I've now required registration for users to post in these forums. I got tired of deleting all the spam every day.
I also got a persuasive PM from moneo that encouraged me to require registration:
moneo wrote:
Once in a while you post questions from non-members, like today's from a guy named Russell Meyers.
I used to try to help out and answer these, but it's very frustrating not being able to ask the author any questions, and not knowing if your solution helped him or not.
Why don't you invite these people to register on the forum? This way they can get all the benefits like questions, answers and feedback or problems with the solutions. Plus, more members would be willing to participate on these posts.
A similar problem is with guests that post questions. You try to help them and then you never hear from them again. I know that guests provide a certain amount of activity on the forum, but shouldn't we try to encourage them to become members?
Both the non-members that you introduce as well as guests have no profiles, so it's impossible to contact them.