[k-mcgrady]

>> "What I’ve observed is the opposite—that anonymity facilitates honest discourse, creates a level playing field for ideas to be heard, and enables creativity like none other."

One big counterpoint to this I can see is ask.fm. People are given total anonymity and they use it to berate and bully others (I believe it's also lead to several suicides). Anonymity can work great if the community is good. Here on HN I think it works pretty well. On ask.fm it clearly worked horribly but only because the community using it used it that way.

In the end I think it's all down to the people using the service and anonymity or true identity plays only a very small role.

Edit: and the downsides of anonymity can been seen below in '784927489234's comment.

[784927489234]

If someone commits suicide because of some bullshit on a random website, then the suicide was probably going to happen anyway.

This is the same tired "think-of-the-children" argument about reversed song lyrics played backwards, Ozzy Osbourne, foul language, and on and on, that the PMRC lobbied against, and used as a point to provoke the parental advisory album labeling in the 80's.

The term "cyber bullying" (which is new and different) is used incorrectly as a catch-all sometimes, but really, it should be reserved for a different form of pervasive harassment that follows the victim across many different scopes of internet and telecommunications access, where ignoring activity originating from one source (a single website, the victim's e-mail inbox, or the victim's telephone number) does not provide escape from disparaging remarks.

This is not the same as one website providing anonymity or even pseudonymity.

Yeah, children are inexperienced, and thin-skinned. They don't understand the risks of providing their real information on the internet, and and don't behave with the sophistication of those that do. There's lots of things on the internet that are not for kids. LOTS.

All the more reason to inform the inexperienced to AVOID revealing their honest real-life identity, rather than encouraging rubes to engage in promiscuous full-disclosure so that advertisers and ad-driven businesses can make a buck off of "unique" impressions.

[loupeabody]

I wouldn't really consider ask.fm as a total utilization of anonymity.

With reference to moot's point about the incontestable equality and a systemic reverence for ideas (instead of individuals) in an anonymous community, ask.fm isn't qualified as a service using anonymity. By placing those asked questions in a different social category (as the subject of focus) than those asking the questions (as those focusing on the subject), there is a major discrepancy between the identities of both types of participants.

[mikeg8]

There are mod policies on HN that ban/regulate users. Without those, would the quality still be as good? Probably not.

[Antiquarian]

Is ask.fm ephemeral?