"We really want to make it easy for non-members to post on the music threads, so we're taking our time figuring out a solution. On the other hand, we have to do something to limit nonmember posting, since we're being flooded with Spam and general nastiness."

Support all you techie guys 100%. Currently the biggest technical hole is on the Help area, where any anonymous nastie can spoof being anyone, regular Member-name or not, and endlessly post nastiness in their name.

Catch 22 - kick a foul mouthed arsehole out from being a regular member, and the real nasties will figure out ways to make as big a stink as they can.

One suggested way to still allow most of the current Secret Santa fun is to allow only guests with a 'SS-' prefix (and of course all regular members) to post in only 'SS:' prefixed threads - maybe even during only a limited calendar period - say from Sept/Oct to 1 Feb. Of course only those up to their elbows in the mechanics of the system can make a decision on that. This would probably mean that "GUEST-God" et. al. would no longer be able to post at all - but there are some ways I can think of to set up to technically get around that - if any of the 'Mudcat-Engineers' really wants to ask my opinion, they know how to email me.