I found that out last night. I did not know that it had changed. See post 264 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2312169/posts?q=1&;page=282#264
It used to be that way, I did not know that it had changed. I bet that I am not the only one who does not know that, given that people still do it.
I don't recall that it ever worked that way.
Back in the day one could put anything in the "To:" field. On the DD thread we'd frequently make jokes or poke fun at each other with variant spellings and puns on screen names.
Eventually people started abusing this ability, and JimRob added code so that only valid screen name could go into the "To:" window.
That's when I created the dummy accounts, I also wanted to create a "The Author of the Article" account so that the person posting a controversial article wouldn't necessarily feel blasted every time someone responded to the article.
By that time The Mod Squad was enforcing the one screen name per customer rule, and that account got nuked.
I suppose the "All", "Y'all" and "No one in particular" accounts are in technical violation of that rule, but I haven't the slightest clue what their passwords are and couldn't use them to create mischief even if I wanted to. Besides, they're dead useful...