Of course I'm not talking about viruses or anything like that. I'm suggesting that it's better to keep the user's IRL identity private by default, without making them jump through hoops if they don't want their actual IP address appearing every time they post something on this public forum.

I'm just wondering what displaying the poster's IP address is supposed to deter.

If someone want to troll / spam this forum then displaying the IP address does fuck all to stop them, because the troll / spammer can easily spoof it (and interestingly they don't even need an account to post (fucking lololol))