It's not the anonymity itself rather than the fact that 77 different people can all post as anonymous seeming to be the same person, or at least, making it impossible to distinguish them from one another. I have no qualms at all with someone calling him/herself ANON123 in the sign-up, at least then it would be unique and every time they post it would be "ANON123" and I can associate their previous post with their follow-up posts, whereas now when they post it is impossible to know if it is their first post on the matter, if they are continuing a thought they started in a previous post, if actually they are Richard Hipp who forgot to sign in, or indeed if maybe it's myself who posted when I was at the office. It's not your name that is important to me, but distinguishing which posts all were by the entity that I'm reading now. The mailing list had equally anonymous posters, but at least they were consistently the same handle and so ideas could be attributed and grouped by said handles. Lastly, I really do understand the want for inclusion and agree with it. However, in my experience, the people who made the most valuable and consistent contributions during the mailing-list days all provided full names and chose of their own accord to not remain anonymous. I can't even think of one example to the contrary, though there might be, but my point is simply that to assume "valuable posts may typically/likely be made by those who insist to remain anonymous" doesn't seem to stroke with the evidence. I hope that offers a valid argument - thanks for listening! PS: A short message at signup might be - "Reading does not require sign-in, and you are welcome to sign in with an obscured username for anonymity, but we would like to distinguish your posts from others. Please sign in for posting."