McGrath,

If you post as a GUEST with a handle, obviously you are wide open to have others posting in your name, but that doesn't apply if you sign in as a member, unless you have been foolish enough to let some nasty know your password.

More precisely: that doesn't apply if you sign in as a member (giving an email address and "your real name" to the admins, whose computers may be subject to spying), always use the same computer, the same browser, with "cookies" activated, and never delete your "cookies". Many regular posters including myself cannot or do not want to work that way, as leeneia and Musket stated above. We do hazard having others posting in our names, but we would prefer (not demand) to be protected against that. A simple optional password mechanism would be great.—

As for posting without any handle, the main problem about it is that it often happens accidentally. If such messages were rejected by the board software, allowing the poster to add a handle immediately, nothing would be lost in terms of privacy. Max seems to have decided against it, without mentioning his reasons, which may well be of purely technical character. (On the other hand, intentionally leaving the "From" field empty indicates that the poster is not available for discussions, not even inside the same thread - fine with me, but "GUEST,somebody" would do the trick as well).—

A single person posting under various monikers, so-called "astroturfing", is not "good form", but cannot be prevented if done skillfully. Reasonable readers must be aware that the number of Mudcat posters sharing an opinion is no indication of its validity or relevance, not even of its prevalence in the folk scene. Well-respected nicknames are more important.