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Because I feel part of being a community member is having a recognisable name, even if it's just a pseudonym, so just being "Anonymous" isn't sufficient for me.

Names are important because they allow you to build reputation (ignoring actual reputation algorithms for now). So if a particular question comes up, a user might think "I wonder what Joey Joe Joe thinks about this" or "Let's see what AmazingFace82's answer to this question is".

In the case of any community that's fundamentally about self-improvement, for example the Depression topic, it's useful to see how an individual's contributions change over time. Do they become more positive? What solutions did they try, which ones were most effective?



I think anonymous discussion is still valuable, but I agree that it's often much less valuable when you can't see the individual's comment history.

In my view pseudonymity is usually the best solution - with real names or complete anonymity only occasionally being preferable.




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