GUEST:

Spaw's point, I think, is not about gender specificity, enthnicity,national origin, et cetera. We have a plethora of "GUESTS" who just don't want to be associated as an individual with their own expressed thoughts, often because their expressed thoughts are of the troll variety, or pretty shaky, knowingly antisocial, or something like that.

Indeed, some of the "GUESTS" are no such thing: They're regulars here with recognizable "handles", and they're too chicken to express what they are saying in that recognizable "voice", so they hide behind the anonymity of "GUEST".

The "handle" adopted need not show the gender, ethnicity, etc. So Grizelda Schlopfenhausen might well go under the handle of MACHOMAN, or BLACKBOY or CHINAGIRL or--here's a real member's nickname here--GUEST#1, even though (s)he's not really a guest. The idea is that there is a stable identity maintained, and people from experience with posts under that name come to understand that individual's style, reliability, good-or-bad will, et cetera. I sign every one of my posts with my full name; people will have a background against which to judge what I say, for good or ill.

Spaw, in his usual somewhat rough style (which we've learned to discount over some experience with him) was referring to this kind of thing.

David Oesterreich