let's get it straight:

once upon a time, several years ago, there were NO 'members'...then Max worked hard to create new features, like private messages and auctions and link pages, etc...which needed a cookie to work properly. The 'guest' name was added to identify those who could not, had not yet (being new)....and yes, did not wish, to have a cookie. Also, some malicious folk were posting disruptive messages using other's names.

once 'membership' was established, "guest" merely meant someone with no cookie enabled....but some took it as some moral/social designation, and acted as if it were somehow 'rating' people who come here....POOH!...many folk who came here posted as guests regularly, were recognized and treated the same as 'members'...because they used a name!!. They were perhaps posting from work, and could not use the private message system, but their contributions were good, interesting and acknowleged.

Max was NOT insulting or condemning those people, and you know it! He was simply tired, as are many, of those who use "guest" as a way to snipe and harass anonymously....some because the are "drunk & bored", some because they wanted to attack people they didn't like, and some because they wanted to coerce Max to re-design Mudcat to their specifications!

I am totally bemused by the person who posted "I can't be bothered with the user name/PW thing to post on websites"....fine! you deal with that...if you and several others hadn't behaved as you did, it wouldn't be necessary here, either! YOU act like children in a sandbox complaining "he won't do it MY way", and then whine because Mom changes the rules about who can play in the sandbox!

From my standpoint, it looks like about 3-5 malcontents will be inconvenienced by the proposed changes...(but I suspect a couple of THOSE are already members with multiple personalities who will still be here).....as to newbies...well, I suspect Max will figure out how to make the system work to welcome serious, honest new arrivals...LOGINS should allow anyone to BE here, whether or not they accept cookies, if I understand it correctly, and it **may** make it a bit more work for those who want to establish 14 email addresses and post thru 6 proxies to continue their contentious abuse!

If all this does slighty reduce the openness and accessibility of Mudcat (which I doubt), well, that's how it is...to ME, 85% of something wonderful is better than 100% of nothing....and, having met Max, I suspect that "nothing" was a real possibility at times.....would YOU like to sort out all this crap, do the programming, and try to live a life and make a living too?

**slides soapbox to one side with baleful glance at that curtain**