Noone is paranoid about GUESTS as such, and no matter how many times this gets repeated, someone always comes up and laments about how it makes them feel unwelcome to have all this "hatred/paranoia" about GUESTs.

It's the ones who come in and as GUESTS behave in a generally unpleasant manner who get people annoyed, because that's what they are trying to do. Essentially there are GUESTS and there are GHOSTS who haunt this place.

If interfering with the nasty little games of the GHOST GUESTS messes up the freedom of everyone else to come in as GUESTS without registering, that is a pity, but it's been forced on the Mudcat. It hasn't happened quickly, after all. And registering doesn't involve much, when you think of it - and it doesn't in any way interfere with anybody's wishes to keep their details private.

(As for Dave Bryant's problem - anytime I've had to log on from a strange computer, all I have to do is give pretty minimal details, and the cookie is back once more. Maybe there are some office computers where that doesn't work, but I'd be surprised if there isn't a painless way round that.)