Well here's the thing. We store the user number of the person that starts threads - but we stopped displaying the associated nickname when we started allowing people to change nicknames - as not doing so would have meant that if you changed your nickname, all the threads you started would suddenly display "started by ShamefulSecret" or something similar, so the eagle-eyed would be able to spot who had changed their nickname. I'm just changing it to store the nickname as it was at the time the person started the thread - so we can display "started by" again without compromising anonymity.....