By doing so, we would be removing part of what a community is: a place where we trade information to those who are already here, while still allowing new people to venture in. I think that one of the great things about allowing anonymous posting on sites is that it allows a new person to test the site out by participating here and there. And then, if they feel that the site has a lot to offer them, they will register a username to gain the extra benefits of a logged-in user.

To be honest, my first couple of posts on perlmonks were via anonymous monk, because I wasn't too sure whether or not perlmonks was going to be a cool place. Once I realized that "hey, perlmonks is a great place!", I registered my username and continued on from there.

And to be quite frank: yes, we do receive those few very annoying posts from anonymous users, but I think we receive much more positive input than the negative. Besides, if a troll is really set on posting something, they'll just create an account for one or two posts anyhow.

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