"The court can and will award substantial sums of money for false and defamatory statements. While the court was told of the difficulties of tracking people down, the fact remains that they can be tracked down."

You need look no further than Wikipedia.

Phew! Not the Lunix distro, then? Many's the time I've ribbed Gentoo users for being, well, odd. -O99 -pipe -funroll-loops -funroll-all-loops -ffast-math -freally-fast-math -freally-really-fast-math -fi-am-1337 -fsod-space-gimme-speed -fhold-the-pickles -march=blue-gene...

Then portage craps itself a couple of weeks later and they have to start again. "But it's fun!" comes the reply. Funny old world...

Are there any details over the liability of the bulletin board owners or even the ISP? Were the board owners protected by their terms & conditions for transferal of liability to the people posting?

As an administrator, in my spare time, of a hobbiest bulletin board - I'd be interested in knowing more about that.

Private Eye have also printed some pretty serious allegations against Sunderland Housing themselves, as well as closely covering the whole "Dad's Place " debacle.

Mines the one next to the "Fuck the Housing Associations before they fuck you" banner, thanks.