I thought the point of online anonymity was that it allows people to be judged based on what they say and do, not by their name, nationality, certifications, or whatever.
Saying everybody should use their own names means you not only want to judge the opinions and actions of individuals, but you also want to judge them on a personal level, which should be irrelevant to... everything.
Before last year I never used my real name anywhere online, nor did I use a handle which contained any part of said name. I wrote no differently than I do now and still hold the same opinions I did previously. Who I am doesn't matter; it never should, here or anywhere else.
I use my full name as my handle for a simple reason: I want a single identity across the Internet and the physical world. I want to be able to meet people (at conferences, coffee houses, etc) and have whatever opinion they have formed of my online persona apply immediately to me in person. I want to be one person.
> I thought the point of online anonymity was that it allows people to be judged based on what they say and do, not by their name, nationality, certifications, or whatever.
I agree, in general, and you provided a nice argument in support of your position. Sometimes, however, you can’t help but express a strong opinion and nothing else, as I did above. Then your post shouldn’t be anonymous. Another example is when you give advice, such as in "Ask HN". Then the reader would certainly like to know your background.
Instead of tying a person to a handle, explicitly, each person should be restricted to a single handle in a community. If they misbehave in that community, the handle is punished. But, the person's actual identity is not affected.
Of course, restricting the number of handles per person is pretty difficult without some kind of record of their real identity. But, there's a puzzle to solve!
The name is supposed to be an easy predictor of quality. There is a cognitive cost to read all these comments, you know. That's why you look at current karma of the comment and see if you recognize the nickname.
Well, you may do that, but I rarely look at the handle until after I've read a comment, and only then if I feel like making a mental note of who it was because I really like what they said or something.
I don't feel like I know many people on HN mostly because it's more of a forum for debate than for making casual banter, the latter being more conducive to personal bonding (at least to me). On old BBS I used to know a lot of folks and met many of them, mostly because we spent the majority of our time exchanging witty banter and such.
There are only a few names I recognize here, mostly because they have a tendency to reply to my own comments with some regularity or always post really insightful stuff.
I ran for election last year. I plan to run again in 4 years. I can't post in my real name. While many internet posters tend to follow Gabriel's G.I.F.T., I'm not interested in doing so.
