Anonymity can be life-saving if you are posting to Usenet from a country where criticism of the government is a capital crime , or if you are a gay kid in a fundamentalist household taking your first steps online to being genuine in public life. The difference, says Wasow, is accountability. You want people to feel a sense of specific identity, so they don't walk away from it if something bad happens. Anonymity keeps you from developing that continuity. Filter rather than censor Turmoil, dissent, and civil disagreement express the life force of a community.
Censorship undermines a community's ability to govern itself.
It's easy to forget that shunning is as much a part of traditional communities as barn raising. Let peer pressure and mindful hosting reinforce the community ethics, but give your members the option to filter out comments from people who are irreconcilable sources of frustration. Don't give up Williams makes the provocative suggestion that we're conditioned by novels and stories to expect climaxes, denouements, and endings from the medium of text itself. Resist the temptation toward apocalypse. As such perennial sentiments run their course in the places where the old-timers are hanging out and kvetching, the newbies are often having the time of their lives elsewhere in the system.