Anyone can get a free hotmail email address with any name that could be their "real" email address, then go sign up and say their name is John Doe and their email is johndoe@hotmail.com. Many people don't want their real name and their real email address on a PUBLIC board because the spammers can harvest all the email addresses. Not sure what they are getting at, but if they are trying to keep SPAM or anonymous people who attack others off the board, they should close it to the public and make it require a password to enter. Then everyone knows who posted. It would be interesting to know what the issue was that caused them to institute the new rule....