Zenman mentioned elsewhere that he thought there was going to be a requirement of using only real names on the internet, either as a way of reducing overall use or a way of tracking people (for their own good of course). I don't know if it's some central policy but it's odd you mention anonymous postings going away as a trend, at least. This was delivered to the MarketWatch community a couple of weeks ago, with much hoopla about what wonderful things were coming:
As part of these changes, anonymous usernames will be going away in favor of real names. Moving forward, we’ll be requiring all MarketWatch users to provide their first and last names before sharing a comment on the site.
Since then all comments have disappeared, even the ones that were in the process of being made on still-relevant stories. In the final days before the comment "cliff" (last week), all you could read was 100% outrage. Many seasoned and very amusing and insightful people swore they would not be back. They didn't want it linked to facebook and twitter etc. as they hated those things anyway but mostly they didn't want their financial investment wisdom and political comments to be viewable to employers. FA was mostly unaffected by generally being a lurker anyway but I had a new account barely opened, and hence decided to cancel it. Well, it turned out there was no way to do that! So I wrote a personal email to a back office and got no meaningful response, just an auto "was received."
I'll be interested in seeing what happens whenever comments are enabled again. I wonder if people will be making up names like enuff krap etc. to get around this. How would MarketWatch know whether you are using a real name?
Even if it's not a sinister plot, it certainly will deprive people of one thing: Any sense of whether they are in a true minority or there is a wave or strata at least of similar believers (in anything) which is definitely a chilling effect. I'd rather have all the nonsense and hyperbole and idiotic to wade through than to lose that.
