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Though this question is not particularly related to one site, I'm asking it here anyway.

There are several people I noticed who do not register on StackExchange but yet contribute a lot of very nice and high quality answers. The most notable example is Paul.

What is the benefit of not registering?

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    $\begingroup$ Unregistered users don't actually get their magical internet points, so there are more for the rest of us? $\endgroup$ – FreeMan Jun 9 '15 at 16:38
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    $\begingroup$ Interestingly he doesn't show up in the top users. $\endgroup$ – Danny Beckett Jun 15 '15 at 0:17
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    $\begingroup$ 9000 rep!?!?!? thingmabliggers! $\endgroup$ – Zizouz212 Jun 16 '15 at 15:36
  • $\begingroup$ Here's the same question from meta.SE: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/70481/… $\endgroup$ – Pondlife Jun 17 '15 at 17:00
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There's really no benefit to not registering with Stack Exchange, except hanging on to a relatively tiny bit of your anonymity (your account isn't associated with an OpenID provider, so Stack Exchange if subpoena'd can't say that John Doe is john_doe@gmail.com - they can only say John Doe has accessed the site from some set of IPs on some set of dates).

There's a big drawback to not registering, which is that if you ever lose the cookie that ties you to Stack Exchange you lose access to your account (at least that's how it used to be and I assume it still works that way).


Since you can create a StackExchange account without needing an external OpenID provider it's probably a good idea for everyone to go through at least that process, unless of course you don't care about your magical internet points (which may be more common in this community than the high-tech oriented ones like SO/SF/SU).

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