Will YouTube's comment jerks willingly out themselves? Not bloody likely

As an aside, when I followed your link, I was treated to an ad overlay taking up the whole page. "Okay, fair enough", I thought, "yuppie Nuremberg, etc etc"...

...but then I noticed the caption in the corner:

"the page you requested is loading"

Bull. Shit. They're not just messing me about to try to suck more ad bucks out of my visit, they've got the gall to lie to me about why they're doing it.

I'm not even interested in reading their article now. Anyone who'd pull that sort of stunt clearly has no respect for their content, so why should I?

There's social value in anonymity (and having an online pseudonym rather than 'real name' is not necessarily the same as being anonymous). Being a jerk reduces the value anonymity offers to those who do not have the protection of free speech.

On the internet, you can be anything. So why do you choose to be an idiot?

(And I appreciate appeals to reason don't impact the jerk.)

> "I think the best solution for YouTube is a tiered system in which comments from people who use their real names are placed at the top of the video thread, with the anonymous comments relegated to steerage."

So everyone has the right to annonamous posting, but if you use that right, none will read it.