Will Real Name Policies Improve Comments?

TechCrunch has a story about the recent trend of websites wanting users to use their real names in an attempt to make comments better. The story points out that the practice didn't work in South Korea. From the article: "...In 2007, South Korea temporarily mandated that all websites with over 100,000 viewers require real names, but scrapped it after it was found to be ineffective at cleaning up abusive and malicious comments (the policy reduced unwanted comments by an estimated .09%). We don’t know how this hidden gem of evidence skipped the national debate on real identities, but it’s an important lesson for YouTube, Facebook and Google, who have assumed that fear of judgement will change online behavior for the better."

Comments

Doesn't matter

[SuperKendall]

I have no doubt some of what is in that linked article is going on, but overall those actions are lost in the noise that is the Real Internet full of real people, including trolls and all...

Also remember that words on forums do not really matter that much in the end, which is why in reality there are not that many resources put forth to control them even though there could be.