anonymity

"A society or community without individual accountability cannot function."

So says Scott Karp in an older post on his blog, Publishing 2.0

A commenter responds: "Welcome to 2.0"

Well I hope not. I've been coming to the realization that part of the problem with Web 2.0 is the general quality of the conversations. The primary driver of this, in my opinion, is anonymity. The usual conversations in blog comments are snarky and can get nasty. It often degrades the quality of the conversation. Anonymity gives people the false courage to attack people in a way that they would never do if their identity were known. Kinda like real life.

If we are going to progress where the quality of the content is based more on the quality of the conversation that ensues, rather than just the article in itself, will anonymity get in the way? I tend to think so.