Which came first?

[Anon.]

It's been widely known and noted for some time...

...that people posting as Guests have the moral equivalence of a boiled egg.

I've often seen this opinion put forward on message boards. But why? If everyone always posted anonymously, you'd be forced to deal with each post on its own merits, while if you're always relying on a prior knowledge of the writer your reaction to each particular post will be prejudiced, whether for good or (more commonly) bad. Regular posters can hardly claim that anonymous guests don't have the courage to put their names to their opinions when they're hiding behind usernames themselves.

[RedCelt69]

I've often seen this opinion put forward on message boards. But why? If everyone always posted anonymously, you'd be forced to deal with each post on its own merits, while if you're always relying on a prior knowledge of the writer your reaction to each particular post will be prejudiced, whether for good or (more commonly) bad. Regular posters can hardly claim that anonymous guests don't have the courage to put their names to their opinions when they're hiding behind usernames themselves.

Well, I'm not anonymous. For the more diligent stalker-heads in the community, I can easily be found - based purely on the words I've used on this forum alone. And I've been using this identity since 1996.

The key to non-guest posts is the consistency of thoughts. If someone is arguing that A=B, how are we to know that yesterday they weren't arguing that A=C. We evolved to evaluate people based on past experiences of them. It allows us to establish much more than the words they're using in the here and now.

Besides, I'm confident that I know which coward is using that particular Guest login.