[briandh]

A quick look at their source suggests that they are using something called BLOX CMS, and their nameservers are run by TownNews, which is apparently the company behind BLOX.

BLOX is advertised as "Cloud-based" with "No hardware or software to install & maintain".

This all suggests that they actually cannot make such a change, by virtue of using an SaaS solution they have no control over.

[brazzledazzle]

Sure, but they could change all old accounts to use the screen name as the username, change their email address (locking them out of it) and force everyone to reregister. It's a pain in the ass but it's the only practical solution given the constraints.

But do they really need those comments on old articles? Why not just delete them? This is a community paper. How often are people reading old articles and how often are those people reading the comments? I have to question if the management of the paper are motivated more by unmasking certain shitty commenters than by anything else.

[degenerate]

Or:

UPDATE user SET realname=screenname WHERE screenname IS NOT NULL;

Done!

[ams6110]

They presumably have a support agreement for the CMS. They simply need to call up and say "delete all comments prior to this date"

If it's anything like most small town newspapers, there are probably about a dozen people with nothing better to do, who argue and snipe at each other in the comments section of every story, and rarely add any insight or additional newsworthy information. Just deleting them would be the safest way forward and cause no loss of anything really important.