Ultimately the question is one of freedom vs enforced rules. If you have a system of anonymity or pseudonymity, it's always possible to identify yourself by a

Ultimately the question is one of freedom vs enforced rules. If you have a system of anonymity or pseudonymity, it's always possible to identify yourself by a real identity if you want to. Whether this takes the form of 4chan's "photo with a shoe on your head" or Reddit's "Post about this to your twitter account", reliably associating a pseudonym to a meatspace person is easy. So you can get the advantages of the 'transparent' system in a pseudonymous system if you want them, but you're never forced to. The only way to properly run a transparent system is to force everyone to identify themselves. Then you can't get any of the benefits of anonymity. The only people pushing for 'transparent systems' are people who have some material gain from them - advertisers, information miners, law enforcement etc. I think they have enough power as it is. So I'm in favour of anonymity by default, keeping the choice to be transparent in the hands of the individual.