Maybe stop talking at me - and talk to each other instead?

Because I'm not talking to him?

Telling people you've been talking to for like a decade you're leaving for reasons you don't want to specify is fine maybe?

Of course. I wish him well, seems like a nice guy.

I meant that "social cue" generally refers to IRL situations where you read someone's body language and tone of voice and all the stuff a platform like this doesn't have. Though now texting figures into it as well

it's fine to bait people into speculating and worrying about you, sure. It's also fine for people to take the bait and start speculating.

Problem is, we don't really have the first hint at all to drive any of our speculation.

If I was a betting man though, I'd say whatever happened wasn't good, but again, just speculation. Barring winning the lottery or inheriting hundreds of millions from his dead aunt in Switzerland, I'm not sure what good news might drive someone who posted here regularly to abruptly stop posting.

There's plenty of bad news that could drive someone to stop posting though. He said it was life-changing news, that's all we have to go on though.

I hope he's well, but like others have said, if he wanted to tell us exactly what was going on, he would've. I also agree with jwb that if he really didn't want us to speculate, he wouldn't have made that post and just stopped posting - or if he wanted to let us know he wasn't gonna be around but didn't want us worried, he perhaps just could've said something along the lines of: "Don't worry about me y'all, I'm good, but I think I'm gonna stop posting for a while" - but that's not what he decided to post.

Not much we can do besides trying to reach out to him. I'm not gonna do that though. If he wants to come back and tell us, he will.

Yes exactly. He didn't just say goodbye he said I got life changing news. Speaking of social cues, how likely is it someone would leave such a cryptic message about life changing news that was good news? Seems that leaving out any details but specifying that it is life changing news is designed to have us assume the worst. So that is what I assume.

Plus, it's just an internet forum. All we got to do around here is either read stuff or post stuff.
Plank didn't ask anyone to stop posting in his regard so let's stop implying that wondering aloud about the guy is against some sort of forum or moral rules.

That's fair. Don't know much about Planton on a personal level, but he's generally a straight shooter. If he got some great news, he probably would've said so.

It's now obvious that Plankton won the lottery, but subscribes to SGR's policy: He's quit MB before he gets a flood of PM's begging for money.

More seriously, that's the curious thing about MB - we are friends but not friends. With my IRL friends it is unthinkable that any one of us would just stop cold without us calling to check up, etc. But hey, this is the internet and we know going in that it's ok to just pull the plug on MB. There is a whole thread that illustrates my learning curve on this principle:-

https://www.musicbanter.com/announce...tin-board.html