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blah x: mind you, if the person (the one who owned the wedsite) found out and read this discussion, as paranoid as they already are, i doubt it would help their peace of mind much?

Exactly. The conversation isn't insulated because a link has been placed, linking that man's personal webpage to that discussion. Whether or not he sees it depends on how often he checks his site stats. I happen to check the stats on my own webpages and blogs at least once a day, and if they're linked back to a discussion forum -- I nearly always follow the link back.

Perna: If some woman in the supermarket sees me and says to her friend or the cashier or someone out of my hearing that I'm ugly as sin :-) and my mother wears combat boots and I'm probably crazy as a result; that doesn't bother me or harass me because I don't know any of those people and am not part of the "situation".

I think what's really different is that this has occurred in an online context . That individual's webpage featured his picture, his name, his contact information and his line of work. That's why I've asked that the information that personally identifies him be removed.

I'm thinking of a similar situation I read about a while back. A guy and a girl broke up and in the aftermath, the guy made a webpage and put a bunch of her nude pics on it. Now, even if she had never found that webpage, we can't say that damage wasn't done because it was -- at minimum to her reputation.

In this situation we have a fellow's webpage that personally identifies him along with the implication that he's a "paranoid schizophrenic". But none of us know if he is -- not you, not me, not the yoga instructor. We can't even say with any certainty if that individual actually placed the ad. It's all speculation. Meantime, this is the web -- it's not a conversation that might be overheard in a checkout line.

The last I checked, that blog entry had close to 2000 reads on it. How long will that information sit there?