GUEST   (or one of the myriad) said:

Why is a fake name better than being a guest ?

Because people occasionally lose their cookies, and the default is GUEST, for one thing, leading to confusion as to who says what. But whatever the fake name you might assign is different (absent fraud or trollism) from the fake name I might assign, or that Suzie Jones or Harold Schwartz might assign. Thus a reply, for instance, can be directed to SJONES or ESSJAY or AITCHESS or HAIRYMONSTER or whatever, and another reader can go back and ascertain what that poster really said. And on and on and on....

Dave Oesterreich