| Quora's "real name policy" is just moronic. The thing is that Quora doesn't care at all if the name is real or not. What is important for them is that the name looks real. They think this policy (where people are making up fake but plausible names) makes the site seem more credible... And this is what they now have accomplished, a site populated by millions of subscribers with plausible but fake names. It also means that you are less likely to tell if a poster is using a pseudonym or their real name. I think it is perfectly ok to use pseudonyms in this type of communities. And allowing pseudonyms does NOT result in more spam or trolling since a fake name is as easy to create. When I use a pseudonym I very much would like to be able to signal to other users the fact that it is a pseudonym, easiest done by purposely using an id that is obviously NOT a real name. That is just sensible courtesy to other users, and what you would expect from other users. But Quora have chosen to force people to instead use fake names. |