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Comment by salawat | Hacker News Reader

Reddit isn't even remotely anonymous. Pseudonymous at best. Anonymous forums are completely incompatible with user identity centric moderation mechanisms (Karma, Gold, rep etc...)

Once you assign usernames and attach any type of value counter to an account, you've effectively dumped true anonymity out the window due to essentially creating a pseudonymic marketplace.

People may think "How pseudonymous do you need to be?" In today's world? Very. Especially given the propensity for deplatforming and reputation based social warfare.

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Anonymous relative to Facebook and all the other social media sites. Sure, having user accounts is not completely anonymous, but it is good enough for 99% of people.

Not having a real name policy isn't the same as being anonymous. Back in the day my irc nick and my WoW username were far more well known than I, the human, will ever be.

You can make a new reddit account in 20 seconds if you don't want people to tie the comment you're about to make to your main account which is already a step removed from you. If you want Throwaway8675309 to develop a reputation, that's an option you have, not a requirement.

No surprise, but Throwaway8675309 actually exists on reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/user/Throwaway8675309

Also no surprise, the account was active for only ~5 days.

Anonymous is probably the wrong term, but I'm not sure there's a better one.

I think the point is that there's a distinct disconnect between your profile on Reddit (and any other sites you share the username with) and your physical person, at least up until the point where you (ideally) make the connection public yourself if desired.

It's anonymous insofar as the "person" on reddit is not easily attributable to the physical person themselves.

> Anonymous is probably the wrong term, but I'm not sure there's a better one.

There is one. It was used a couple comments up.

Pseudonymous. It's an actual word, not just made up.

Ah yep, I glossed over that somehow.

My point stands, though - despite the misusage of the word anonymous there's a real difference between how facebook treats identity and how reddit does. And it massively affects how communities in both interact.

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