I am speaking on this thread as a long term member and not as one of the Forum Moderators.
It is my opinion that one should be a member to post and GUESTs limited to only reading and searching abilities, with the only exception being made for non-members who are requesting a lyric, adding/correcting a lyric, or giving some bit of background or history on a lyric. This could be accomplished a couple of ways, but one would be a separate button for non-members to submit for consideration those very limited items. They would go to a separate page where mod's could check them daily when they are online, with specific guidelines for acceptability. They would then be published.
Back to the Forum Moderator role now. I would be happy to do this work (screening posts by non-members), and I know several others that wouldn't mind. The Mudcat has become attractive to spammers and trollers because it has no requirement of membership for posting. I can live with it just fine as it is, but I think there is a way to make it less appealing to spammers/trolls, that wouldn't be too difficult.
Having said that, it is Max's to run, and I am committed to running it within the guidelines that HE, and he alone has established.
And the old place certainly has weathered all the outrageous slings and aged very well, I would say.