[Cpoll]

> On HN, commenters have a personal identity (which of course can be a pseudonym if you want). If some users want a site where there are no such identities, only free-floating comments with comment IDs, they should find or create such a site and participate there instead. There's room for lots of different kinds of internet forums. HN is just one kind, but it is that kind, and the reason we have moderation, including account bannage, is to preserve it as the kind of site it's meant to be.

I don't digest HN this way, at least - I prefer to separate the message from the person writing it. I'm also pleased to note that there are far fewer comment-reviewing/ad-hominem rebuttals on HN than on Reddit, and far fewer 'celebrities'.

On the flip side, I'm aware of some of the downsides of anonymous posting, so I can't disagree with you there.

I'm just afraid that a lot of times that you warn against throwaways, it's towards a controversial post (that's usually downvoted for being unpopular, but not otherwise against the rules of the site). I believe those posts have a lot of value, at least in reminding people that there are other perspectives and that nothing is 'obvious' (and maybe getting them a bit more passionate :) ). I'm afraid of these disappearing, as I've seen happen on sub-reddits that become debate-free echo-chambers.

[dang]

I don't want most of those posts to disappear either. The moderation comments you're referring to are more targeted than that.

[Cpoll]

Fair enough. There's selection bias on my end, and even then I can't find much fault.

Thanks for keeping the gears oiled around here :)