Anonymity on Internet Forums is a bad thing

[LemonDifficult]

Did anyone read Alice Thomson's article in The Times today about people posting anonymously on internet forums? Here if you're a subscriber Mumsnet is name checked and that whole kick-off about the Doghouse a couple of weeks ago.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this. On the one hand the Facebook people are saying that everyone's more polite when they are under their real names, and that there's a lot less bullying.

OTOH... isn't it quite useful to be anonymous and to get people's advice anonymously?

Person A says to person B that ...

You're a bl* bastard

You're a dickhead

You should go out and smash a few cars.

Person B reports person A.

Person A goes to prison.

Person B is vindicated and the law works.

Anonymity doesn't allow that to happen.

You're either for absolute free speech on the internet or we should have it micromanaged by pencil necked power hungry anal box tickers.

Our choice.

Or is it?

:)

Hmmm. I'm just not sure. Oblivously, polite and accountable is good. But with something like Baby Names anonymity is great. So someone posts

'Hi all, DD3 on the way. What do you think of the name Fajita?'

Anonymously we can usefully reply

'Reminds me of the end-of-aisle promotions in the rice bit of the supermarket'

However, if we're on under our own names and the poster is someone we know, or if we know someone who's got a Fajita, then we'll skip over it or, worse IMO, reply

'It just got such a lovely warm ring to it. Go for it, hun!'