Well, the Sheffield Utd supporter forum pulled a whopper last night . . .
they posted a very serious "forum closing" thread that popped up when you logged on - asked that you read it before anything else. Related that they were losing their hosting site because 'some' members on the forum had made such rude commentary about Martin Samuels (a sports writer who despises the Blades and uses his column to go after them when ever possible) that they were being sued for libel.
They even attached a pdf of a letter that was addressed to the hosting service from a solicitors' practice representing Samuels, demanding the IP addresses and email addresses of a specified group of posters (listing the offending posts by link).
It was rather brilliant and it took me a minute to realize that 1) the posters who presumably caused offense are not the 'rude' members - they are the more thoughtful ones (who were probably in on the joke - several are lawyers themselves); and 2) the forum wasn't closed, despite the 'look' - if you clicked on the home page link it took you right into the forum.
Nailed a bunch of people, though - who actually posted in the thread (not grasping the inconsistency) offering to pay to help host elsewhere/legal fees/etc, or simply commenting on the horror of it all!
I appreciate a well-thought out prank . . .
