Fershur Ron – but, in over a year of operation, we haven’t been spammed by robots or trolls, to my knowledge. If ever that gets to be a problem, I’ll shut it down.
And, I agree about not knowing who is who; but many folks who came as guests ending up joining, because of positive feedback. Lowering the bar is one way to draw them in (i.e., not having to go through the extra clicks to sign up), and they often sign their name anyway.
At any rate, it’s just a decision I made, and I’m not unhappy with it so far. If that should change, we’ll switch to “members only”.