Went down a rabbit hole after reading your comment - clearly a lot of the people in this community (that I also just learned about) care about him very much. Hope he turns up.

I did notice that his site was renewed on 2022-06-09 16:56:27 UTC, although from a comment on Emaculation it appears that this is exactly one year to the day that it was last renewed, meaning it was probably done automatically.

I poked around the net. Found this person (possibly neé Pratt) who could be his sister. Has lived in Ithaca NY, and now lives in Freeville, which is nearby. Maybe someone in USA could make gentle queries. First name Kathryn, last name $(echo snvenaq | tr a-z n-za-m)

Before anyone looks up and emails that relative, please note that it's been attempted already:

https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=75314#p753...

I found about three email addresses for her and a few phone numbers. Have they been tried?

Maybe some snail mail too?

Not to call into question your intentions nor methods, but I highly doubt going to this length, which sounds painfully close to doxxing someone, is what anyone that cares about him needs or wants anyone to do. If that's the degree of distance someone is seeking, perhaps they should be allowed to have it for whatever reasons they have chosen it.

So why look at all?

I agree with you that I very strongly believe that if someone wants to be left alone they should be left alone.

I also believe attempting to connect can be done in a proper, considerate, gentle manner by the right person.

People have the right to disconnect, to unplug, to go their own way, without constant interference from "well-intentioned" people that are "concerned" about them. In fact the constant harassment from these people can be enough to bring someone down. The guy here is an adult, he has the right to life his life as he pleases.

Hoping Paul's okay, but disappearing is something I can relate to heavily, after the passing of a close relative, my emotional and mental health became very turbulent so I simply disappeared by uninstalling all my social media, never picking up calls, stopped working on my OSS projects, not replying to anyone, just because I couldn't handle it. I came back in due course after working on myself but a lot of people also attempted to find out if I was alive and it did give me a lot of anxiety that I couldn't handle at that stage, I believe the people on the forums have done their due diligence and after that, unless there's some actual information we must keep in mind we may do more harm than good even though intentions are pure. Just a thought.

Very well said about doing more harm than good. Yes this "well intentioned " behavior can be a form of unintentional harassment, that is still harassment. It's like when you have a controlling partner that keeps tabs on you because he/she is insecure and worried about you all the time. No matter what the intention, it's still controlling behavior and it's unacceptable.

The Internet has become a social surveillance panopticon. The author of that web page should stay out of that guy's private life. What's wrong about not having an online presence? My God how far the surveillance society has come. One more reason to stay anonymous online with everything you do, let alone someone be "concerned" about you... The road to hell is paved with good intentions.