Like any community site there is a serious chicken and egg problem. Even more so in academia where there is a very engrained sense that research and discussion should happen behind closed doors. I can't imagine academics wanting to discuss their opinions too openly for fear of it coming back to damage their reputation later. If you could foster an academic community which was more open it would have a positive effect on the whole of academia, but then we're talking about changing an institution not just building a community.

I notice that you have made a point of being able to change the anonymity of a comment at any time. I think this is one way to help with fear of damaging reputation so good job with that.

I've got quite a few thoughts on the problem and ideas to go about tackling these issues. I don't know if they'll ever come to anything, but I'd love to bounce them around with people working in this area. My email address is in my profile if you'd like to chat.