I decided I should probably give it a rest with the puns in the article titles.  A literary allusion is a nice title, though.  We do things with class around here, shitheads!

But on to the content.  As you may have gathered from my many posts which either center on Hacker News or mention it in passing, I am a big fan of the site.  During my usual meanderings and daydreamings about how awesome a pet dinosaur* would be and why it might not be too late for me to become an astronaut, I devoted some time to thinking about why I liked it so much.  It is, in case you are foolish enough to never click the orange text when reading my missives, a site run by Paul Graham concerning startups and other variegated things hackers like.  It began as a sort of offshoot of the Y Combinator startup program, which allots small investments to promising startups in batch mode every summer and winter, both in Boston and San Franciso, respectively.  Paul runs this as well, and has made a point to let people interested in funding know that registration on Hacker News is mandatory, and indeed, the quality of your comments and contributions has a direct effect on whether or not you will be funded.

This revelation has created an interesting culture, one that I wish existed in more places on the web, and that I will discuss in depth in a minute.  However, 99% of the forums online have no real interest in authentication of the poster's identity.  In fact, most forums rather expect you to come up with a username to protect your real identity.  But why? 

The most common answer is protection from identity theft.  But these days, what can someone do with just your name?  Track you down?  Unless you have a very uncommon name, it seems unlikely.  There are probably hundreds of Sean Spencers out there;** can someone really find my physical location without sifting through all these?  And why would they want to, unless I pissed someone off?

And here we come to a well-established point:  the internet + anonymity makes you an asshole.  When their is no penalty to your reputation for being a jackass (since no one can connect up your online username with your real name), people will just degenerate into stupid, vicious animals.

This is the difference between the discussions on Hacker News and those elsewhere.  Due to most posters on Hacker News having an established identity (many posters use their real names, like myself), the discussion quality is incredible.  People are literally climbing over each other to submit interesting stories and write insightful commentary.  This is why Hacker News is now my homepage, and why I wish more sites would adopt a similar policy of authentic identities.

* I am thinking maybe a stegosaurus.  I mean, I would need a bigger yard, but nothing beats riding around on a stegosaurus. 

** Lots of athletes, it seems.  If you find an athletic Sean Spencer online, it is a very safe bet that it isn't me.