[Nostromos]

Very interesting. I'd always felt that real-name policies made for more civil but less vibrant and dynamic discussion. Moderation seems to be the key for any platform that allows for pseudonyms but the idea of stable pseudonyms makes intuitive sense.

n9 does make some excellent points about this study. So what does this boil down to? Moderate heavily and put up barriers to discourage bad actors, which is what everyone knows and is kinda boring.

[eitland]

This very website should be proof enough that real names are absolutely not necessary for civil discussion.

I think we even get better discussions when the shy and thoughtful are allowed to speak.

[CaptainFever]

Additionally, the marginalized value anonymity, especially in countries where their marginalization is criminalized.

[GaryNumanVevo]

Nextdoor is a good counter argument here

[pavel_lishin]

My experience with Nextdoor and local Facebook groups has been mostly negative - it's not particularly civil at all.

Although I think some of that stems from the Eternal September factor - some people just do not know how to effectively communicate online. It's wild out there.

[krapp]

We've known that since the halcyon days of USENET when everyone put their real name and university emails in their signatures. We also know it because it doesn't work on Facebook, and it didn't work when Google decided they needed to do a Facebook and they forced everyone's G+ account to merge with Youtube. People who feel entitled to their opinion and lack empathy will absolutely, with their whole chest, be an asshole and sign their John Hancock to it.

The truth is, you can't engineer civility. Anonymity? Look at 4chan. Make people pay? Now the assholes believe they've purchased the privilege to do whatever they like. Even Hacker News, a platform moderated to within an inch of its life, with both real-name and pseudonymous accounts, only tends to be civil within a small window of circumstance. Everywhere else it's as likely as not to be a dumpster fire.

[temp51723]

Real names seems like it'd make people - in general - feel the need to save face more than a pseudonym.