I go back to near the beginning at Mudcat. In all that time, I've never received unsolicited e-mails due to Mudcat. Even the private messages I've received (a benefit of membership) are few in number, easily managed, and always germane to some topic I've posted on.

You'll get the ability to post without having to remember to add on a name after "guest," the ability to send and receive private messages, and much more control over filtering the message thread here. You'll be able to trace threads, so that you can find them a week later after they've probably dropped off the bottom of the board (or six years later, when they've certainly dropped off the bottom of the board!). Sharing information like locations or birthdays or contact info on the members pages is optional, and even there, I can say from personal experience of many years that the information hasn't been abused.

--Charlie Baum