as a mod I can see the user info – many guests are “robots” which is how Google and other search engines index us to encourage “real users”. others come from countries where they would not normally speak or write in English even if they understand the threads.
I would find it very hard to post (rather than lurk) on a French, German or Dutch forum (despite having a reasonable knowledge of these languages) and a Chinese forum would be incomprehensible to me so would not normally bother to register on one, but do read forums and websites from FR,DE and NL if they have guest access.
in other cases there are people who read the drugs advice info on here but its not safe for them to regularly post, as they are in a country where doing so could get them in trouble, a job they enjoy but where their net access is monitored, or they are young teenagers who share a computer with other family including parents who monitor their use.
