Anonymous comments improve online debates

There may be some situations in which the only way to get honest opinions is to enable people to post anonymously, but in the majority of cases where I've seen people posting anonymous comments, or comments under pseudonyms, the quality tends to slide. HN is a conspicuous exception, although that's probably due to its fairly restricted scope of interest.

The right tool for the right job. Anonymity works in some areas, not so great in other areas. While many sites are shifting to real-world user IDs, I believe that is an extreme step and something like 'expiring comments' could be a better alternative to deal with the problems that come with anonymous comments » <a href="http://j.mp/cKstr2" rel="nofollow">http://j.mp/cKstr2</a>

&#62;<i>There are ways to curb abuses in the forums, whether using high-tech solutions or good old-fashioned editing.</i><p>Similar sentiment:<p>All code is efficient given a sufficiently smart compiler.

Well, I guess that would explain the high quality of discussion on 4chan, then.

Sensible article. But very US centric.