the In Memory writeup.

Rick,

This may be more info than you were wanting, but, if we received word of a classmate death, we double-checked with the social security death index online.

Getting a date of death there, we then pursued a newspaper obit. I found most at our local university library or public library.

By putting SOMETHING, even just death date, in the classmate "In Memory" area, the rose will show on the Classmate Profile list, which is a very nice touch.

All of this takes a lot of time, but is well worth the effort to leave a nice remembrance of the classmate. You might want to get an asst. admin. to help with this part.

Anita

What are your thoughts on posting obits as part of the In Memory page for a deceased classmate?

I understand about the sensitive nature of this -
Maybe on the email that comes to the Admin there could be a note at the bottom saying that this info should be verified before manually posting on your class website

Is it possible to add the question whether the deceased is a Veteran? I like to add the flag to honor our vets & often don't get a reply when contacting the sender.

Sharon Esterley wrote:

Sharon, Excellent suggestions!