One thing needs to be clarified here. We do not give out any personal details. As those of you who have occasionally wanted to contact another poster know, the most I will do is forward your email on.

However, if we were required by a court of law then we would hand our logs over. That doesn't mean that they will show who the person is - it all depends on their ISP.

All this is spelt out in the privacy statement.

But I do think there is a problem with anonymous posters on sites like these which don't happen on sites like Facebook.

So I think we are going to have to change. I know it will lose us a lot of page impressions, because those who are slacking at work, or who have a job which doesn't allow them public comment, will disappear.

That may not be such a problem in the future because the advertising model appears to be broken. Have a read of this article https://apps.facebook.com/wpsocialreader/me/channels/15982/content/XfkNG. And note that it is displayed in Facebook, not the newspaper's site, so is earning no advertising income for the paper at all.

So if advertising is broken, the only way sites like ours can survive is via subscriptions and patronage. In which case, page views become a lesser consideration.

Talk about timing, "Why online anonymity is an illusion".

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/why-online-anonymity-is-an-illusion-20111125-1nxnh.html

Poirot,

To answer the first barrel of your double-barrelled question, one would have to say that if one was to take GrahamY's statement, in the post to which you have linked, at face value, the answer would have to be 'yes'. GrahamY said:

"And I agree with John McRobert,
I think that the anonymity on the
web has become a curse. It gets in
the way of sensible and honest
conversation.

I think OLO is going to have to
change the model in that regard."

GrahamY's statement in that thread, the comments to Steven Meyer's article 'A challenge to climate sceptics', could partially explain the absence of response to a question I posed on the recent topic '4000 authors plus one - an OLO milestone', wherein I asked as to the prospects of articles being publishable on OLO under pseudonyms. See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4829#128552 . It is worth noting that Steven Meyer is a registered OLO user that posts under the userID of 'stevenlmeyer', and that he is more well known as a poster (or OLO 'mini-author', or blogger) than as primarily an article author who then engages with users in comment threads. It is just that he does not post pseudonymously.

However, it must also be noted that OLO author Lao Zi would appear to be an example of an article author published pseudonymously. See: http://onlineopinion.com.au/author.asp?id=6489 . It was this apparent precedent upon which my question to GrahamY was based.

It could be that GrahamY is trying to assess the effect upon the quality of discussion on OLO of permitting a wider use of pseudonymity in the articles area of the Forum, and perhaps being a bit of a devil's advocate in stating anonymity (not quite the same thing as pseudonimity) on the web has become a curse.

As to the second barrel of your question, the answer is also undoubtedly 'yes', but as to in which direction requires another post. Meanwhile, think on this: if voting was not by secret ballot, would you still be happy to vote?

People get caught doing illegal things under a false sense of anonymity all the time. Don't kid yourself, you are not anonymous on the net. If you take elaborate steps to ACTUALLY be anonymous just so you can avoid prosecution for whatever reason then you may need to reassess your moral compass.

Just like in the real world you need to be careful who you're dealing with. There are psycho's out there who Just. Don't. Care. There are people out there with serious mental disorders who seem to think they are 'something' on the net. In the end, how important REALLY is any argument online?

"If you take elaborate steps to ACTUALLY be anonymous just so you can avoid prosecution for whatever reason then you may need to reassess your moral compass."

You seem to have a spelling error, StG: the word is spelled PERSECUTION.

If you were walking in the jungle and took elaborate steps to ACTUALLY avoid snakes, tigers and alligators and not be detected by them, what does that say about your moral compass?

I post a lot of material that would be subject to action under the Family Law Act or the Child Support Acts if I was to identify myself. The action would not be brought because I have said anything that causes offence, but because identifying myself would also identify other parties to the matters discussed. GrahamY knows who I am and I use my own name in my email address used for correspondence to this site. I have twice been the subject of threats of legal action made to GY (by the same rather PALE group) and I have told him to pass my details on on both occasions.

If pseudonymity is to become a thing of the past on OLO then the topics of Family Law and child support will simply be unable to be discussed except in the most general terms. In fact, any kind of discussion of the welfare of children will be off limits for parents wishing to discuss their personal experiences. This creates an effective censorship which is simply unacceptable in a democratic society.

Given the rash of law designed to prevent properly informed discussion of Government decisions for "commercial in confidence" and other fatuous justifications, the last thing that we need is a caving-in to such pressures from one of the few broadly-based, thoughtful forums still extant.