Sign Your Name -- Anonymity Harbors Troublemakers

I've commented previously on why I'm not fond of anonymous comments. Amy Gahran on the Knight Citizen News Network agrees. As #8 in her "Twelve Tips for Growing Positive Communities Online" (all worth reading!), Gahran says we should bar anonymous comments:

Troublemakers generally seek to avoid accountability. Require that people attach their name to their contributions to your site - it's the first line of defense against bad behavior.

How you implement this measure depends on the tools you choose to build your site. Most blogging and forum tools offer administrative options to prevent anonymous comments. If you're deciding which tools to use for your online community, versatile control over comments is a must-have feature. Systems that require commenters to offer an e-mail address (not for publication, but for your administrative use), that track IP addresses for comments, and that allow you to ban commenters by a variety of identifiers are the most helpful.

Gahran acknowledges that requiring commenters to register isn't foolproof: people can still give false names and e-mail addresses. I will also grant that some people may have legitimate reasons for wanting to provide information yet avoid public scrutiny (although those situations are much rarer than the frequency of anonymous comments on this blog might suggest).

Anonymous, I'll continue to leave the door open for you here. Real community, though, means looking each other in the eye. Until I install the Madville Times webcam widget, "looking each other in the eye" here means leaving your name. Don't be afraid! I haven't lost my birthday for blogging; you won't either!