#39
Why is anonymity a bad thing? It stops a lot of people from attention whoring, and promotes quality posts.

@Blickwinkel:
People lose their inhibition with anonymity and write whatever they want. It makes them feel as if they aren't responsible for what they do anymore and therefore, they act rude and without
circumspection.

#42
There are people who do that without anonymity. They're the people who do it with anonymity, causing your confirmation bias.
There will always be idiots.

But they will more likely be idiots when they are completely anonymous. It's the natural social reaction to anonymity.

If you'd insult me now, you'd lose respect in the community or even get banned. If you'd do the same anonymously, you could do it without any consequences.

#44
Why would someone who abuses care if they are banned through their username? They can just make another.
Anonymous users can also be easily banned through their IP. While this doesn't get rid of all of them, most users do not treat people who abuse their anonymity very well, and they eventually conform
or get bored and leave. This is all assuming that the anonymous user will even abuse to begin with. Take you, for example. You are anonymous and you are not abusing.

#45
You don't know if I am in other threads, which is exactly the point.
In a completely anonymous community, posts can't be linked to a username and therefore its users don't care about "reputation". But if everyone has a username, they'll try to be friendly and civilized
in every post or they won't have any respect from the community.

Addition to #46:
On 4chan for example, this leads to a very harsh tone. Its users insult each other, post scat porn or gore if they don't like a thread and spread their racism, homophobia and sexism without thinking.

#46
You said that anonymous users do not care about reputation. This is also a very good thing. People who have usernames do what can be called 'attention whoring'. Anonymous users can't do this.
Usernames can constantly try to be liked, and ultimately add nothing to ongoing discussion. Anonymous users can't really do that.
As for your second point, usernames have to put up facades because they don't want to lose respect or love. Anonymous users can state what is actually on their mind without fear of it being unfriendly
or mean. If I'm anonymous I can disagree with you without you being able to target me specifically outside of the thread and harass me just because I thought you were wrong about something.

#46
I wouldn't generalize that to all of 4chan. That's something you see on their random board a lot, but not on some of the more mature boards. You still see spam, but porn and gore are pretty hastily
banned outside of the random board. There are rude comments, but very seldom do they appear serious. For example, if you post a character they don't like they'll post a character they like and call
your character a slut. How can you take something like that seriously? However, if you post something that actually hinders discussion, or if you insult someone else first with no just cause, you are
normally pelted for that.
Anyway, 4chan isn't racist. They hate everybody equally.
A lot of them say that if you aren't homosexual then you probably haven't been there very long.
You're actually right about the sexism, though. They don't like real woman.

#48
Of course it's a good thing, there are advantages and disadvantages. But overall I would say there are more problems in an anonymous community.

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