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I guess I haven't seen much correlation between real names and quality; more seems to be between the forum type and quality. I'd be interested in a study of that, though.

Two random examples: HN is mostly pseudonyms and has pretty good quality discussion; my local newspaper now uses Facebook Connect to have users post under their real names, and its readers dutifully post a bunch of ignorant trash under their real names.

I do like having semi-stable identities, whether pseudonymous or real. It makes more of a sense of community if you actually recognize people and ascribe viewpoints/personality/etc. to them, rather than every post in effect being written by RandomUser92736 with no continuity between discussions, or any ability to form within-community reputation.

I think you're on to something here.

There are good communities and bad communities.

Norms play a huge role. Expectation plays a role, Participants' culture plays a huge role. Some communities work well based on in-real-life associations. Some work based on technical means (strong moderation tools). Some have weak moderation tools but an aggressive enforcement community and back-channel discussions for dealing with egregious abuse, though from my experience those back channels are used far more rarely than might generally be expected, and may even take on an inside-joke status.

In the same sense, real-world communities may or may not be well-behaved, and often have similar foundations. The better-behaved ones tend to be well-established (but often hard for outsiders to break into), highly policed, based on cultural norms (common religion, ethnicity, purpose, social class, interests). It's where multiple structures break down that problems become most severe.

Even short-lived communities can be very well behaved. There are few communities more transitory than college campuses, yet they have very few management issues.

The biggest hazard in either online or physical cultures is creation of a mob (root word: mobility), in which an antisocial mindset spreads through a population. What are needed aren't strong authentications ("papers, please"), but circuit breakers and dampers to dissipate these energies.

If it is in fact civility and community which are valued.

4chan is an example of an "anonymous" system, not a "pseudonymous" one: the difference is whether you have stable identities over time, and therefore can build up reputation (positive or negative) for a particular "pseudo-name".

As long as you have mechanisms, whether social or political, to "default distrust" new users that don't have much "cred" yet (mechanisms like the "green" user rendering that Hacker News uses for this purpose), you are not going to lose the benefits of "anonymous" vs "real names".

In fact, one might even argue that claiming otherwise misses the point of names: even when I am going by just the name "saurik" (seldom, but it happens: like here on this site), I care deeply about what I say as it affects my identity.

As an example near and dear to many people on this site, no one had known who "why the lucky stiff" was (maybe they do now? not keeping up with that much); but, if he had started being an idiot on forums and started "proliferating senseless hacking and child pornography", you can be certain that that would have been quite bad for him.

(In fact, if your real name is not known by anyone, and everyone knows the entity that actually has all of the reputation capital you draw on on a daily basis, then arguably there is no risk in doing something stupid with your real name, and total risk in doing so with your pseudonym.)

I agree with you on two points. Firstly, you are right to make the distinction between anonymous and pseudonymous, they're two different things and you can build a reputation system and healthy community on a pseudonymous system (see HN). However, I think they both exhibit the same underlying problem that comes with lack of accountability. HN has been lucky, because it's for the most part an elite community full of smart people. Digg or reddit have not been so lucky, and the quality of comments there is quite low. HN is the exception, not the rule.

Secondly, I also agree that there's definitely some edge cases where it make sense for people to be anonymous, or pseudonymous. If you need to shield yourself from your employer for legal reasons, I think it makes sense for you to do so. What I'm arguing is that in most cases, though, it's good for the overall community to enforce true names.

There's more to pseudonyms than legal reasons. What I write on the internet stays there, and I expect people to google my real name, but I do not wish to have all of my lives linked together.

For example, if I'd have to use my real name, I would never speculate. With a pseudonym, I feel comfortable making mistakes and tiny contributions. Similarly, if I were in a horde guild, I would not want alliance players to dismiss my civil politics opinions.

I use a pseudonym to shield myself not so much from my current but my next employer. Or landlord. Or girlfriend's family. HN gets what's really weighing on my mind, while Facebook gets heavily censored, cheerfully inoffensive pablum when I bother to participate at all. As I see it,

  true names : pseudonyms :: villages : cities

and cities are the wellsprings of progress because people can reinvent themselves and unpopular but good ideas can find support.

I have browsed thru /b/ many times, and the behavior of people there truly is the worst I've seen ever.

