Guest,Russ

You do realize that you can be a member with all the extra benefits, and if there is a need to not be yourself you can just log off, which makes you GUEST until you log back in.

Members away from their own machine, or having a "crumbled cookie" difficulty, quite often post as GUEST,mudcatname until they can get their real persona back.

In rare instances, members do post as GUEST when there's a "personal problem" for which they want advice but with which they are reluctant to be identified. Within reason, this is accepted. Quite often, when the problem is resolved, the "temporary GUEST" will come back and "fess up," but it's often not really necessary.

You will see the occasional "frivolous" guest post, where a member has logged of to post as, e.g. "GUEST,Albert Einstein to contradict a pompous error in physics," etc., but these are - once one recognizes them - part of the "intellectual repartee" of the site. Quite often the real identity of the S.A. member is obvious to friends here.

Posting as "GUEST as a matter of principal (sic)" rather amuses me, as it implies that you take yourself much more seriously than we do (speaking for myself only, of course) but it's your option. We do appreciate a "GUEST,consistent-name" entry to keep straight who's in the conversation.

John