Perhaps Blizzard will successfully improve the quality of their message boards by suppressing anonymity. Or perhaps participants will start considering the impa

Perhaps Blizzard will successfully improve the quality of their message boards by suppressing anonymity. Or perhaps participants will start considering the impact to their reputation in every other aspect of life each time they post, and undermine the vitality and uniqueness of this particular community. The latter would be especially ironic considering that the forums in question pertain to an escapist fantasy game in which people role-play as fictional characters. Anonymous online forums can be found across the full spectrum of discussion quality - HN and 4chan are at polar extremes - so the real root cause of poor-quality discourse is something other than anonymity. Instead of raising the stakes of participating in their forums, perhaps Blizzard should identify the internal cultural factors of the community that encourage disruptive and inane posts, and work to remedy them more even-handedly.