This has little to do with anonymity. Millions of people act equally stupidly on Facebook or Youtube as well, where there isn't such anonymity. The quality of posts is determined by the quality of the community and its members, not whether or not they have names.

/b/ is hardly representative of anonymity on the internet, and if there wasn't any anonymity, /b/ would be just as bad as it is today. Even on 4chan, the vast majority of the boards have a vastly higher quality of posting than /b/.

So should in your view Wikipedia and GitHub enforce real usernames?

You make it sound like there is no responsibility and accountability in pseudo-anonymous cooperation.

How about real names on license plates? X-Box live accounts?

Enforcing real names is _not_ always a good thing. They already have my IP and the police can demand my ISP for my personal data; not just a stalker, impersonator, or any fraud.

Enforcing real names on 4chan will solve nothing, and likely make matters worse (in your view): It would create a more vibrant Freenet or Darknet where people are a lot more anonymous and 4chan seems civil by comparison.

People love to bring up 4chan as an example to this discussion every time, and yet there is no one on 4chan who has not freely chosen to be there.

All this "know who you are talking to in order to have a friendly community" stuff is nonsense. We know why Google and Facebook and the Obama administration want this. Control and tracking. End of story.

It's not about what 4chan does to its members—I couldn't give less of a fuck. It's about what they do to the rest of society. Things like Anonymous and LulzSec, which end up on the NYTimes frontpage, are is a direct result of places like 4chan.

Additionally, as a member of the Google+ community, I'm glad to see Google cares for its quality.

Things like Anonymous and LulzSec, which end up on the NYTimes frontpage, are is a direct result of places like 4chan.

I must disagree with this statement. If you believe that anonymous boards like 4chan provide a gathering place for the already antisocial, getting rid of 4chan doesn't get rid of the antisocial. They'll find some other way to gather and/or express their frustrations with society. I'd argue that it's possible that sites like 4chan provide an outlet for some people, preventing them from expressing their frustration "in real life."

For the record, I consider the real-name-only position you've advocated on this article to be a bit extreme (I believe I also replied to another of your comments). Feel free to desire a place, web site, etc. that satisfies every one of your whims and expectations, but don't do so in a way that forces others to conform. Maybe they see value to themselves and to society in the things you personally dislike.

Anonymity is not related to lack of forum moderation or escape from consequences. It just means a username is not recorded or displayed. BTW, posting underage obscenity, inflammatory statements, neo nazism etc gets the poster ip banned. [1] /b/ is an isolated case which is often quoted. It is only one of 40-something forums on 4chan. Please, go back and browse /adv/ instead. Same anonymous people, supporting and helping each other with advice. Anonymity is not the issue, it is the community which people create through their actions and expectations of finding other like-minded individuals in the same virtual space.

The difference in discussion quality is this:

With identity, because users can form a social hierarchy and praise or shame each other, they live in a box that others have defined them to be in. You may be in a pleasant box, but you are not seeing "the truth." Everyone manipulates their image and how they present themselves to others. This is fine within small groups as it can make the group more stable. However, it does not work at scale; this is the subject of Assange's theory of "conspiracy as governance." Blow the whistle on the conspiracy and you will be a threat, and shut down by any means necessary...

Without identity, you have to constantly prove your worth. What Anon tells you is incoherent, and usually overly emotional, but also usually honest...trolling aside... And in this way, truth can gradually be exposed.

Since Anon's breakthrough into "the real world," governments face a situation where the global strong-identity hierarchy is being disrupted. They can no longer spin a manipulated version of facts to the public and expect it to last for very long.

We need some of both. Strong identity within small groups; weak identity when dealing with society at large.

So is there no good reason one may wish to remain anonymous or pseudonymous? Because I can think of many.

-- Chris Sauro, masterzora.net

LulzSec are vandals and dicks. But Anonymous has done some good things as well...

> [1]: I have browsed thru /b/ many times, and the behavior of people there truly is the worst I've seen ever. I was in the middle of the SF Giants riots last year, and the people setting fire to cars and breaking windows seemed more civil by comparaison.

Seriously? Yeah, /b/ is a vile cesspool. But there is a real and significant difference between riots that directly affect people's safety and destroy physical artifacts and capital as opposed to information leaks and DDOS attacks.

There is a difference between anonymous and not claiming responsibility for what one says, and being anonymous and claiming responsibility for what one says. 4chan is an example of the former, while the Federalist Papers are an example of the later.