I'm curious if there's any research supporting the claim that requiring real names increases the quality of comments.
In my anecdotal experience, most sites that require real names (or Facebook logins) tend to have just a handful of comments, most of them banal. With Facebook comments in particular, there's no sense of community -- just disconnected statements.
And some of the most hideous, abusive remarks I've seen online have been under someone's real name and next to a picture of their face. At this point, the image of a nice-looking older person cuddling their grandkid next to a racist all-caps rant has become so commonplace that it no longer shocks me.
In my anecdotal experience, most sites that require real names (or Facebook logins) tend to have just a handful of comments, most of them banal. With Facebook comments in particular, there's no sense of community -- just disconnected statements.
And some of the most hideous, abusive remarks I've seen online have been under someone's real name and next to a picture of their face. At this point, the image of a nice-looking older person cuddling their grandkid next to a racist all-caps rant has become so commonplace that it no longer shocks me.