[chipsy]

Think of books, though. They're the best available counterpoint to what you're saying. People don't necessarily care about the author of a book, but they do care about the content of the book and its ability to piece together a larger idea.

Within forum post culture there's a built-in tendency for content to be fast and disposable. This makes identity relatively more valuable, because it allows a stream of posts to be put in context, just like with a book.

[andrewflnr]

On the other hand, I might well not bother with a book unless I know the author of good. I'll almost certainly prefer a book with a known good author over one without. This is just to prevent my time from being wasted, to maintain a decent signal to noise ratio.

[TeMPOraL]

Not really. I might not know the author, but I rarely read completely random books. Most of the times I read things recommended by other people. The context is not in the book, it's in the way I found out about it.