The NewsWelcome page is excellent. (http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html) Meatball Wiki has many people talking abo

The NewsWelcome page is excellent. (http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html) Meatball Wiki has many people talking about creating and controlling online communities. It's focused on wikis, but is applicable to other types of communities. (http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/ http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/) The Japanese origin of anonymous posting (leading into the chan culture) is interesting and is very different to the western use (where "anonymous == arsehole".) (http://www.ojr.org/japan/internet/1061505583.php http://www.ojr.org/japan/internet/1061505583.php) > Q: Why did you decide to use perfect anonymity, not even requiring a user name? > A: Because delivering news without taking any risk is very important to us. There is a lot of information disclosure or secret news gathered on Channel 2. Few people would post that kind of information by taking a risk. Moreover, people can only truly discuss something when they don't know each other. > If there is a user ID attached to a user, a discussion tends to become a criticizing game. On the other hand, under the anonymous system, even though your opinion/information is criticized, you don't know with whom to be upset. Also with a user ID, those who participate in the site for a long time tend to have authority, and it becomes difficult for a user to disagree with them. Under a perfectly anonymous system, you can say, "it's boring," if it is actually boring. All information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will work.