YES. A thousand times, yes!
I was thinking back to starting this site and the goal of transparency. I knew that starting this site and being completely open about who owned it and/or Moderated it might mean that people who had bad experiences with me or my posts in the past might not want to join due to that.
My hope was that being honest about owning this site and all of the intentions around how we were going to run it would help people feel more secure/safe or at least have an understanding that we didn't have anything to hide.
In a community such as this where we have people who have known of each other for years and even with new folks who don't have that frame of reference, I thought it was super important for people to know not only who owned the site but who was moderating.
I remember back on the Dash site some of the grief that happened when the "fruit basket" was created and people were feeling really distrustful about who was moderating them and whether or not that same moderator had participated in the discussion with them and then tapped them. We didn't want that here so all of the Mods have used their own screen names since day one. This hasn't always been pretty because it has meant that some of our Mods have been open to public attacks when someone got moderated and then wanted to take their anger out. Luckily, that hasn't been a consistent theme.
We are all somewhat anonymous under screen names but I think that tends to change as we build real time friendships and go to Reunions or meet people off site in real time space. Our persona is no longer just a screen name. We then have reputation, both real and perceived. People have expectations of how we are going to behave.
For example, I have met Bulldog in real time and have known her online for well over 10 years. I mostly know what she is about and how she operates. She is not anonymous to me so if she came on the site one day and started lamenting about how great Rush Limbaugh is or that she thinks that all kittens should be murdered, I would know that someone had tied her up and hijacked her account.
Bulldog has accountability as a community member with a long-standing presence here. If she suddenly popped off and posted something sexist, people are going to have a WTF? moment with her in a very different way than someone who was brand new and didn't have a history of railing against sexism.
Along with accountability, Bulldog doesn't have the ability (luxury to some, I'm sure) to talk smack about people or create havoc without serious repercussions because, again, she has real ties to this community and to real people here.
I think that people who do fucked up shit under "anonymous" screen names or on "anonymous" blogs want to do so because they don't want to/can't deal with the repercussions of their bad behavior.
In other words, they don't want to be responsible for their words.
It's super sad when adults resort to that kind of stuff because I always feel like they know that what they are doing is wrong but are willing to do it if they think nobody knows it's them. I hate that kind of spineless shit because seriously, if you think someone is a big fucking doody-head then just *say* so instead of pretending to be a random person.
I have seen people do some really fucked up shit under the cloak of anonymity. From posting openly racist or misogynist stuff to insisting that people have STDs. I've seen people make wild claims about others under "anonymous" names while providing no proof in the hopes of damaging the other person's reputation or at least causing that person a lot of undue stress and heartache.
That kind of behavior is a way for someone to anonymously terrorize their target. A way to bully them without having to worry about being labeled a bully.
Again, it's a way to do really terrible, fucked up shit without having to take responsibility for it. And really? What kind of person does that kind of stuff? Generally, I think it's people who feel really powerless.
I think anonymity is good in times of voting, but not so much in communities like this where transparency is key to relationships and the health of the space.