I’m assuming y’all have noticed I haven’t been updating more than a few times a week in the past couple of months. This is in large part because of Michael. Long story short, he lost his full-time job. Before he lost it he was working the one full-time job plus a part-time one and he worked insane hours, getting up at 6:00 a.m., out of the house by seven, sometimes not home till ten in the evening. Now he has a lot more time and we’re spending a lot of it together. He is, of course, looking for another job. He has two interviews lined up.
I am still working on Charley, it’s just that a lot of that work is invisible. If I post an updated age-progression or a new photo of an MP, for example, but no other updates for that particular casefile, I don’t put it on the updates page. (MPs with new age-progressions do get on the updates page, though.) Purged cases are just quietly removed without a mention — and that means tracking down and deleting them off all the lists as well as deleting the cases themselves. And the aforementioned work with purges and APs is all so stupefyingly boring that I can’t do it for more than half an hour or an hour at a time.
Maintaining Charley’s Facebook page (which surpassed 4,000 “likes” this week, woo!) is more fun but it takes more time than you’d think — tracking down articles to post, reading all the comments, sometimes engaging in conversations. Ditto the Twitter feed. Yes, it’s two tweets a day. But I have to FIND new cases to tweet, check to make sure they haven’t been tweeted before, and come up with some neat little 140-character summary for each one. These days I’ve been searching for a random word, say, “Naugahyde,” and tweeting all cases that mention that word.
I hope I don’t sound defensive or anything. No one has been jumping all over me for not updating more often; I just want you guys to know I’m not giving up or anything like that.
The Charley Project Blog 
Just curious, what are the requirements to purge a case? What ones are removed aside from cases that has been resolved (ie, the bodies identified in New Britain, CT recently)?
I don’t have any specific “requirements” per se. Usually what happens is the case is removed from the source I got it from, and I can’t find any news, but believe the person was probably found safe. (About 5 to 10% of the time I’m wrong.) Sometimes law enforcement or a family member of a missing person, and occasionally even the no-longer-missing person themselves, write asking for a quiet removal.
Basically, these cases are ones that have either PROBABLY been resolved, or they definitely have been but someone asks me not to publicize it.
I have quietly purged a few cases from my resolved section itself as well. It happens when I’ll hear from a formerly missing person, or sometimes a relative of the formerly missing person if that person was found dead, and they ask me to remove it.
Okay, that makes sense. I didn’t think of the non-publicized returns or outcomes in people’s cases. And that’s interesting that sometimes people will contact you. Thanks for answering.
I’ve had a dozen or so former runaways write me and explain that having that kind of thing online makes it harder for them to find jobs, etc. I’m sympathetic to that and actually considered deleting most of my resolves (keeping only a certain number up at any given time, deleting one as I added another) to keep that from happening. But my blog commenters talked me out of it. So I just delete the resolves on a case-by-case basis.
You deserve a break!
Meaghan,
Thanks, Meaghan. I am so busy that I just take whatever you send and don’t think about how often or how little you may write. This is all volunteer, so who should complain?!
Mary
Good luck on Michael’s interviews! Don’t stress the updates.
A little favor to all here that read and do have FB accounts and do the twitter feed (I don’t). If anyone would mind sharing about an Honor Ride in Washington state that will be held in June for missing children, I’d appreciate it. Proceeds benefit NCMEC – the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I came across the news link when doing updates for the message board. I listed it on the Corner, but we get more bots than real people, so more eyes that see it, may help with money raised.
The mother of Teekah Lewis is organizing it. Meaghan has her case file listed. She was 2 and a half when she went missing back in 1999.
Here’s the fb entry on the Honor Ride coming up in Tacoma.
https://www.facebook.com/events/487871068032232/
I got the link from a q13fox news article. Thanks in advance!
He had an interview today and has made it to the second round.
Awesome, go Michael! My husband had a job interview on Monday as well. He just has to wait on the background check and credit check. At least this job doesn’t seem to be one that will be outsourced to foreign countries. (crossing fingers here)
Let us know if he lands it.