There's an interesting contrast between completely-anonymous communities (like the chans) and pseudonymous communities (like forums where people have usernames)

There's an interesting contrast between completely-anonymous communities (like the chans) and pseudonymous communities (like forums where people have usernames). The issue is that people tend to want to not be constantly on guard in all their interactions, and if they chat about subject A they will often want to chat with the same people about subject B. This is why forums so often have an "off-topic" section that tends toward flamewars. One issue with the sort of pseudonymous communities, where there is a common identity that persists across discussions, is that once someone is "outed," they can never be un-outed. Systems that rely on forced anonymity assume a single communication channel and no leaks. Also, if a group of dedicated people wants to subvert a community, they can easily do so in a group where their opponents are "playing fair" under completely individual/atomized notions that "we're all just guitar fans!" If a collection of Stripers is able to know that they are Stripers beforehand, or tend to have certain ways of talking about things that secretly reveal their Striperness to each other but not to Dotters, then they can coordinate and increase their own influence to drive Dotters out of the community. At the end of the day, these systems require some sense of common civility where enough people on both sides are wanting to have the system actually work. If you have to design the system to be completely trustless, that's a hard thing.