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Posted by: Phil Stooke Sep 30 2011, 02:01 PM

Starting a new thread - I was wondering about one particular person, once a prominent member... but I thought others might have similar questions so I'm giving this a generic title.

So - whatever happened to Doug van Dorn? He hasn't posted since 2009, and he seems to have disappeared from everywhere else as well, including a blog he started up about that time with a post saying 'this is my first post, it won't be my last' (but it was).

Any news would be appreciated.

Phil

Posted by: ilbasso Sep 30 2011, 06:36 PM

I recently wondered the same thing. He used to be one of the top posters on sci.space but hasn't posted there since 2006.

Posted by: nprev Sep 30 2011, 08:43 PM

Yeah, I ponder that from time to time as well.

Hopefully, he's all right. But, <shrug> people do move on to other things from time to time. Heck, even my once formidable posting rate has slowed, which admittedly has improved the forum's SNR.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Sep 30 2011, 10:06 PM

And I'm sure we all appreciate it!

Phil

Posted by: jasedm Sep 30 2011, 10:07 PM

I assumed that 'oDoug' had had a disagreement with the mods re: forum rules and decided UMSF wasn't for him anymore. He's very passionate/vociferous about NASA funding issues and manned spaceflight, and these subjects are two of the prime 'Thou shalt not's' here. I seem to recall that he found it difficult to keep these issues out of some discussions.
I may be completely wrong on this however!

I rather miss his contributions, and was disappointed his own blog never got off the ground (no pun....etc etc) Hope you're well Doug and have simply switched to lurker-mode

Posted by: djellison Sep 30 2011, 10:36 PM

To my knowledge, that didn't happen. From what I can tell, he simply stopped visiting all together towards the end of Sept '09. He did get the attention admins over a discussion about the DSN at the time, but was certainly not banned or told to leave, nor did he make any suggestion he was about to leave either.


People come, people go. It happens.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Oct 1 2011, 12:09 PM

That's true, Doug, but I was concerned because he seemed to have disappeared from everywhere else as well.

Phil

Posted by: tanjent Oct 1 2011, 03:09 PM

Another I miss is Alex Blackwell. I remember that he gave up his account so that he could devote his time to more pressing issues, but I was hoping it would prove to be temporary. This thread is a nice idea. People do come and go - it certainly does happen, but we can recall their contributions now and then and extend our good wishes or our concern as the case may be. Pando's another - it was good to see him check in recently if only to say hello.