I do not know of a way this can be done without readers registering. This is, then, not really an answer to your question, but a suggestion:
Allow anyone to register (Options->General / Membership)
Allow new users to submit drafts (Options->Writing / Newly Registered Users …)
Check out the plugin mentioned here.
Advantages:
New users only have a User Level of 1, so they can’t do anything but submit drafts.
You can easily keep track of all your contributors’ email addresses.
WordPress can easily deal with author attribution: that user really did write the post, so that’s the author the post gets filed under/attributed to.
The main issue I see with the way you want it to work (users not registering) is that issue of attribution. If users never register, how do you easily and conveniently denote the author of such a submitted post?
Another idea would be just to have people email you suggested posts. Not as slick as what you propose (again, not a solution but a suggestion). Or you could have people submit potential posts as comments to a special Post or Page (also not what you want).
I want to build a site like boing boing where the public submit most of the content. Is the method mentioned above the best way to do this?
i would also be very interested in the ability to do this. anyone know of a way to make it possible?
