[normloman]

We have pseudoanonymity on hacker news, and everyone gets along just fine.

Perhaps anonymity is a red herring. Maybe the tone of discourse is a function of what kinds of people a community attracts, and how involved each user is with that community.

[hellbanTHIS]

Yeah that's pretty obvious if you've ever seen a news article with Facebook comments that the Drudge Report has linked to, particularly one involving a black person.