>Jay, we've had a few disagreements in the past ;-) but I don't think you are at fault here.
>
>IMHO it is *highly* significant that people clicked to what you were talking about, despite the initial vagueness of your scenario.
>
>You did not cause that widespread recognition; IMHO it is something to think about for the participants in this sorry tale.
>
>FWIW, now that I've seen the letters I find myself shaking my head in disbelief, and wondering whether normal UT users need to create new "Renoir" UT ids in case one of our esteemed leaders decides to finish us too.

Just looking at top 50 posters, if I got it right:

16 with blank company
18 of independents/owners/consultants/unemployed-and-proud-of-it
The remaining 12 are supposedly employees somewhere (and two are actually absent from the count - the late Ed Rauh, and the legend of UT's early years, Robert Keith, about whom I can't assume anything), and at least half of them aren't here frequently anymore. It's also not a phenomenon that affects employee bees only; there are several in the first two groups who are on the top 50 posters' list without having written a message in months. They are there because of the number of messages they wrote in previous years.