Please remove guest account posting

[Guest Test_user]

Please remove guest account posting (and this message  afterwards). Thanks!

[timc]

A few clarifications:

1) Guest posts have to be manually approved by a moderator. There isn't a 'guest account' in this context.  In the e-commerce framework, a guest account can be created by the system to facilitate a transaction.  This is because most groups wouldn't eschew a random person's money as easily as their thoughts.
 
2) The ability to guest post might enable us to better convert visitors to registered users, as seen here:
 
http://www.crsociety.org/topic/11153-matcha-tea/
 
3) The functionality removed is - essentially - the ability for random people to send moderators a message which we can then act on (post, consider, aid in registration) or dispose of (spam) at our discretion. To be fair, there are other ways to accomplish this, none as elegant as guest posting IMO, but worthy of consideration. E.g., there is a 'report' feature - but I don't know much about it or if it can be used by guests. It is worth examination.
 
There are lots of interesting discussions online about various communities that require registration and those that don't. Two of the largest, Facebook and Google went further with real name policies which is ... what it is.
 
I'm partial to online communities that allow guest posting (here, it is only after approval).

A valid issue is how best to shuffle people towards registration or ensuring that registered people know to sign-in prior to posting.

 
I was tempted not to post this message because it seems contrary to the unknown guest's intent.  A plain reading suggests you want your post removed, after the guest posting is removed.