Easily. Pretty much all of the appeal and audience attraction of Yik Yak was the anonymity and the self-regulating nature of the platform.
Last place I worked was a smaller University and it was tasked to me to keep en eye on the posts due to the potential for harassment. The system was, at the time, 5 down votes immediately cleared a post - the users were very good at moderating themselves while still preserving the rather "raw" nature of the service. People were still wry and biting and uninhibited with their comments, but outright threats and harassment seemed to get moderated pretty well. Ultimately we never intervened (Yik Yak had a system to geo-block regions from accessing the service), and for the most part it was just the equivalent of a bathroom stall wall for most of the students. Hell, often times I'd learn about network issues from Yik Yak posts before I'd get even a hint from my networking team.
You take away the anonymity and the isolating culture, you take away the magic of it. Since our Campus was situated right in the middle of a neighborhood, we'd often get nearby residents trying to participate. According to my student workers who used it, it was almost always obvious who was a student and who wasn't.
Last place I worked was a smaller University and it was tasked to me to keep en eye on the posts due to the potential for harassment. The system was, at the time, 5 down votes immediately cleared a post - the users were very good at moderating themselves while still preserving the rather "raw" nature of the service. People were still wry and biting and uninhibited with their comments, but outright threats and harassment seemed to get moderated pretty well. Ultimately we never intervened (Yik Yak had a system to geo-block regions from accessing the service), and for the most part it was just the equivalent of a bathroom stall wall for most of the students. Hell, often times I'd learn about network issues from Yik Yak posts before I'd get even a hint from my networking team.
You take away the anonymity and the isolating culture, you take away the magic of it. Since our Campus was situated right in the middle of a neighborhood, we'd often get nearby residents trying to participate. According to my student workers who used it, it was almost always obvious who was a student and who wasn't.