I'm editing this to say this is not from donald as it shows in this thread. This is from @HamiltonSquare.

I have twenty new thumbs ups and the only thing they have in common is that they are for @needrain. @dave The oldest one is from 18 hrs ago but I was on this morning and these were not her. The most recent is 47 minutes ago.b!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1144743 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
47 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1147120 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
49 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1148170 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
49 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1150263 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
51 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1150384 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
52 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1151692 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
52 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1152781 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
53 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1153710 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
54 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1154769 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
54 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1157857 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
56 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1158709 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
56 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
dormantsrule gave you a thumbs-up for post #1159795 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
57 minutes ago
No You got a thumb!
flaflwrgrl gave you a thumbs-up for post #1162636 in "Texas Weather!" by needrain.
last hour
No You got a thumb!
shive1 gave you a thumbs-up for post #1159795 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
2 hours ago
No You got a thumb!
shive1 gave you a thumbs-up for post #1148170 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
2 hours ago
No You got a thumb!
Mayo62 gave you a thumbs-up for post #1162245 in "What are you adding for 2016?" by needrain.
6 hours ago
No You got a thumb!
froggardener gave you a thumbs-up for post #700968 in "Cloth and Cement" by needrain.
9 hours ago
No You got a thumb!
Ahead gave you a thumbs-up for post #1159795 in "May blooms 2016" by needrain.
10 hours ago
No You got a thumb!
Pat236 gave you a thumbs-up for post #1092097 in "Pictures of your NOID's" by needrain.
18 hours ago
No You got a thumb!
froggardener gave you a thumbs-up for post #1162591 in "Texas Weather!" by needrain.

Erm, aren't you @needrain? It would make sense that you get your own system messages. Or am I misunderstanding things here?

Im not @needrain Im HamiltonSquare!

Well you're logged in as needrain.

Did needrain email you a link that you clicked on? If it was a private tree mail link, that would have logged you in as him. Please click here:

http://garden.org/logout.php

And for the future, never email someone else a special link that gets them access under your username.

I just gave a thumbs up on a thread and checked to see and it says I'm Donald too. Im going to log out and back in.

dave said:Did needrain email you a link that you clicked on? If it was a private tree mail link, that would have logged you in as him. Please click here:

http://garden.org/logout.php

And for the future, never email someone else a special link that gets them access under your username.

Dave, can you tell us here (or TreeMail me privately, if you prefer) how this would happen? I want to be sure I never do anything that would cause this--I didn't even know it was possible to do (aside from hacking).

I logged out and back in and I'm me again and all those thumbs up are gone from my list. I'll check my mail but those are far and few between and none to Donald I'm sure. As far as a special link is concerned I was not aware that was even possible and don't know why that would be done.

No mail to or from Donald. By the way this all happened while I was logged in. I don't usually log out.

@Dave
I bet the link in this post was the culprit.

edit: tree-mailing you the link instead

How freaky for you, Leslie!

That is bizarre! Danita, what is on the link you posted? I am afraid to click it. I do not want to be anyone else

When you get an email from any website that contains a special link that logs you in, never forward that link to someone else, and don't post the link to a forum.

That's what needrain did. He copied and pasted the private link that was emailed to him, right into a thread here at ATP. Hamilton then clicked on that link and then he was logged in as needrain.

The solution for everyone is: if you have a special access link emailed to you, never forward that or give it to anyone else. This applies to ALL websites, not just Garden.org.

I didn't really get it get at all until iposted to the site forum. I just thought it was a glitch. Not something nefarious. Who was me when I wasn't? Was it a link in apost? Does this mean I could have read all Donald's mail?

Oh..... thanks for explaining Dave.

Thank you for the explanation. Had read about a thumbs up problem and was curious so I could identify it if I ever had a issue like that. Somehow it took me to needrains threads and forums. I decided to log out and back in again. I am okay now.

I'm sorry about this. I just saw all this a few minutes ago. I gave 2-3 thumbs-up this morning, but I don't recall sending out any posts at all. As it happens I'm somewhat under the weather and spent nearly all afternoon playing a feverish sloth . I had decided it would be good to reboot my computer just before I hit the sack because it seemed to me that the NGA webpage was being especially wonky today. Doing thing others have commented on here like slow loading and hanging up.

If I look at my page, it is showing I made a lot of posts, nearly all to forums that I have sent posts to in the past, but two I don't recall ever having sent a post (possibly a memory fail on my part). Those posts all with the date of 05/28/16 are still showing on my info, but I didn't knowingly send them.

I have, as Leslie Ray did, logged out and back on. @dave do I need to do anything on my end? I remember seeing a post from Suzan Catim as a new member, but I can't remember what forum or if I sent a welcome or not. Is it possible to remove those notifications of having sent posts from my personal page?

I really hate this sort of thing and have never actually been the victim before. For now, I'm afraid to post anything. This will be all I'll attempt until @dave says I'm clear. I'm not totally comfortable that something on my end didn't occur. I received two emails this morning with large photo files attached. I was expecting that email. They took a long time to download and the first one managed to completely download at 8:02 a.m. They were photos of arilbred iris seedlings and the mail originated in New Zealand. I'm not computer literate enough to know whether that could have had anything to do with this or not. If it's possible, as a courtesy I'd like to notify the sender. We've corresponded for several years off and on without any issues. I just don't know.

I presume I can lurk while I'm logged on? Or should I do all the lurking logged off?

Sorry again. It's really aggravating.
Donald aka @Needrain

You're all clear now Donald. The problem was this post:

The thread "Tree mail" in Sandbox forum

You can copied the contents of your email into that post, which contained a special login link intended just for you.

dave said:When you get an email from any website that contains a special link that logs you in, never forward that link to someone else, and don't post the link to a forum.

That's what needrain did. He copied and pasted the private link that was emailed to him, right into a thread here at ATP. Hamilton then clicked on that link and then he was logged in as needrain.

The solution for everyone is: if you have a special access link emailed to you, never forward that or give it to anyone else. This applies to ALL websites, not just Garden.org.

I didn't really do that @dave. What I think I might have done is exactly what I'm doing here - using the quote function to welcome Suzan Catim. It was coffee time and I don't really remember whether there was a link in her message or not. At the time, her post looked legitimate. So already I'm breaking my rule about not posting until I get the all clear. If that is what happened, then it was far, far too easy and somehow needs to be blocked. Can you check and see if that's what I did this morning? Or is it all well and truly gone to the ether?

@Dave Please check your tree-mail. Thanks!

@needrain are you saying that you did not make this post:

http://garden.org/thread/view_...

And please, change your password right away. Then you'll be all clear.