Bill, I agree right up to "cowards". What I think happens is some very stupid people don't know whether they should agree with a post or disagree if they don't know who wrote it. Knowing a person's identity saves them the trouble of understanding the message. If someone's being obnoxious, it's a different thing, but most of them are less obnoxious than the anal-retentive "I MUST KNOW WHO YOU ARE!" types.

It CAN lead to confusion when one isn't sure which guest they're talking to, but they could quote the bit they're responding to. My main feeling on this is that most of the time, the argument against anonymous posting is far more disruptive than the anonymous posts.

Take this thread, for example, which was intended to be about iceland wriring off debts.