All this talk about "GUEST"s, but no one has addressed Sandra's objection to our fake names ~ noms de plume.

My first few posts here were identified as "GUEST, Tom Henehan" ~ I didn't hesitate to post my real name. When I was eventually encouraged to join, I was specifically encouraged to adopt a "Mudcat name," and I followed the recommendation and did so. I do use my real name (usually without a word-space: TomHenehan) just about everywhere else where I belong to a forum or listserve or whatever, but it's kind of fun to be just a little bit more mysterious and use a pseudonym here in this one little corner of cyberspace

Having a clear identity attached to each post is helpful to readers, so they can follow the conversation with better understanding. There are many threads (especially in the "BS" section, and especially on the most controversial topics) where there are multiple unidentified guests, and it can become very confusing when you can't tell one GUEST from another, and/or can't tell whether multiple "GUEST" messages are from the same person or two or more different individuals.

You don't have to know the people's real names to sort this stuff out. But it really helps to be able to differentiate person "A" from person "B."

Shifting to another subtopic, I have no objection at all to anyone (stranger, new member, not-so-new member, whoever) asking a question that has already been answered. Threads that address such questions only bore me insofar as they consist of ill-tempered responses advising the newbie to "look it up and leave us alone!"

I enjoy these rehashings of previously-discussed topics when they resurrect an interesting question that I might never have asked myself, but whose answer turns out to be fascinating. At the very least, references (ideally, links) to the past discussion(s) that the questioner "should have" looked up often engage my interest. And there are very many instances when someone has something new to contribute ~ even if the topic had been addressed in the past, it usually was not totally exhausted within the earlier discussion, and someone always seems to offer something new and interesting (even if it's just that one person's quirky opinion).