Yes, this is a new twist on an old feature that was discontinued some time back.

Due to our rising popularity, there's an increasing number of visitors who would like to provide some feedback on specific topics... but may not be interested in membership or following other topics on ATS. This feature enables these people to provide their opinion or information in a quick and painless way, then our staff decides if it's appropriate or not (over 90% of the anonymous replies have been approved, only those with T&C violations are not).

Already I've seen several very-good contributions through this method, so the early indications are very good.

We're experimenting with the idea to see how it goes. As we get experience with the kind of material being posted, we might refine the process and/or limit the number of anonymous posts someone can make within a defined period of time. We might also do a cross-reference check against known member IP addresses... good point brought up in this thread.

We've refined the message given to those who use the anonymous rely feature, and have made it clear that we'll only approve replies that provide a substantive contribution to the discussion... as well as very-strict compliance with terms & conditions.

Some updates for this new feature...


Members
If our system detects the IP address of a member, their anonymous post will not be accepted.


Frequency
People making anonymous posts will be limited to one post every twelve hours. They'll be directed to create a member account if they try to post more than that.


Quality
Our staff is only approving posts that provide substantive contributions to the discussion.