I noticed something interesting on Reddit. I recently installed the Reddit Enhancement Suite extension for my browser. One of the features is that it displays next to a user's name above their comment the sum of +/- 1 votes I have given them. It also colors them based on their distance from 0 (or something similar to this). Suddenly I find myself reading comments differently based on whether they a strong positive or negative rating from me. I worried a little when I found myself upvoting a comment that was made by a very common poster on the site, and I realized it was the sort of stupid joke that doesn't contribute to the discussion that I would normally down-vote.

The reputation the user had with me caused me to give their posts the benefit of the doubt. It was a very odd experience.

On HN, I almost never read the name of the person who posted something until I am about to vote on it. I enjoy trying to evaluate a post on its contribution to the topic, and not on the authority or popularity of the author.

That odd experience sounds like most human interaction outside of the web. With the added context, I guess you lose objectivity, but gain a sense of community.

I do love Avatars for these reasons, and having a signature as an entirely vain engagement. But quite often, I find myself removing the signature because...as shown on that site, they're quite large, gaudy, and bloody repetitive.

On most forums, there's an option to turn signatures off. I almost always do this.