Technorati's Tracy Williams is alive and safe in a local hospital
I haven't been able to read this status update (it keeps timing out for some reason), so I'm just going off the title here. *<p>The downside of these hugely public, and permanent, appeals for information on someone is that everyone will want to know every detail of what happened, will discuss it, and dissect it publicly.<p>Imagine a situation where someone in our technology community quietly embarks on a suicide plan, as many people do every day.  Once the word has gone out and a public search starts, there is an enormous pressure to go through with it successfully.  Knowing that you're going to step back into a shitstorm of thousands of people asking what's happened.  Which is going to encircle your name for a long time, if not forever.<p>I'm not saying there's anything to learn from this - it's just something to consider.  I am in no way questioning the judgement of friends raising the alarm.  It's just that strangers will feel, rightly or wrongly, that having read, and perhaps spread, an appeal that they are entitled to know the details of the outcome.<p>* I have absolutely no idea what's happened in this case.