That's true - in order to have the roll-back feature that messyboard has (use the scrolling thingy at the bottom) they save everything posted. also there's no real authentication and the only privacy of this messyboard is obscurity - anyone on the web can see what you post, if they guess or think to come to the board. on the other hand, you can do it all completely anonymously except as far as the researchers themselves are concerned (I think they track you by IP address).

But yes, it is part of a research study.